When you’re on supervisor duty at school, and you’re watching children playing, it can look like light-hearted play and nothing more. Whilst this is true, there is so much more to their creative little games! It is also a way for children to learn 21st-century skills that they can apply in everyday life whilst having fun and learning new things.
In this blog, we’re going to discuss why better school playground equipment leads to smarter children and how you can incorporate it into your school playgrounds.
Collaborative Elements
When children engage in play, they learn essential life skills such as collaboration, communication, problem-solving, and creativity. When they develop these skills on the playground, they can apply them to the classroom, aiding their learning and ultimately helping them to become smarter. This form of play is much more different to adult-led play, where teachers take the lead and instead, children can run free and use their minds in all sorts of wonderful ways.
Many forms of outdoor playground equipment feature collaborative elements, which means children can work together, either to make movable elements work or to cross a trim trail.
For example, our outdoor sensory playground equipment comes with exciting features such as varying textures, chutes, and passages for children to explore during their break times. All of these elements combined can be used to test their senses, minds, and mental ability to help them become smarter.
Being able to collaborate with others is an invaluable skill that children should learn from a young age to help them as they develop through school life and eventually into adulthood. These are incredibly important social skills to learn as collaboration skills can help children to work in a team. For example, in the future, when they are working in an office environment and need to work on a group project, they will know how to collaborate and work together with their peers efficiently.
Stimulates Creativity
A creative brain is a smart brain, and school playground equipment can encourage creativity in young minds. Whether children use play equipment as their “base” in a role-playing game or come up with inventive and creative ways to cross the equipment, it can stimulate their minds and imaginations and help them to develop more creative skills. In case you’ve missed it, we have a great article on Why Is Creative Play Important For Children’s Development that you could read next.
This links in with being able to be collaborative and solve problems, as their brains will be able to see creative ways out of situations and help them to see different pathways if they are stuck with a task.
Helps With Problem Solving
Playground equipment for schools wouldn’t be fun without a little challenge! We like to incorporate some challenging elements and puzzles into our outdoor play equipment to get those young minds thinking and working hard.
By encouraging children to use their brains whilst out on the playground, they will be more likely to apply this to the classroom too, which will help them solve those tricky maths problems, thus resulting in them achieving higher grades and gaining a better understanding of the subjects at hand.
Playing And Learning Outside Is Great For The Mind
If you’re wondering why outdoor learning and natural play improve welbeing, we’ve got all the answers you need!
Encouraging children to get outside and play with outdoor playground equipment for schools can be a fantastic way to ensure they have positive mental health. The great outdoors is perfect to stimulate children’s senses, and it can help to refresh tired minds after an intensive afternoon of comprehension lessons at school.
By allowing children free reign to play and have fun with high-quality playground equipment, they can return to the classroom feeling refreshed and ready to learn, meaning their concentration and willingness to learn in the classroom will greatly increase. This, in turn, may cause a boost in their grades.
Getting outside and playing with fun and engaging playground equipment such as our Towers Adventure or Interactive Pirate Ship can boost morale and help to lift any glum spirits after a challenging lesson. This could also help with overall attendance at school, as we know attendance is vital to the positive educational development of children, and school playground equipment is an important ingredient to ensure this stays high.
After all, what child could resist play equipment with swings, climbing walls, water walls, and play panels?
Improves Coordination
Children’s coordinational development can be benefited by using clamber stacks or play equipment which features climbing walls and/or climbing grams.
Children will be faced with the challenge of overcoming this obstacle by working on the climbing wall or climbing frames. Here, they can learn their directions (left and right) and increase hand-eye coordination and balance.
Having basic coordination skills can help to further improve children’s development in these vital early years of their lives whilst also being greatly useful for the future. Depending on the career they wish to pursue, coordination can be a vital skill to master to help them succeed.
Boosts Communication
Quieter children may be the ones to suffer in silence at school as they may not know how to express their concerns or be confident enough to raise their hand to ask a question in the classroom.
However, if they get outside and play with good playground equipment together with friends and peers, they can practice basic communication skills that they can then apply to the classroom and any other everyday living situation.
For example, they can learn how to ask for help, such as “do you know how I can get across here?” or “please, may I have a turn on the swing?”. Playgrounds offer a non-threatening environment for children to be able to practice these useful communication techniques and eventually build enough confidence and self-assurance to be able to excel in the classroom.
Are You Looking For Better School Playground Equipment?
If you’re the headteacher or director of a school, and you think that the school could do with updating its playground equipment to stimulate the mental development of children, Red Monkey Play is the ideal place to look at!
We provide high-quality wooden school playground equipment that is specifically designed for children to have fun and learn at the same time. If you want to find out more, simply get in touch with our team today to discuss the many options available to you and how we could tailor our services and products to fit your playground space and any other requirements you may have.
We have years of experience in playground design and creating unique outdoor playground equipment, the reason why we believe that we can help to improve your playground area and benefit your pupils’ development in the critical years of their lives.
