Spring means playground planning

On Sunday, we spring forward for daylight saving time and then spring officially gets underway nine days after that. So what I’m saying is that spring is in the air, which is the perfect time to start thinking about your upcoming playground projects.

Whether you’re designing an entirely new playground or freshening up an existing play space, don’t forget to include freestanding play components. Playground activities set apart from a main play structure allows kids to step away for some quiet time or break into smaller play groups. Better yet, freestanding play components can bring children of all abilities and ages into the same space for collaborative play.

Flywheel™ spinner

Flywheel™ spinner

We have a wide variety of freestanding play events. New this year is the Flywheel™ spinner, which was designed for kids ages 5 to 12. The multi-user spinner accommodates up to five kids at a time, promoting social interaction and sensory stimulation. The Flywheel spinner can fit into a compact space, making it a great option for a playground add-on. Plus, many kids will love the thrill of spinning that the Flywheel Spinner offers.

Freestanding play includes more than just spinners. We have climbers like the Mobius® and Aeronet® Climbers, slides and gliders, swings, and sensory-stimulating activities like the Sway Fun® glider that will engage a variety of ages and abilities. Learn more here, and then get in touch with your local playground consultant.

Designing to meet ALL children’s needs

This week (Dec. 3-7) marks Inclusive Schools Week, which celebrates the progress that schools have made in providing supportive and quality education to increasingly diverse student populations. This week, educators, students and parents are encouraged to discuss how to continually ensure the inclusion of all children regardless of ability, gender, socio-economic status, cultural heritage, language preference and other factors.

JT's Grommet Island Beach Park & Playground for Every "Body"

JT’s Grommet Island Beach Park & Playground for Every “Body,” Virginia Beach, Va.

At Landscape Structures, we’re using Inclusive Schools Week to educate playground planners on the importance of creating truly inclusive play spaces. In addition to thinking about accessibility on the playground, planners need to consider children with sensory deficits and other developmental issues to ensure inclusion.

Creating an inclusive playground may sound like a daunting task for your school or community, but by following simple design criteria you can create a play space that welcomes children of all abilities. We use a design philosophy that addresses the environment, the play experience and variability. The combination of these elements allows every child to choose how they want to engage in the playground. Our design philosophy is influenced by the Seven Principles of Universal Design to help us increase the usability, safety, health and social participation of our play environments.

Morgan's Wonderland

Morgan’s Wonderland, San Antonio, Texas

Browse our Playspace Design brochure to learn more about our design philosophy, and then go here to get more information about our commitment to inclusive play.

Guest Blog: Building social bridges at NAEYC

This post comes to you from Marnie Norris, director of programs at Shane’s Inspiration. Earlier this month, she presented at the 2012 National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Conference. Marnie’s session, titled Together, We Play! discussed how to use play-based techniques, including peer buddies, to integrate children with and without disabilities, support children with sensory and communication differences, and minimize conflict opportunities. Read below for ideas she shared as well as took away from the discussion.

At a major conference with thousands of attendees and a wide variety of sessions to choose from, you always wonder how needed your information is…how much is social inclusion on the minds of early childhood educators?

As the room filled up two weeks ago in Atlanta, it was clear that teachers, principals, and professionals need tools to support the social interaction between students with and without disabilities…interaction that can happen spontaneously in early childhood but not always consistently.

Here are few tips and tools that we shared with each other during our workshop:

1. Start ability awareness early…in Kindergarten, a book and guided discussion, followed up by consistent interaction through play, is enough (We Can Do It! By Laura Dwight, Susan Laughs by Jeanne Willis). At that age, we focus on the fact that everyone has a hard to and a can do. For some, the hard to may be walking or for others talking. Help the students to connect their can dos and hard tos! Together, we can do.

2. Turning the challenge into the tool…if you have a student unable to connect through play find out what he/she is focusing on (ex: my student does nothing but spin the wheels on the train…find a peer who loves playing with trains. Let the peer hold the train while his buddy spins the wheels as a start. Give them time away from the group and excess stimuli to explore trains together.)

3. Flexibility in group activities…if you have a student interested in but unable to interact with the group, isolate one or two of her peers and let them play as a small group. Once the connection is made with a smaller number of children consistently, she may be more drawn in to circle time/group play.

4. Grouping the students…if you have a few students with disabilities in your classroom, create play groups consisting of two or three students with typical abilities and a student with disabilities. Give the groups identities: Bears, Penguins, Butterflies. Let them use the playground or indoor space as a group to encourage social interaction in smaller numbers.

5. Sensory stimulation…many teachers spoke about students having tantrums/outbursts because of being over stimulated. Find out what your student’s sensory profile is: is he triggered by sound (if so, is it specific or the wall of noise), touch (too much light touch, too little deep pressure on their bodies), light/color, etc. If you can, have Mom and Dad share what triggers him at home. Then you can modify his environment to support the sensory needs: some students are under-sensitive to touch and need bigger movements, deeper hugs or weighted jackets to help them register the sensation.

Most importantly…keep trying! Creating awareness and understanding in students (and adults) as to how our peers who have differences communicate, feel and socialize will help everyone. Combine consistent play with that awareness and you have a powerful foundation for social bridges!

Celebrating National Sensory Awareness Month with a Playground Grand Opening

October is National Sensory Awareness Month. The month helps raise awareness about sensory processing disorders (SPD) as well as funds to support research, education and advocacy. Sensory processing disorder, a condition that exists when sensory signals don’t get organized into appropriate responses, affects 5 to 10 percent of all children.

STAR Center sensory playground grand opening

To kick off National Sensory Awareness Month, we celebrated the grand opening of the STAR (Sensory Therapies and Research) Center’s state-of-the-art sensory playground. The event welcomed nearly 300 people from Greenwood Village, Colo., and surrounding communities. Many of the children and families in attendance were clients of the STAR Center, who were excited to see the playground in action.

Mobius® Climber

Mobius® Climber

While creating the design for the STAR Center’s playground, which will be used as a therapy tool to treat children with SPD, our designers took into account the different sensory needs of the children who will use the equipment. A variety of components included offer something for all kids experiencing sensory processing disorders:

  • The Mobius® Climber provides tactile, proprioceptive and vestibular stimulation.
  • OmniSpin® spinners, in addition to vestibular stimulation, encourage cooperative play to maximize social interaction.
  • The Cozy Dome® offers a quiet space for over-stimulated kids to calm down and re-center themselves, or engage in imaginative play.
  • Social imaginative play from the Sensory Play Center® lets children integrate previous sensory knowledge with new experiences to expand their understanding of the world.
  • Children survey their world from the high vista of the PlayBooster® Tree House, inspiring them to stretch their horizons.
Time Inn

Time Inn, when kids choose to go in, it is their quiet time and nobody can ask them to come out for any reason.

The STAR Center and its sister organization, the Sensory Processing Disorder Foundation, offer services and programs for professionals parents, and anyone interested in knowing more about the sensory challenges that affect children. Learn more here.

Tradition Meets Future

Aside

The region two winner of the Together We Play™ essay contest comes from South Elgin, Ill. The FUNdation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization, works to improve the quality of life for the residents of the Village of South Elgin through the development, implementation, and funding of recreation, education, and conservation programs, services and facilities. Read the excerpt below to learn more about their need for inclusive playgrounds.

“Imagine an adolescent boy and Molded Bucket Seatfather visiting a park together. Because of his special needs, the boy is unable to use the swings appropriate for his age, so they try to fit him into a toddler bucket swing. Now imagine the terror of the child and the anxiety of the father when the child becomes stuck in the swing requiring responders to cut him out. Unfortunately, this scene was not imagined. It recently happened at a park in the Village of South Elgin.

The FUNdation embraces the Village motto “Where Tradition Meets the Future” by employing our traditional values while addressing the future needs for our community. We envision the creation of a welcoming park that is inclusive of age, sensory and developmentally appropriate playground equipment and free of barriers for visitors with physical challenges.”

Celebrating their grand prize

Wheaton Park District will celebrate their grand prize winning from the Together We Play™ essay contest with an event open to the community at 6 p.m. on Oct. 19. Local government officials, Shane’s Inspiration and Landscape Structures representatives will be present. The location of the event is at Wheaton Village Hall in the Gamon Room, 303 W. Wesley Street. Wheaton Park District representatives will be speaking about their winning essay and new playground. There will also be a $150,000 check presentation from Shane’s Inspiration and Landscape Structures to the Wheaton Park District.

Read more about the Sensory Garden Playground Initiative and the project kick-off celebration at the Daily Herald.

Imagine…

We read so many great essays when deciding the winners of the Together We Play™ contest, and want to share with you excerpts from the winning submissions. Here is part of what drew us in to learn more about the Sensory Garden Playground Initiative at the Wheaton Park District in Wheaton, Ill.

Imagine the sounds of happy children running, climbing, swinging and digging, while parents chat nearby. Imagine the relaxing atmosphere of unstructured play which encourages problem-solving and socialization among peers. Imagine entire families enjoying recreation together.

Now imagine the nightmare a park can be for families of children with sensory processing problems–too much noise, too much contact, no place to withdraw safely. Imagine the panic of parents when a child on sensory overload runs away, or the embarrassment when their child becomes overwhelmed and bites or hits another child. Imagine a family’s frustration at not being able to enjoy a park atmosphere because the facility isn’t safe and welcoming for a child with special emotional needs.

We imagined all this and more.

Then we saw a safely fenced play area with room for children to spread out, surrounded by a fitness trail for adults. We saw surfacing where wheeled devices move easily and equipment is designed to engage sight, hearing, smell, movement and touch. We saw places where a child can withdraw easily and safely, so that each one can learn to regulate his or her own sensory input. We saw a welcoming place where whole families can relax and engage and enjoy their time together.

We saw the need for a multi-community effort to build a world-class facility, and we are ready and willing to lead in making it a reality.

Play for Life

The 2011 Play for Life Symposium, held Sept. 22-23, in Minneapolis, attracted park and recreation professionals, landscape architects, individuals working for nonprofit organizations and many more.

Prior to the two-day Symposium, we hosted a small group of attendees at Landscape Structures’ headquarters. They learned about the history of Landscape Structures before taking a tour through our manufacturing facility, and then were able to go on playground visits around Delano. That evening, we hosted a social and gave them an opportunity to network and meet Symposium speakers.

The Symposium kicked off on Thursday, Sept. 22. Day one of the event focused on the many dimensions of inclusive play including traveling with a disability, music, inclusive playground design and playground programming. In addition to valuable classroom time, the attendees were given ample time to network and share ideas with their peers.

Day two of the Symposium concentrated on inclusive play and the natural outdoors. Attendees heard from Bethe Almeras, Head Start Body Start; Carol A. Krawczyk, ASLA; and Hedda Sharapan, The Fred Rogers Company. Each of the day’s speakers discussed play in the outdoors, engagement in any environment and how it affects our lives as grownups. With more interaction among attendees, this was a great way to close the third annual Symposium.

An amusement park for all

How often do you struggle to find family-friendly outings that offer fun activities…and also cater to everyone’s varying abilities? Families and vacationers near San Antonio, Texas, don’t have to look far. Morgan’s Wonderland, the world first ultra-accessible family fun park, provides a place where all ages and abilities can come together and play in a fun and safe environment.

Featured in the September 2011 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, the article discusses how Morgan’s Wonderland started. Morgan Hartman’s parents dreamed of a place where everyone could play together, and so they held public forums so that other parents, inclusion advocates, therapists and more could discuss and brainstorm ideas for the project.

In 2010, the inclusive theme park opened it doors and offers play experiences including Landscape Structures playground equipment; a Sensory Village that mimics a city streetscape where visitors can buy groceries, go for a simulated drive through San Antonio and be on a newscast; an accessible carousel; a music garden and much more!

Supporting inclusive play

As many of you are aware, all of us at Landscape Structures are focused on providing playgrounds where all children and families can play together. While we’ve always created play experiences that are accessible and age appropriate, in 2010, we began focusing on providing a higher level of inclusive play. That includes providing sensory-stimulating playground components.
 
To continue our efforts in supporting truly inclusive playgrounds, we’ve introduced three new products–the Color Splash Panel™, Rain Sound Wheel Panel™ and Roller Table™. These products will welcome children of all abilities while developing gross motor skills, encouraging imaginative play and giving them a “just right” amount of sensory stimulation.
 

L to R: Rain Wheel Sound Panel, Roller Table and Color Splash Panel