Search Playground Professional's Archives

A) All children have the right to play.  Children, like adults, have certain rights. Among these are the universal rights to safe play spaces. It is an adult responsibility to ensure that these rights extend to all children regardless of race, color, …

The resources are certainly available for playgrounds to be safely installed, inspected and supervised. The National Program for Playground Safety (NPPS), which was established in 1995 through a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Injury …

Congratulations America, we have the fattest kids on earth. Over the last 20 years, the number of overweight children in this country has doubled. Soon, if that trend continues, one out of every three kids will be obese.  When I was a kid I used to play …

Designing and building a playground is always a unique experience. Each area has individual character that is defined by any number of man-made or natural elements. Every playground should be approached with an interest in community involvement. Bringing …

What type of surfacing is best? Will aquatic play structures work in my area? Where do I start? You don’t need a crystal ball to answer these questions or any others you might have concerning the playground industry. You’ve got the greatest shopping tool …

Children between the ages of two and three understand the world in very physical ways. As infants become toddlers, their curiosity about the environment intensifies and they become quite skilled at acting upon it. Mobile toddlers are avid explorers of …

Parks identify your city. We all remember a great experience as a child during a family or social event at a city park. You can visualize the park setting and recall the name of the park or town. Maybe you remember the smells; were there lilacs in bloom, …

Forgive me if my mind is more on football this time of year than on playgrounds. Where I live, the playgrounds are all buried under mounds of snow right now, so I have nothing better to do with my time than to think football.  As we pass the halfway point …

When children step foot onto a playground prepared for a fun-filled hiatus of climbing, jumping, and swinging, they don’t give much thought to how those hours of play will affect their futures. Yet according to Tom Norquist, “There’s a lot more to play …

The school playground in my neighborhood was a place to play before, during and after school. If you weren’t there, you were square. Although we didn’t have fancy equipment, the swings, monkey bars, and slides provided us with hours of entertainment. We …

Heightened awareness of playground safety has progressed rapidly in just the last 20 years. Among equipment manufacturers, safety awareness is evidenced by one-piece designs for spiral slides, which reduce the possibility of clothing drawstrings being …

An injury on North American public and private playgrounds is thought to occur every two minutes.  Readers of Today’s Playground know that one of the best playground injury prevention practices is to provide adequate resilient surfacing under and around …

Large cities have many amenities. Shops, museums, and opera houses provide an infinite amount of entertainment for people living in a big city. But, let’s be honest; kids usually don’t like to shop, go to museums or attend operas. They like to play. It …

As children, most of us looked forward to those carefree summer days where we would hang out at the park and eat ice cream to our heart’s content. We would dangle from the monkey bars, try to walk up the slides and play games of tag where we weren’t …

As playground equipment ages and weathers, the materials used in its construction increase their potential for deterioration. Unless carefully monitored and maintained, the physical properties of these materials weaken until the materials become easy to …

Swings can be used by children (and adults) of all ages. They have been around for thousands of years and have been depicted in art objects from every continent. Paintings of women swinging were popular in the late 17 th century as depictions of leisure …

In 1989 three members of the National Recreation and Parks Association, (NRPA) Fran Wallach, Ken Kutska and Monty Christiansen, along with the NRPA Executive director, met to discuss the feasibility of creating a playground safety-training program, to …

It’s a time you’ll always remember, the start of a new school year. The smell of glue in the air, the sight of children dressed up in their new clothes and the sound of youngsters running and laughing around the playground. When my family gets together, …

Donald G. Godfrey’s September 2, 2002, article in the Salt Lake Tribune, states that on September 7, 1927, “Philo T. Farnsworth, the father of television, was the first to transmit an all-electronic television signal.” Mary Bellis, a writer for …

Only the squeals, squeaks, giggles and laughter of children at play can replace the terse NASA countdown commands. The excitement level is approximately equal and the locations are in close proximity.  The interplanetary playground within the Kennedy …

While babysitting my niece, I’ve found that she’s entertained by watching Beauty and the Beast until she discovers her mom is gone. A wail to pierce the soul of any caring individual ensues. I try to distract her, play ball, and offer to read a …