Considering sizes also means designing for the right level of abilities: A two-year-old might not need a three meter tall slide to get thrilled, reach the limits of his or her abilities and progress skills when we consider that 180 is already double their height and might be more scary than thrilling.  To consider differences in sizes is the first step on the way to child oriented playgrounds and play furniture. The next step is to consider social, physical, cognitive, emotional and creative needs. 

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Parallel play
The toddlers in the playground do parallel games. In earlier days they were said not to be much aware of the children around them but in fact they do notice each other a lot. And they do little games together. Adults often miss out on that because the games are more or less speechless. Toddlers do not have their language fully developed yet and use most of their time developing their own abilities.

The sensomotor development is the main developmental characteristic of the toddlers. Colours and contrasts guide the child A newborn baby can barely see. Light attracts the eyes of the infant. Contrasts are perceived and gradually the ability to perceive colours develop. The strongest reaction to colours is to strong colours.   Up till the age of app. 12 years children have a developmental limit to how much they can perceive. This means that the items we want them to notice first must send strong design signals.

Contrasts in the products will guide the child and help estimate distances, different levels and support the child’s spatial awareness. Contrasts can be everything from a red vertical panel meeting a dark grey horizontal floor – showing the differenceof vertical and horizontal squares – to black and white, light and darkness. As a mere function –if we can at all speak of mere function in our culture – black and white will do.

But at KOMPAN we recommend colour contrasts as we know that colours appeal to children, make them feel welcome and send out a strong signal for PLAY. With the words of the artist and architect Hundertwasser: “A colourful world is always a synonym for paradise. A grey or monocoloured world is always a synonym for purgatory or hell”,  Hundertwasser.

Colour has always been a strong signal. Today we tend to speak a lot about nature’s colours, and there is a tendency to level the colours of nature with the predominant colours of the (North) western parts of the world: subtle pastels, lots of grey, beige and khaki.

But to be honest, we all know, that nature has all colours. The nature trend would be natural in a pendulum thought of cultural trends: Since the middle of the 20th century it has been possible to mass produce plastics in bright colours, and our everyday life has become, maybe, fed with strong primary colours. The next cultural pendulum move would be to renounce these colours.  It is evident, that children are attracted to strong colours.

Historically strong colours have been used for toys since 1000 b.c. in China. And today an obvious example from everyday life would be: Bring little children to the toy store with you. Will they run to the subtle coloured wooden toys first, or would they go for the eye popping colours on Barbie, Lego etc. The answer is evident to most parents. And the obvious question to follow would be: For whom do we in fact build playgrounds? Who do you want to attract and appeal to: Children or grown ups? The perfect combination would be to appeal to both these groups. But if we want to stimulate the children to play – to develop all of their physical, mental and social abilities, we must appeal to them, first and foremost!

Sensomotor development
The toddlers develop all their senses – the vision gets integrated with the motor skills. The sense of touch, or the tactile system, is developing every day making the child able to do more and more refined tasks.

Tactile experiences
Outdoor play items to stimulate tactility and fine motor skills: Tactile/mobile elements, sand & water. Most adults do not consider the will power and muscle coordination it takes to draw a ircle. This is not an ability children are born with, they learn it gradually. One of the reasons, that toddlers are only just learning this at the end of the toddler period is physical: The nerves in the palms are not fully developed yet. An infant will not feel extreme heat in the palm as quick as a 4 year old. The nerve responses are not perceived as quickly by the toddlers. 

Toddlers need to learn all the basics of tactile experiences: That a white surface in the sun is cooler than the black surface next to it. That rain feels wet, wind feels smooth against the skin. They need to experience basic facts about materials, that iron is heavier than plastic, plastic different from wood. 

The main tactile experiences of toddlers go through the mouth. Toddlers put things in the mouth to get a good feel of them. To know them better and to taste them. We all did once, but as this is a pre-language experience, we do not remember any more. But we remember the taste: We know what soil tastes like. Or grass. Sand. But do we remember when we ate that? These memories are all situated in our storage of basic skills.

Balance, crawl and sense space
Outdoor play items to stimulate balance, sense of space and cross-body coordination: Little bridges/hills, nets and other climbing activities, stairways, little towers, toddler swings, toddler slides.

Balance is important to the toddlers, too. Toddlers are proportioned differently than older children with relatively short legs and arms and bigger heads. This combined with a limited experience of the world is a challenge to their sense of balance. Balance is an important basic skill  which is the basis for the development of other skills. To train the balance, swings, rocking items and balancing poles are important.  The rocking and swinging furthermore stimulates the awareness of rhythm, which is basic for language learning.

Cross body coordination means lifting your left arm and right leg, right arm and left leg alternatively. It is mandatory that children have this experience for the development of cooperation between left and right brain half. Luckily the majority of children start crawling as infants. But we can stimulate cross body coordination by offering good climb and crawl experiences in their playground

Sense of space is about judging your size compared to sizes and distances and speed in the surroundings. It is a known fact that children stick their heads into holes and forget that their ears will prevent them getting the head out again. Toddlers need to train spatial areness and their whole kinaesthetic system.

They do not need wild activities to do this, little bridges and things you can hide under, walk over are perfect. This might seem dull to adults but toddlers like what is safe, what can be mastered and they love repetition: want to hear the same story a LOT of times. The recognition is great!  

Literature on Colour

Cognition through Color, Jules Davidoff, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1991 (ISBN 0-262-04115-4)

Colour & Culture, John Gage, Thames and Hudson, Singapore 1993

Designing for Play, Barbara E. Hendricks, Ashgate, Aldershot, England 2001 (ISBN 0 7546 1320 8)
The Primary Colours – three essays, Alexander Theroux, Papermac, New York 1994 (ISBN 0 333 67756 0) 

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