An all-weather playground gives kids a space to play, explore, and learn about themselves and their surroundings. Whatever your play area needs to provide safety and stimulation all year round, PlaySmart’s range of play surfacing can provide the base for building your ideal play space that remains usable and enhances play whatever the weather!
Developmental Theory of Play Environment Provision
An invigorating and varied environment for play should involve different kinds of playground design. Providing education and sensory-stimulating play items with a variety of surfacing textures and materials in your outdoor play area is essential.
Childhood development theorists recommend a variety of types of activities to be given space on the playground, ensuring all kids find a type of play and an environment to do it that suits them. Children express themselves and develop at their own pace and in their own unique ways. From role-play to active play to even quiet group reading or parallel play, students should have the opportunity for free play acuities without direction from adults.
A grass area is a great idea for play. Made more accessible and greener all year round by using hybrid grass to work alongside your natural grass growth while stabilizing your play field. A natural-looking play area with green grass and plenty of vegetation has been seen to improve serotonin levels, but additionally, a playing field with a range of sports markings or just an open space to run and play encourages healthy physical activity for students as part of play.
Maintaining Consistent Safety Standards on the Playground
Just as important as providing a range of experiences is to ensure kids are able to experience them in safety and security. PlaySmart’s professional protective flooring and safety surfacing are tested and certified to provide superior slip resistance and shock absorption.
Our Play Safety Certifications
Independent pendulum slip-resistant testing has been conducted for our outdoor safety mats to ensure the grip is enough to reduce the risks of falls. Ranking slip resistance score of over 40 against BS 7188 (1998) accreditation for slip resistance.
In all-weather playgrounds, puddles and ice may cause issues with slip resistance. Rubber play surfacing avoids these risks with water-absorbent porous structure and unique bonding agents that prevent puddles as well as reducing the ice and frost from forming over the winter. Your choice of surfacing should allow for full accessibility and safety for all seasons.
Playgrounds should provide a space where children can express independence and healthy risk-taking behaviour in a safe way. Whether playing in the local park with friends over the holidays or on the school playing field under supervision from teachers during term time, children should be secure in their safety. Therefore, safety surfacing that provides the utmost security is necessary for successful play areas.
Certified for protection to critical fall heights of up to 3m under our EcoSmart grass mats on a variety of sub surfaces, and providing an extra layer of shock-absorbent protection, SmartPlay mats are available for installation under our grass mat ranges as well as for your artificial or hybrid grass areas. Over time, grass grows easily through the surface to create a natural-looking play field that retains its safety ratings for up to 10 years when secured with our patented installation guarantee.
Maintaining your Playground Surface
Over time some surfaces may begin to wear away, providing less consistency in their safety provision. Our surfacing is tested for the variety of sub-surface types and qualities of your site, but with wear and tear from heavy use and changes in ground quality due to water saturation or continuous dry weather, this may change.
Monitoring your surfaces and keeping them clean allows for any issues to be identified quickly and fixed before any accidents occur. Washing your surfaces with a gentle pressure hose will remove any dirt, stones or dust left over and with water-permeable surfaces, this will help keep your natural sub-surfaces from drying out over the summer.
In hot weather, wet pour surfaces can shrink back, creating gaps around the edges that can create tripping hazards and ruin any patterns in the surfacing. Securing these edges with an EPDM edging strip can help revitalise your playground and the extra tensile strength retains its shape and pattern without shrinking away at the edges.
How will you Keep your Playground Play-Ready Year-Round?
PlaySmart provides a variety of surfacing designed with unique properties and benefits to suit any requirements. Discuss your options today with our experts by booking a call or get your Free Quick Quote with our handy contact form.