Play Articles

25 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR OUTDOOR SPACE

by Jim Greenman

Jim Greenman is the author of Caring Spaces, Learning Places.

  1. Reconsider your use of space:

    Are you using your space effectively? What more could you do? Think of your space as an outdoor classroom and an environmental yard.

  2. Improve your outdoor storage:

    The more convenient storage outside, the more loose parts. Add storage areas, sheds, benches, cages, boxes

  3. Organize your outdoor storage:

    If you canít find it or get to it, you canít use it. Add shelves, hooks, crates, bins, sacks

  4. Loose parts:

    Add trikes, wagons, wheelbarrows, balls, bags, jump ropes, buckets, shovels, sifters, bicycle tires, tubes, tubs, etc.

  5. Increase your use of water:

    Add hoses, water tables, tubs, sprinklers, gutters, spray bottles, ice

  6. Wrap your space:

    wrap a climber with a parachute or tarp

  7. Improve your landscape:

    add trees, shrubs, berms, round boulders, drift wood, plants

  8. Improve your outdoor art:

    add easels, chalk, big paint brushes

  9. Natural materials:

    Take advantage of leaves, pods, driftwood, melon size stones, add a sand or mud pit

  10. Create a Construction Zone:

    Add cartons, blocks, crates planks, sawhorses, rope, duct tape, poles with pulleys and clotheslines

  11. Take-out science:

    magnifying glasses, measuring tape, jars, rain gauges, chemicals (food coloring, baking soda, paint)

  12. Develop a pathway:

    Use pavers, wood rounds, stone, buried tires and posts, slats

  13. Ornamental fences:

    picket or rail to define space, to climb, to trail your hands on

  14. More loose parts:

    add fabric, dress up clothes, back packs, sacks wood pieces, wheels

  15. Sites for drama:

    create a lean-to, a playhouse, a grotto, a platform

  16. Garden plots or planters:

    Create multiple small plots or use planters

  17. Birds and animals:

    bird feeders, bird baths, a rabbit area, a butterfly garden

  18. Create skeletal structures:

    simple benches, ladder-like frames, hurdle-like structures

  19. Use other outdoor space:

    your sidewalk, small patches in front or on the side, parks

  20. Improve playground safety:

    Use the Consumer Product Safety Commission Guidelines

  21. Picnic tables and benches:

    child size and adult size

  22. Throwing area:

    create a safe area to throw beanbags, balls, stones

  23. A jumping platform:

    create places to jump from 24 to 36 inches high

  24. Create a multi-age family area or time on the playground

  25. Create places to balance:

    beams, logs, stumps

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