In these modern times, it’s not easy to convince children to get away from the screens for a while and head outdoors for playtime. Many children struggle to understand the importance of going outside and playing, especially when it’s a few feet from the front door. However, as a community, we can bring those fun games kids like to play on their tablets and video games to life through themed recreation areas. Here’s our guide on how to choose a theme for your playground.
Why Should You Make a Playground With a Theme?
As children grow and show more interest in virtual worlds, they lose many essential skills that help them develop into well-rounded individuals.
Even when we try to limit exposure to technology a few times a day, we still find it difficult to instill a balance in our children.
Technology isn’t bad; however, too much exposure to electronics can increase depression. Although depression’s linked to less outdoor exposure, many professionals have seen playgrounds’ influence on battling depression.
So while technology’s fine, it’s important to limit it to instill a balance in children early on.
When children get off their games, they may feel detached from reality. So to help them continue playing make-believe, take them to the park to continue playing.
The biggest reason to build a themed playground is to help children develop their imagination and creativity skills outside of what they learn in their video games.
So as we move into the reasons to use themes when creating a playground, remember that children can learn some life skills and lessons through imaginary play.
The Benefits of Imaginative Play
Around the age of three, many children explore their vocabulary and start to explore the elements of simple storytelling through play. Many children begin to benefit from imagined space between the ages of three and six or start Pre-K.
Here’s what a child experiences through playing pretend:
- Improved sense of experiences and how the situations made them feel
- The beginning of creativity and intellectual development
- The development of decision-making and social skills
- The ability to explore different interests
The best way to continue supporting children’s imagination skills, increasing social skills, and understanding decision-making is to implement a theme in the playground. Here’s more on how to choose a theme for your playground, starting with theme choices to help you decide.
Different Playground Themes
Every playground deserves a unique theme and has enough equipment to allow children to explore their imagination and surroundings.
Castle theme
Whether a child’s fighting a dragon to save a princess or a pirate’s come to steal the noble family’s crown, a castle-themed adventure park can spark a child’s curiosity. Also, it can help them experience different elements of storytelling, and they can even add plot twists.
Transportation Theme
Every child finds trains, planes, and cars the most exciting thing since learning the alphabet. Whenever possible, children peer out windows to signal a truck to honk their horn or stare in awe at a train passing by on the tracks.
We need to continue encouraging curiosity in children, even when tablets can’t help. So providing a theme that involves vehicles can allow children to act out adult jobs for fun.
The great thing about this theme is it develops critical thinking and introduces new ideas of how to react in certain social situations.
Nature Theme
Children living in urban areas aren’t exposed to nature as often as kids in suburban or rural areas. However, we can still bring natural surroundings into a metropolis by placing rustic outdoor playgrounds that make a park feel like a part of nature.
By purchasing commercial playsets for sale through Discount Playground Supply, you can help the community feel connected to nature and provide future opportunities for children to appreciate and observe natural life.
How To Choose the Theme
When selecting the theme, there are a few things to know before jumping right in. Here’s what to know about selecting a theme for your playground.
Considering the Location
We can pick any place in the community, but the most important thing is your community and the town’s personality. For example, if you live near a beach, you want to incorporate some of those elements into your park’s theme.
For inspiration, use a sandbox and a gaga ball pit to help set the theme of a beach or seaside playground.
Your Target Demographic
Often, the most challenging part of building a playground is determining the age of all the visitors. For example, you might have a section dedicated to adults, another toward teenagers, and one for children. Whatever the layout is, pay attention to the age group you want to target.
A fun, neutral-themed playground for younger children can work better since infants between eighteen months and two begin to explore their boundaries.
Other older children can learn better through themes, like medieval and transportation themes. Teenagers through early adolescence may enjoy playing in areas that promote physical well-being and offer opportunities to explore the park further.
Space Size
Before setting a theme and budget, you need to decide on space size. If you plan on implementing different spaces throughout the community, try and keep all the equipment to a specific theme and age range. You have more ways to make the park available for all age groups with larger spaces.
The Budget
Things like size and age groups matter, but your budget is the biggest thing you need to consider when implementing changes to a current park or designing a new one. When selecting from Discount Playground Supply’s vast array of products, ensure that you pick something within your budget that matches your theme.
Look at Existing Designs
When we can’t come up with ideas and designs, we need inspiration. So when creating the park’s layout, consider going to other grounds in the area or another town entirely and analyze how the park administrators implement themes into their playgrounds.
From there, you can begin to note the different things you’d want to add and find an excellent resource to look back at to assist in your outline creation.
From one park enthusiast to another, having a themed playground helps children learn the essential life lessons and encourages them to take a break from technology. Let’s do our part in promoting imaginary play in the community.
Discount Playground Supply offers the most when park administrators enter the planning stages. With our playground supplies, children become more enamored in the idea of make-believe, and we see a more significant influence on essential life skills.
