Being a playground owner is an extremely important and rewarding job. You’re able to help bring joy into the lives of both children and parents. However, there are a few important considerations to think about while creating or updating your playground. Making the right choices can help take any playground from being good to amazing. In this post, you’ll learn the importance of choosing the right type of playground border.
Children Are Spending More Time Indoors
Playgrounds allow children of all ages to have a great time. Unfortunately, it’s rare that children currently spend much time outdoors. In fact, research conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that children ages 8 to 18 spend 4.5 hours per day watching media in various forms. In most cases, this means watching television or videos on their phones, tablets, and computers.
Another study found that less than 33% of children are able to reach the Sports and Fitness Industry Associations active to a healthy level category. This means only 25 minutes of physical activity that burns a large number of calories per week. Considering that, it’s no wonder that nearly 66% of parents are worried their children are spending too much time on electronic devices. You can help change these statistics by having a fun playground for children to enjoy. That being said, it’s important to make sure that these structures are both fun and safe. Therefore, you’ll need to spend some time thinking about the right kind of playground borders.
The Importance of Playground Borders
Playground areas need to feature some type of protective filler material. In turn, this helps to keep children safe from landing on hard surfaces. However, there must be some type of container around this filler material. Without it, the filler material begins to lose its protective ability due to being spread around too thinly.
Choosing the Right Playground Border Specifications
There are several types of important playground border considerations to make. Playground borders can also be used to help section off certain areas. For instance, playground owners might want to utilize these borders to separate areas into those for various age groups. After all, you don’t want small children playing on playground equipment meant for older ones and vice versa. Therefore, you might want to consider ordering addition playground border material to achieve this goal.
Another important consideration is to offer playground borders that are accessible to those with disabilities. Handicap accessible playgrounds allow every child to enjoy playtime. Therefore, it’s wise to consider owning playground borders with wheelchair ramps.
Customizing Border Colors
While selecting playground borders, you may have color options to choose from. If not, it’s wise to consider painting playground borders. In some cases, playground filler material is made with darker coloring. Therefore, this can make darker colored playground borders blend together. In turn, this can potentially create a type of tripping hazard.
If you’re wanting to avoid this, it’s important to paint playground borders with colors that don’t match grass or playground filler. This also helps to create a more aesthetically pleasing playground. For instance, it’s common for schools to paint these borders in team colors.
To summarize, playgrounds are structures that can help enrich the lives of children. However, there is a bit of work that goes into choosing the right type of playground. That being said, this process is much easier by ensuring you’re partnering with a quality playground equipment supplier. In turn, you’ll be able to choose the right type of playground border for this new and fun area.
