Natural play environments are the meeting and blending of child development research, modern safe design, and natural, authentic interactions with the environment. We can curate childhood development thru backwards design where we identify the goals children should learn as they play. Then we can figure out what stimulation we can directly provide and what options and what scenarios we can allow to develop indirectly and naturally.
Problems with fixed equipment
If we take a quick moment, we can review some problems with fixed equipment and traditional playgrounds.
- Perhaps the most common complaint is the issue of limited play styles. Modern play installations are typically single-purpose where there’s a perceived ‘proper’ way to play with the equipment. It could be what they’ve seen on TV, it could be what the adults themselves monitor and ensure happens so that they all ‘play correctly.’ These are solved and static systems with no room for experimentation, no problems to solve, nothing changes.
- This permanence requires maintenance, which itself presents safety concerns if such tasks aren’t routinely seen to. And then, there’s the material inherent in the construction itself, unforgiving metal which can cut or pinch, and synthetic plastics.
If we can increase the options children see in the landscape, then we might increase their play out on it. We can provide them opportunity to be active, to generate some vitamin D, and give their minds a different kind of recreation that doesn’t require electricity or screens.
Benefits of natural play
The benefits of natural play are not limited to the traditional aspects of calisthenics: muscle development, balance and coordination, reflex control. They also involve ecosystem services from the natural environment. Recent research is validating the importance of soil/skin contact; for example, Roslund et al. (2020) found that biodiverse playgrounds improved children’s health and immune-function.
And it is in that biodiversity where we can find random acts of nature. If you want children to be able to turn over a log and find a beetle, or stare at the silent order of an ant hill, then you need enough natural pieces in the space in order to support the diversity you want them to see and discover. We’re basically talking about trying to create a living space where a playground is but part of the structure.
General suggestions
General suggestions would be to break up large, single-feature areas into smaller and more numerous sections which can contain complexity, novelty, and mystery. This paring down of, say, an open field, into a handful of smaller outdoor ‘rooms’ allows for greater targeting and specificity of each place. you can better address developmental needs of various children and, ultimately, offer a more diverse range of play to all participants.
We’re seeking to encourage exploration for different interests and abilities, different sized groups.
- We could do this with differing the size of the areas.
- We could plan for some places to hold the louder, more active play, and some places quieter.
- Some places could focus on a sensory experience or two exclusively.
- Even ‘secret’ areas where play can evolve in privacy, with problem solving and cooperation emerging without adult interference.
Children will learn and take ownership in their various spaces and learn which activities—and sound-levels!—are appropriate or best-suited to different places. We’re embracing a diverse use of space here. it helps minimize conflict by providing outlets for energy and refuge for those seeking to disengage for short or long term.
There’s generally two ways to approach this: do-it-yourself (DiY) or hire it out. DiY is a great budget choice which focuses on repurposing what you already have and amending it with small plug-N-play style add-ons to your space. Hiring a landscape professional allows you to make bigger changes, faster and safer and easier than when on your own.
DiY options
- Sensory experiences
- Small sandbox
- Bare ground
- Loose, rounded rock
- Larger rocks, even a stream or creek bed
- Potted herb garden
- Flower planter boxes
- Odds ‘N ends: Just some minor, safe collection of non-pristine items. Defunct kitchen ware (chipped, peeling, etc.)
- Constructed spaces
- Bring them in on the creation of this outdoor space!
- Pallet ‘walls’ are cheap-to-free and provide breaks in visual space while still allowing adult supervision over and into the play area.
- Benches, small rope swings, and umbrellas are excellent accents to allow a space to shine in a different way than another.
- Open spaces
- Water play, like slip N slides, sprinklers, water guns, water balloons, hoses, and any other manner of beating the summer heat.
- Stumps, logs, ladders, and straw bales can be (securely!) scattered across a space to give alternative and creative play options.
- Nature-in-focus
- Bird feeders and bird baths
- Raised bed vegetable gardens
- a stream or creek bed
- Potted herb garden
- Flower planter boxes
- A dry creek or stream bed
Landscaper projects
- Sensory experiences
- Geo-gardens from around the world. These installations focus on emphasizing their particular microclimate and focus the palette of plant species to represent the sights, smells, and feelings of different places around the globe.
- A mini-amphitheater where kinds can put on their own shows and plays, engaging in dramatic arts of their own creations.
- Constructed spaces
- Multi-layered privacy hedges which still allow adult supervision from their parts of the yard. Plants can be chosen as coppices to provide cut-and-come-again resources of branches and twigs. These are also great locations for incorporating food-bearing shrubs and trees.
- Mini-sheds and outdoor ‘mud kitchens’ which use a wattle-and-daub to provide natural outdoor spaces to host imaginations and reflections upon the built environment the world of the grown-ups.
- Pergolas, arbors, and vine-covered trellises are additional ways to work both divide a space and provide a new feature at the same time.
- Herb gardens woven into a rocky landscape can provide a great setting for the imagination while also ways to help in the kitchen by bringing in a small harvest.
- Open spaces
- Meandering pathing with mulching to secure it against the most egregious mud.
- Secure areas without trip hazards. Broad grading and leveling to remove dangerous dips and humps which could trip or sprain. Adding gentle rolling hills instead to vary the elevation across the site.
- Incorporating water-harvesting methods which double as points of interest and play.
- Obstacles courses, jumping and balancing with safety flooring as needed.
- Climbing structures where knobs are built into a retaining wall on a hillside to provide multiple means of crossing a landscape.
- Performance platforms and mini-decks to give additional spaces and provide dry floor areas for play during precipitation and wet seasons.
- Nature-in-focus
- Ponds and other water storage areas which bring in and enhance nature and wildlife while providing novel places for play.
- Bamboo forests which provide privacy screening and lumber which can be both permanently created into features like bridges as well as loosely assembled with rope provided so that the kids can create their own structures.
- Native plantings to increase animal presence and diversity in the backyard habitat.
- A grass or meadow maze with ornamental clumping grasses and planned, infrequent mowing
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you have the space to dedicate to a child’s play area, take the time to offer more than a playground installation. Provide them with something based in nature which will help them grow and develop as complex, mature, stable human beings.