"Inside the Playspace" Playground Blog

Here’s a very interesting article we found in USA Today on the growing popularity of natural playgrounds.

View our Natural Play Concepts Here, and read the article below:

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald Special for, USA TODAY

BOSTON — The playground of the future is beginning to take shape — and it looks a lot like the backyard of the past.

Designers of children’s play spaces are increasingly looking beyond slides, jungle gyms and other plastic-coated structures in their quest to create fun, safe, healthy environments. As a result, kids are running outside and discovering play areas dotted with old standbys: sand, water, boulders, hills and logs.

“This is an emerging national trend of some significance,” says Richard Dolesh, chief of public policy for the National Recreation and Parks Association. “Parents and other adults want natural opportunities for kids … The question is: how do you ensure safety with the inherent challenges that nature brings?”

Natural play spaces, as they’re called, are becoming more common as municipalities, schools and child care centers seek sustainable ways to invest in new or aging playgrounds. Seattle is adding at least six natural play spaces to existing city parks. Boston-area institutions have at least four in the works. Similar projects are either underway or recently completed in Phoenix, Chicago, New York and Auburn, Ala.

Visit Active Playground Equipment Natural Play for natural playground concepts.

How many times have you ever wished you could be a part of a real archaeological dinosaur dig?

How many times do you wish to have your own children that same experience?

Active Playground Equipment has teamed up with Exploration Playgrounds, who for years has worked with museums and historic organizations in producing elaborate and detailed dinosaur exhibits molded from real authentic dinosaur bones.

T-Rex playground dig.

They have taken this approach to create some of the coolest, most authentic and imagination-inspiring playground dinosaur dig sites where children and adults of all ages can explore! Check out our website for more details and photos of this new line of playground equipment.

If you’ve hiked mountain paths, caught frogs and crayfish in a stream, rolled down a grassy hill, planted seeds, played in mud, or followed animal trails, then you’ve enjoyed natural play. The intent of our designs is to reunite kids with nature and the concept of natural play. Playspaces are designed to allow and encourage unstructured free play. This type of play is spontaneous as kids use their imagination to invent games, explore and discover the world around them.

By maintaining natural grades, naturalizing large portions of the site, or introducing a wetland, kids once again have play areas that stimulate and challenge them. Children can again enjoy long days of climbing trees and hills, building forts, and manipulating natural materials into tools and toys. This type of play is vitally important for healthy physical and mental development.

Our playground designers work in collaboration with you to combine plant material, pathways, drainage, and weather phenomena with play structures and site amenities to create play, social and learning opportunities in a natural setting. Our designs seeks to create a natural landscape in miniature, full of intriguing play and learning opportunities just waiting to be discovered by children of all ages.

Vegetation is used throughout the landscape to soften and cool the play space. Trees provide three-dimensional structure to the space, and screen the surrounding urban landscape. If appropriate, site fixtures, fitness elements, and site specific sculpture are incorporated into the design.

Visit the Active Playground Equipment Website for more details on Natural Playgrounds.