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Playground Planning

How to Foster Childhood Leadership and Teamwork

childhood-leadership

Fostering childhood leadership and teamwork is invaluable. The odds of any child becoming a professional athlete are pretty slim. However, the a child becoming a professional collaborator are pretty high. Teamwork isn’t just for the field; it’s also a life skill that children will carry with them forever. Teamwork and childhood leadership play a huge role in social competency. Additionally, children who participate in teamwork building activities are better equipped to interpret their peer’s needs. Participating in team activities gives children the opportunity to practice negotiation and leadership skills.

The good news is that childhood leadership happens naturally during group play. Parents, teachers and coaches can help children can grow this vital skill set during structured activities. One of the keys to teamwork is successful negotiation. Allowing participants to brainstorm objectives and create goals together is a great way to integrate negotiation into a structured environment. Also, groups who choose their own goals have a deeper understanding and commitment to meeting them.

Fostering Childhood Leadership in Each Child

The advantage of an adult led activity is that with proper guidance all children can take turns in leadership roles. Traditionally, coaches identify leaders among their participants and appoint a captain that they feel has the ability to lead the team through example. This narrow approach to leadership is a little out dated in today’s fast paced world. Smart coaches know everyone has a strength and each strength is important to team success.

Instead of appointing a permanent captain, select temporary captains who have strength in the skill set you’re focusing on. Even the meekest voices find it easier to speak up when they take charge of a subject they’re confident about. Natural athletes may actually benefit the most from this approach. It helps them avoid developing a ‘big fish in a small pond’ attitude that may not serve them well when they progress to more competitive divisions.

Participation

Letting participants teach each other is another good way to foster teamwork and improve performance. Teaching requires a deep understanding in childhood leadership. Someone who seems effortless may not be able to express their mechanical understanding right away. By encouraging children to really think about and dissect their actions, they’ll analyze their own performance better. Teaching encourages your players to connect cognitively with physical activities. The ability to express the how and why of their successes will improve a young athlete’s overall performance and help to develop childhood leadership and communication skills.

Team-Building

Playing team-building games is another fun way to encourage teamwork. Children of all ages love to pretend. Whether on the field or in the classroom, take time to play childhood leadership games that help your kids collaborate. Problem-solving scenario games that challenge participants to work towards a solution using limited supplies are good ways to get kids working together. Ask them to cross a makeshift river or pretend they’re stranded and have to make shelter. These are some fun active games that get teams working together outside of their normal roles.

Last of all, remember to let kids be in charge once in a while. Whether that means letting your girl scout troupe choose where to sell cookies or having your soccer team design their own uniforms, children need to feel that when it comes to their time and talent, they have equal input. Nurturing this traits will breed additional childhood leadership skills.

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Community & Park Spaces Playground Planning

How to Fight Childhood Obesity Through Play

According to the CDC, childhood obesity has more than doubled in the last 30 years while only about 29 percent of high school students exercise 60 minutes or more each day. As Americans turn more and more to indoor entertainment and recreation, children are paying the price.

Childhood Obesity Prevention Tips

Establishing healthy play and sleep habits during childhood have lifelong benefits, but require dedicated parents, teachers and communities. To celebrate American Heart Month, we’re focusing on fitness activities for all ages.

Spend More Time Outside

You can’t run inside! Parents are understandably reluctant to let children play unsupervised outdoors, but not making time to supervise outdoor play is not a solution. Schedule time to be outside as a family and don’t skip it! If you can’t make time daily to monitor outdoor play yourself, consider forming a playgroup with other parents in your community. Although having your child join a sports team has many benefits, it can’t  replace regular, unstructured free play. Making extra time for student athletes may even reduce the risk of repetitive motion and overuse injuries by strengthening the muscles they don’t use during practice.

Fight Childhood Obesity Through Healthy Play

It’s extremely tempting to sit back and answer emails while your child plays, but don’t be afraid to get the ball rolling yourself! Bring a ball, Frisbee or other toy and try to scout out parks with an active playground community ahead of time. To fight childhood obesity, start a game of catch, kickball or any active ball game to get the fun going! As a parent you can encourage your children to make the most of the play equipment. Challenge children to beat their best time on the monkey bars, or have a race across the fitness circuit. Once the kids are playing, feel free to take a step back and let them take over. 

Make Exercise a Priority

A mother and girl fighting childhood obesity through stretching
Regular stretching is a great way to fight childhood obesity.

Leading by example is the best way to encourage childhood obesity prevention. If you’re not in great shape be sure to talk your doctor and set realistic fitness goals for yourself before you cut loose on any exercise plan. Turn cleaning into a silly song and dance marathon, make yard work family time and plan  a simple evening walk together or other gentle exercises. These will not only get your family moving but will bring you closer together. Teach each other your favorite games like hopscotch and freeze tag and get playing. It takes about 10,000 hours to master any skill, so consider setting a big goal and working towards it together.  You could become hula hoop masters, learn to pop an ollie on a skateboard or make it your goal to master Double Dutch together.

Work with Other Caregivers

Want to include more fitness in your classroom or daycare? Whether you’re a teacher or parent, don’t be afraid to become a leader! Talk about ways you can help normalize physical activity. Regular breaks in learning that encourage movement help improve focus, retention and serve as a natural mood elevator.  Why not hop to the lunch room or take the scenic route to computer class? Adding a little more activity into daily routines can make a big difference. 

Get Enough Rest

It goes without saying that sleep is important to healthy growth and development, however, it’s not always a top priority. In recent years, a growing body of research has linked sleep deprivation to higher body mass. Unfortunately, children are almost as likely as adults to go without adequate sleep.  This may result in fatigue and lethargy, which may make it harder to get your kids off the couch. To help them get enough sleep, set and stick to a bedtime, create a healthy sleep routine and turn off television and computer screens at least an hour before bedtime.

Learn More About Childhood Obesity

Call one of our knowledgeable consultants at 800-853-5316 to learn about preventing childhood obesity through play!

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Community & Park Spaces

How to Make Fitness Fun For the Whole Family

family-bike-ride

Fitting a regular fitness routine into your busy schedule can seem impossible. With most parents working 40 or more hours a week it’s hard to find ways to worry about fitness. The reality is that America’s families are struggling to stay fit. Teaching children to find time to be active is more easily accomplished when you lead by example. How can you find time to get your children to their sporting activities while making time for your own? Forget about exercising and have fun!

Make Fitness Fun

Families should have a collective lifestyle. If togetherness means spending every evening and weekend enjoying a Netflix marathon, fitness habits take a back seat. It’s much harder working together to build a life that revolves around being active and healthy.

Every family needs to make together time a priority. Coupling that with fun, high energy fitness will help families stay active together and teach kids that play isn’t just for children. Currently, only 30% of children between the ages of 6 and 17 get 20 minutes or more of vigorous exercise daily. Although, a full 60 minutes of daily exercise is recommended. For most people, exercise is a chore, but play is a biologically vital activity. Getting off the couch and replacing an hour of screen time with play time will benefit your entire family.

Visit Your Local Park

Scout out a local park that has a baseball field or big open space and coordinate a regular kickball game with other parents. Many parks will even allow you to reserve spaces, so don’t be afraid to call ahead! Make sure your goal is clear, everybody plays and everybody has fun! Teaching your kids the difference between living an active life full of play and ‘exercise’ is sure to be priceless.

Fitness for Different Ages

Depending on the age ranges, you can adjust the game play to make things a little more fair. Here are some easy alterations that you can blend together or you can make up your own.

10 Year and Under:

  • Toddlers run bases and adults kick
  • Pair adults and kids to play bases
  • Designated hitters

10 Years and Up:

  • Adults (over 16) vs kids
  • 50/50 adult child split
  • Adults in the outfield kids in the infield

Fitness For Groups

Since, we’re talking about turning one classic playground game into a family activity, why not explore a couple more? If you can’t get enough families to join your kickball game, don’t be discouraged! Pick an activity and make a goal around it.

It takes approximately 10,000 hours to master something and that’s time you’ll spend having fun, getting fit and being together. So this year, let’s master Double Dutch, perfect the talent of badminton, become the elite team of capture the flag or have a household hula hoop contest. You’ll soon discover that the more you play together, the more open everyone will become to spontaneous play.

Finally, reach out for more information if you’re a park or community space looking to promote fitness for families!

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Playground Equipment Playground Planning

How to Design a Kids Fitness Circuit Worthy of Ninja Warrior

Kids Fitness Circuits combine state of the art equipment with clever design strategies that encourage children to be physically fit. Often, customers wish to purchase or design a custom play structure. Their main goal is to get kids outside and keep them safely entertained. What many don’t realize is that a cleverly designed play structure encourages children to push their physical limits. Other benefits include helping kids become more confident, fit and spatially aware. Kids fitness circuits are perfect for updating an existing playground with more challenging activities.

Kids Fitness Circuit Benefits

The short answer is that a kids fitness circuit can be anything that you want it to be. You can create a dedicated obstacle course style structure or implement circuit design principles into a more traditional play structure. A lot will depend on your vision, budget, who you’re building the playground for, and the space you have available.

Circuits that allow side by side play or circuit races, are great for elementary schools and larger parks. Smaller playgrounds can include a few challenging climbers and overheads that encourage children to take on more difficult tasks. Unlike other play structures, kids fitness circuits don’t focus on slides and platforms but rather on laying out individual elements in such a way that it encourages more stamina, greater strength and balance.

Improve Strength

Total body strength is the keystone of kids fitness. Encouraging greater strength requires presenting children with a variety of climbers and overheads that challenge children at different fitness levels. Incorporating a variety of hand holds and climbing objectives work different muscle groups and require various levels of coordination. Climbers allow children to develop upper and lower body strength but are less taxing than other equipment.

The most challenging strength building equipment on a playground will always be overhead climbers. Horizontal ladders and ring races challenge children to move across the structure using a swinging, right-left hand motion. Additionally, track riders and twisters encourage them to build momentum and glide. This helps children just learning to use this type of equipment build endurance and confidence.

Better Balance

The most obvious equipment for promoting balance is a traditional balance beam but contemporary playgrounds offer so much more. From spring loaded beams, to moving stepping stone style paths, balance play activities are more varied than ever before. These activities don’t require much upper body strength, they are still some of the most rewarding equipment on the playground.

Coordination and Endurance

Kids fitness circuits can consist of one large structure or several pieces of equipment strung together. However, individual elements are laid out in relation to one another is what really determines how challenging the playground is. The key to creating a fun and engaging kids fitness circuit is planning transitions between obstacles. Your fitness circuit is more challenging by stringing similar activities together. Or make them less challenging by transitioning between dissimilar activities (e.g., upper body followed by lower body).

Moreover, the type of transition between obstacles is another key element in design. When equipment transitions from one type of play to another, children are challenged to keep going, or start again if they stop. Structures that offer larger breaks between activities allow for more break time in between. There is no right or wrong type of transition, although the best playgrounds have both.

Children are naturally drawn to swinging, spinning and sliding so activities. These can be anything from spacewalks, cargo nets or fireman’s poles. Placing more transitional activities into more challenging activities is enough to keep children striving to master the most challenging equipment. Ask about a kids fitness circuit for your space today!

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Playground Safety Uncategorized

Avoiding Heart Disease in Children and Adults

Heart disease is the number one cause of death and disability in America today. According to the CDC, it’s also one of the most preventable causes of death in our country. Simple changes in your daily routine can help prevent you from becoming one of the 200,000 preventable deaths from heart disease each year.

Heart Disease Prevention Tips

Remember that change can be hard and the occasional slip up is to be expected. The most important thing is to give yourself time to adjust to your new lifestyle. Try the following steps to get started.

Get Your Heart Rate Up

Adults need at least two and a half hours of moderate intensity exercise each week. You should break a sweat and raise your heart rate and maintain that level of activity for at least 10 minutes at a time. If you’re unsure how to start a healthy exercise program, work with your doctor to ensure your progress is safe and sustainable. Children require at least an hour of physical activity each day.

Don’t assume that your kids are getting enough exercise at recess or during PE. The majority of high school students are not enrolled in any kind of physical education program. If you have an elementary age student talk to their teacher, coach and playground attendants about their activity. Even if your child is involved in sports, set aside time to practice fitness activities as a family.

Get creative and accommodate everyone’s speed and fitness levels. Small children might not be able to keep up with parents on a bike. However, they can ride along as you jog. If your children ride their bikes too fast for you to keep up on foot but are too slow for you to ride along try roller skating alongside them.

Eat Well

Even if you work 40 hours a week, you can make healthy and delicious meals at home or make smart choices when dining out. One simple guideline for planning a quick and healthy meal is to choose meals that use fewer ingredients, cook quickly, contain lean meats and green vegetables.

If you do have a picky eater, don’t require them to clean their plate. Instead, consider requiring them to take a a ‘no thank you’ bite of each food. Spend a few weeks double checking your portions by weighing and measuring each serving. It won’t take long for you to be able recognize the proper portion sizes. Also, give yourself the opportunity to recognize when you’re about to consume a second serving.

Drink Wisely

Many Americans don’t realize how many liquid calories they consume each day. Although fruit drinks, smoothies and health drinks may seem like a great way to squeeze in extra servings of fruits and vegetables, they may not be as satisfying as whole foods. Treat these drinks like real servings, measuring them out and planning them into your daily meals. Don’t let them become the unnoticed extra calories that throw your healthy lifestyle out of whack.

One good way to reduce the consumption of unhealthy calories is to eliminate sodas, fruit punches and other sugary drinks from your diet. As tasty as these treats are they provide no health benefit and aren’t hydrating due to the high levels of caffeine, sugar, and salt they typically contain.

Although you can drink a greater volume of soda for 100 calories than nutrient dense liquids like milk, you will find that you get more bang for your buck when choosing the healthier option. Most of the liquids you consume should be water. By the time you feel thirsty, your body has already entered the first stage of dehydration.

Heart Disease Learning Resources

If you want to learn more about heart disease, refer to the following resources:

Categories
Playground Equipment Playground Planning

Why Creating an Inclusive Play Environment Is So Important

Girl in a wheelchair playing with other children on a playground

Creating an inclusive play environment gives children the opportunity to grow and learn together. This environment must be fostered in the classroom and out. Providing accessible playground equipment is a vital part of creating a completely inclusive environment.

Moreover, when you include a playground that promotes inclusion, your students will have fun and socialize freely. Multiple inclusive play elements, like Adaptive Swing Seats, a Music Center, and play panels, give children the freedom to choose.

Inclusive Play Encourages Children of All Abilities

An example of an inclusive play and wheelchair accessible environment.
Inclusive play encourages understanding and connection between children of different abilities.

Dr. Jenene Burke, Expert of Inclusive Education, offers expert insight into this topic. When children make clear choices about play, you should support, encourage, and permit their determination where possible.

“Enjoyment of play by some children with impairments can be difficult to identify because of their communication differences. Children might, however, communicate the same feelings of fun and pleasure but in different.” The way children socialize represent their individual communication strengths.

Additionally, when you design your playground or look to make additions or renovations, ask yourself these questions. Is your playground structure and surrounding area design inclusive? Is it boundless or does it include an access ramp? Does the structure have an ADA Transfer Station and include multiple play events on all levels?

Most importantly, creating an inclusive play environment is not only about meeting ADA requirements. It allows children to succeed in and out of the classroom, now and in the future. Furthermore, according to ThoughtCo, “inclusive play fosters belief that children with disabilities do better in general education settings. Best practices in special education provide the most success for general education as well as special education students.”

Finally, learn more about how to promote fair play at your school or organization! Reach out for information on accessible playground equipment for your space. BYO Playground offers wheelchair ramps, wheelchair swings, and more. No child should be left to watch from the sidelines. That’s why we believe in inclusive play!

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Community & Park Spaces

Park Plan Considerations from Concept to Design

Girls sitting on a park bench

Whether a brand new park plan or are making additions to an existing one, BYO Recreation is here to help you from start to finish! The first step is planning. When you begin thinking about your park plan, what’s the first thing you think of? Is it sprawling nature trails and peaceful, scenic water views? Do you picture a lively picnic area with fire rings and grills?

Park Plan Components

All your park plan ideas and visions can become a reality! After thinking about what you want your park to be, think about how you can complement the natural landscape with your design. Will the design you choose fit in with the ambiance your park naturally creates? Do the additions provide a sense of continuity throughout the entire park? Answering these questions will help you create a timeless design for your park.

Balance

Your aim is to create a balance between facility resources and seasonal use. The design of the facility should allow for and promote year-round use. Nature trails can be used year-round and can offer guests a different experience every time they use it. Picnic areas also have the ability to cater to a wide range of groups, depending on how they are set up. Do your picnic tables provide a variety of scenery?

Site Amenities

Picnic tables need to have an ordered, arranged layout. When you are deciding where your picnic area should be, look for natural patterns in the landscape. For example, if your park has a lake, you can follow the natural curve of the lake. Placing the tables far enough from the water to allow walking people access to the lakeside, while still providing scenery for people at the tables.

Location, Location

You should also think about the vicinity of the area. Your picnic area should be located near parking, bathrooms and trash receptacles. When visitors come to your park for a picnic, they will likely have coolers of food and other supplies for the day. Making sure the picnic area is near the parking lot assures that park guests have easy access to their vehicles for convenience and security.

Park Plan Assistance

Now that we’ve gone over a few things to consider when thinking about your park and its picnic area, share your ideas with us! We’d love to help you with your park design and find you the best picnic tables and equipment for your park! Call us at 1-800-853-5316 for a complete park plan today!

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Community & Park Spaces

Best Dog Park Equipment to Make the Most Puppy Play Time

A dog park is perfect for keeping your dog in shape and giving it an opportunity to play with other friendly doggy friends. Taking your canine to a dog park is just as important as taking your kids to the playground to play with friends and get proper exercise. Dog parks not only get your furry friends outside and burn some energy on the park equipment before dinnertime; it also lets them interact with other pets. This is a great way to help your pet learn proper behavior around dogs and visitors at your home.

Just like humans, dogs get depressed when they have a lack of activity and interaction in their lives. This can lead to obesity, tumors as well as many other health related issues. When a dog goes to play, run or train, the brain releases dopamine, a chemical the brain releases that allows for positive and excited attitudes. Therefore, keeping your furry friend active will result in a happy pet.

Types of Dog Park Equipment

Different structures help build different muscles in your pet. For example, a dog walk structure helps build leg muscle and teach dogs how to walk up and down ramps. A crawl tube helps build chest muscles and keep hip joints flexible and strong. Lastly, a doggy teeter-totter helps dogs gain a sense of balance when stationary on a moving object. All of these structure will help keep you dog happy and in shape. They also help to train your dog for competitions and everyday travels.

Of course, it’s always good to keep you and your pet hydrated throughout your time at the park, so be sure to bring water or use the local drinking fountains provided around your park. BYO Recreation offers a dual water fountain that is designed for humans and dogs to be able to drink at the same time.

Learn more about the importance of dog parks by visiting BYO Recreation or giving us a call at 1-800-853-5316. One of our consultants will be happy to provide you with all the information you desire and assist you in choosing the best dog park equipment and water fountains for your parks.

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Community & Park Spaces

Best Park Grills for Your Community or Campsite

Visiting local parks is a great summer activity for family and friends. There are so many things to do; many parks offer commercial grills so their guests can cook-out. These commercial park grills are a great addition to any park because of the value they bring. People will visit parks with friends and family for reunions, parties or a get-together because they have the option to grill food and enjoy the other attractions of the park.

When choosing a park grill, you want to look at everything from its cooking space and grates to the mounting option to ensure that you are providing the perfect grill for your guests. Cooking spaces can vary but you can choose different sized grills for different areas so that smaller or larger groups can use the appropriate sized grills. You can also choose a standard size grill for your park for simple planning.

The mounting option is also important. The most common options are in-ground and surface mount. Both provide safe and stable mounting; the only difference is that in-ground is permanent whereas surface mount gives you the option of relocating the grill if necessary.

Remember, park grills aren’t just for parks. Pedestal grills are great for multifamily complexes and HOAs as well. Additionally, no campsite is complete without a fire ring!

Along with park grills, parks should provide its guests with picnic tables to eat and lounge at, trash and smoking receptacles so the park does not become littered, and drinking fountains to keep your guests hydrated.

Learn More About Park Grills

Finally, learn more about park grills and park amenities by visiting BYO Recreation or giving us a call at 1-800-853-5316. One of our consultants will be happy to provide you with all the information your desire. We’ll also assist you in choosing the park grills & site amenities for your park.

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Community & Park Spaces Playground Planning

Best Commercial Trash Cans to Minimize Littering in Your Community

Commercial trash can at a public playground

Commercial trash cans are essential for keeping our Earth clean. However, as an individual, you may not feel like you can do any damage or help in any significant way, but you can! Let’s take a look at some statistics.

According to once study, 36 percent of the commercial workforce in America goes to work in an office each day. Of that 36 percent, each employee will produce 1.5 pounds of paper waste each day. On top of that, each employee uses about 10,000 sheets of paper a year! Wow! That’s just paper; what about the energy it takes to print that paper? Well, 21 percent of all energy used in the USA is consumed by offices, big and small.

Crazy right? As an individual you can take steps towards saving the amount of paper waste and energy your office uses. Try some of these methods:

  • Encourage your employees to recycle
  • Provide commercial trash cans around the office building
  • Send emails instead of mailing hard copies
  • Review rough drafts before printing
  • Encourage walking by personally talking to an employee about an assignment or project.

All of these simple tasks will save your company money by reducing the amount of paper used and will help reduce air and water pollution. BYO Recreation practices these simple Earth saving tips and together we are able to make the Earth a little bit cleaner.

How Small Things Add Up

Tossing trash on the ground doesn’t seem like a very harmful thing to do, just a dirty thing to do. However, in reality, tossing a piece of metal, a water bottle, a broken toy, or even your coffee cup on the ground causes serious damage to the Earth’s foundation.

Metals will rust from the water and dirt, causing harmful chemicals to sink into the ground, killing the grass and other life around the area. Broken toys water bottles and coffee cups do not decompose and release harmful chemicals into the ground over time.

Trash can also travel around the world in a matter of weeks by being blown into a stream and carried out to the ocean then being trapped in the ocean currents. This causes chemicals to release into the water harming ocean life. Ocean life can also be entangled in the trash hindering its ability to survive.

How Commercial Trash Cans Can Help

Example of a commercial trash can at a public playground
Include commercial trash cans at your public space!

If a simple piece of trash can do all of this, imagine if everybody in a small town threw trash on the ground. There would be a catastrophe! A simple solution to saving the world is to throw your trash in commercial trash cans. This way your trash will be properly disposed of and you’ll have saved the Earth once again!

One more way you can save the world as an individual is to help reduce the amount of smoke that is released into the air. Along with second hand smoke for people is second hand smoke for the Earth. Think it’s ludicrous? Think again; When unnatural smoke is inhaled by people or absorbed by Earth, damage occurs. For people, second hand smoke damages lungs, hearts, brains and even kidneys. For the Earth, second hand smoke damages plants, animals, the o-zone and even the soil.

So how do you help? Quit smoking? You can, but if you don’t want to you can help save the Earth and the people around you by putting your smokes in a smoke receptacle. These help put the cigarette out and contain the smoke, so people don’t inhale the harsh chemicals and the Earth doesn’t have to absorb them.

Learn More About Commercial Trash Cans & Receptacles

Although it’s just you, you can save the world we live in and encourage others to help keep Earth clean too! If you’d like more information on how you can keep earth clean, or would like to purchase trash receptacles, recycling containers or smoking receptacles, please visit BYO Recreation. You can also give us a call at 1-800-853-5316 and one of our consultants will answer all of your questions on commercial trash cans and receptacles.