Support Active Play
The Collaborative strives to design effective outdoor spaces that support diverse activities. Our approach integrates an understanding that:
- Kids seek different kinds of play, in part depending on their age.
- Play equipment encourages vigorous physical activity among both girls and boys.
- An effectively multisensory environment combines smooth, brightly colored play equipment with the rough and “wild” textures of natural landscapes.
We also target our schoolyard designs to address the appropriate stages of child development, including:
- activities that enable first graders to explore space and relationships
- guided discovery, leaping, and climbing for second and third graders
- refining skills and upper-body strength for fourth and fifth graders and middle schoolers.
Examples of our work
The site plans and renderings below reflect how active play can be integrated into schoolyards at a number of our project sites.
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Play equipment: A design for Hackett Elementary clusters equipment to accommodate students of different age groups: a hard surface for games and a grassy area for creative or less formal play.
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Berms: Meredith School could replace asphalt with these rounded, raised play surfaces called berms, which divide space for games from green areas for nature exploration.
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Basketball court : Even with a limited space or budget, a basketball court can support multiple kinds of physical development and age groups. Lea School’s would promote team sports for older kids, as well as ample space for more free-form play.
When planning and designing a schoolyard that will support active play, consider these elements:
- play equipment
- fitness equipment
- berms
- track
- basketball court
- hard-surface play area
- multipurpose field
