How Playground Planning Created an Elevated Experience
How Playground Planning Got the Hillander School More Than Just a New Playground
With a 20+ year-old playground on their grounds, Hillander School, located in Midland, Texas, was in need of an updated playground for their students. Hillander School is a non-profit coeducational school that educates children from pre-k through 6th grade. Their purpose is to educate students to their fullest potential, and we believe that can’t be done without play that works in tandem with the education curriculum.
With our decades of successfully working with schools and early childhood education centers to create custom playground designs, we were thrilled to get started on the project with Hillander School.
A Trike Track Encourages Pretend Play and Social Interaction
With the ample play space offered on the site, we couldn’t help but work in a Trike Track for the pre-k students that attend the school. Trike Tracks with tricycles and dramatic play facades offer children aged 2-5 the opportunity to work growing leg muscles and engage in pretend play. After a few rounds around the Trike Track, the children need to stop to refuel at the gas station while on the way to pretend school.
Age-Appropriate Play Areas Keeps Children Safe and Promotes Healthy Child Development
When we design playgrounds for schools with such a wide age range of students, like Hillander School, it’s important to create an age-appropriate playground for the children that are going to be using the equipment. The planning phase is the perfect time to plan for age-appropriate play. Age-appropriate play not only provides safe activities on the playground, but also promotes healthy physical, mental, and social development by incorporating activities and equipment suitable for each child’s age group. Hillander School now offers age-appropriate preschool playground equipment and big kid playground equipment.
Shaded Swings Offer Relaxation and Thrills
What playground is complete without a swing set? Swing sets offer more than playtime for children. Swings offer spatial awareness as kids swing up and down and know where other children are playing in relation to their swinging space. Children swinging also enhances their hand-eye coordination as it engages multiple senses at the same time. Then there’s the benefit of spending time outside that allows children to exercise their muscle groups, socialize, and strengthen growing muscles at the same time. (We offer many commerical swings.)
Dramatic Play Equipment Develops Social Skills and Empowerment
Dramatic play, or pretend play as some call it, offers children the ability to act out their wildest imaginations or real-life events on the playground. Here at Playgrounds Etc, we encourage our customers to add dramatic play elements during the planning process wherever possible. Dramatic play can be added to activity panels on the play structure, through the use of pretend vehicles, or other independent play activities, all of which are offered from our extensive product offering.
Make Use of Natural Shade on the Playground
It doesn’t always happen, but when we have the opportunity, we incorporate the natural shade offered from the landscape into the design of the playground site plan. When we saw the amount of natural shade on this site, we immediately knew that we wanted to work that into shading a portion of the Trike Track and free-playing space.
Take a Virtual Tour of the Updated Hillander School Playground
To see an example of the result of taking extra time to plan a fun, entertaining, and challenging playground environment for children, hop over to our projects gallery and check out the installation pictures of Hillander School.
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