Playground 2015

We are hoping to develop our school playground.  The children have contributed their own thoughts and designs.

In Nursery, we really enjoyed exploring and planning our playground design.  We made 3D models using card, paper and junk, and talked about how the equipment is designed.  We visited the park and drew pictures on the iPads of our favourite pieces of equipment, then talked about them when we came back to school.  We also had the opportunity to move the gymnastics equipment in the hall and design the layout to represent how we would like our playground to look.We read books about pieces of equipment in the playground and talked about how the pieces move, for example the roundabout and see-saw.​

The children in Reception were excited about the idea of their new playground. They have explored all the different items they might want in their playground. We designed our own playgrounds, created maps, wrote lists, built and made junk models for the playground. The children enjoyed taking ownership of this, and their favourite park activity was going to Mill Hill Park to explore the equipment. They are so excited to see the ​playground being built and can't wait to use the new equipment.

To help us with our playground designs, Year 1 went to Mill Hill Park at the beginning of term. We focused on the different types of equipment found in a playground and explored push and pull movements. We then created non-fiction leaflets to present the information gathered and used captions and labels to explain drawings and photographs.We also used the trip to stimulate discussion around what we would and wouldn’t like in our school playground and why. This led onto us creating labelled aerial view designs.

We thoroughly enjoyed our playground workshop, where we learnt how to make moving 3D sculptures of swings and see-saws! The children then applied the skills learnt to design their own climbing frame and playground models.

Year 2 started off our playground topic by visiting the park to measure different playground objects.  The children used meter sticks to assist them with their measuring.  They then compared two items from the playground and used the greater than and less than signs.  Upon return to the classroom the children designed their own playgrounds and brought these to life by making their playground in a shoe box.  The children also wrote Mrs Baron a letter explaining what they would like to feature in the playground and the reasons why.  The children really impressed their teacher Mrs Hyman with their creative designs for the school playground!

In Year 3 we enjoyed planning, designing and building our model playgrounds. We enjoyed participating in a fantastic workshop where we learnt joining skills and how to make our models move as required. We thought carefully about what we wanted in our school playground and designed our models based around our ideas for the school. We chose the materials carefully  that we would need and worked hard to make our models stand up and move as appropriate. We then added talking postcards to make them interactive for others to enjoy. 

It was a fantastic project! We worked together as a team and built something we were all very proud of.