The Main Benefits Of Installing a Backyard Playground To Your Arizona Home
Here at All About Play we want to equip your family with the big items that will bring big fun to your backyard. We offer Luxury level trampolines in a range of sizes. In addition, we offer handmade Corn Hole Sets and Portable Basketball goals. But our passion is beautifully crafted Cedar Playsets that are made to last for generations with minimal maintenance. There is nothing that compares to a backyard playground as a kid. There are benefits to being outside in the fresh air being physically active.
Perhaps the most important benefit to that backyard playground is the security of being in the safety of your own backyard and free to let your imagination soar, where you can PLAY.
Consider this excerpt from an article from the Family Resource site, Bright Horizons:
Creative Thinking & Imagination For Child Development
Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Imagination is the door to possibilities. It is where creativity, ingenuity, and thinking outside the box begin for child development. Imaginative and creative play is how children learn about the world. During imaginative play, children manipulate materials, express themselves verbally and non-verbally, plan (intentionally or unintentionally), act, interact, react, and try different roles. Great opportunities for learning are possible when children participate in creative play with dolls, vehicles, blocks, rocks, cardboard, or boxes. Employing creative thinking while manipulating play dough, creating recipes by mixing dirt and water, working with art materials, splashing in puddles, or pretending to fly can further child development.
We all no doubt have memories of doing those very things growing up, I certainly do. I fondly think back to tree forts built from scrap wood and donated materials in the woods or wooden ramps we would jump on our bikes. If you were lucky to grow up in a region where you had fireflies (or what we called lightning bugs), then you certainly have memories that include them.
The backyard is a kid’s safe place. Often, they can play with less supervision, with the ability to create adventure. It is a blank slate that can become a jungle full of tigers and all sorts of beasts, or a vast ocean ripe for exploration. Or maybe it transforms into the wild west full of bandidos in need of capture by a little Sheriff with a big silver star pinned to their shirt. In order to survive the wild jungle, you need a safari vehicle, the ocean, a ship, and that little Sheriff needs a jail to toss those desperados into. That is where we come in. We have 52 different models of playsets that can be customized to any family’s specific needs. We want to help you turn your backyard into a place where adventure never ends, and you can make lifelong memories with your loved ones.
Perhaps the most important things they are doing while playing in the backyard are those that we sometimes take for granted. Things like courage when conquering that big slide for the first time. Maybe it is sympathy and caring when one of their friends skins a knee. Certainly, creativity is being practiced regularly. Just having the security to be themselves and make-believe they are a pirate, the starting QB with 2 minutes left to win the game or even a princess hosting the biggest gala of the season has so much benefit for their growth that it is unmeasurable. In a time where screens and entertainment are such a large part of the world kids do not spend as much time outside (or inside for that matter) “at play”. The “play” that they create rather than having it created for them through a game or movie is even more important now than ever.
Here is an excerpt from The Importance of Play: How Kids Learn by Having Fun, Medically reviewed by Mia Armstrong, MD — Written by Kimberly Zapata on 9/28/20:
The Benefits of Play
While the benefits of play are innumerable — play helps children develop cognitively, physically, socially, and emotionally — there is more to play than fun and games.
Mayra Mendez, PhD, LMFT, a licensed psychotherapist and program coordinator at Providence Saint John’s Child and Family Development Center in Santa Monica, California, tells Healthline, “Play is important because it provides a primary foundation for learning, exploring, problem-solving, and building an understanding of the world and your role within it.” But how do children learn through play? Well, it’s simple. Play allows children the chance to emulate what they see and practice skills. It gives them an outlet for creativity and experimentation, and play helps them learn how to interact and communicate with others.
Cognitive Benefits
Play promotes healthy development and critical thinking skills. It reinforces memory, helps children understand cause and effect, and, according to Mendez, helps children explore the world — and their role in it.
“Young children learn how things fit together through play. It allows them to use their senses and encourages exploration and curiosity, and these skills are the foundation of intellectual development and cognitive processing.”
Play also inspires children to pretend, create, and imagine. Creative, open-ended play helps children conceptualize, brainstorm, and exercise critical thinking skills.
Physical Benefits
Physically, play benefits children in a few ways, namely in the development of their fine and gross motor skills.
“Play benefits motor development by encouraging movement [and the] understanding of spatial relations, promoting motor planning skills, and supporting balance and dexterity,” Mendez says. “It also supports gross motor skills, such as energy, stamina, flexibility, and body awareness.”
Examples of physical play include running, jumping, swimming, block building, dancing, riding bikes, and climbing trees. (When you’re providing opportunities for these types of activities, remember key safety precautions — from bike helmets to pool supervision.)
Social Benefits
Play is also important for social development because it helps children learn how to interact with others.
Through play, children develop an understanding of social expectations and rules, and play provides opportunities to share thoughts and ideas, to listen, and to compromise.
Emotional Benefits
Additionally, play helps children understand and process their emotions.
“Kids process their emotions and new concepts through play,” Kim Wheeler Poitevien, a child therapist in Philadelphia, tells Healthline.
When a child loses a game, for example, they learn to process sadness, anger, and grief. Playing also helps build confidence and encourages the development of their identity and self-esteem.
Finally, from the American Academy of Pediatrics outlines the importance of “PLAY” in an snippet from an article entitled The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds by Kenneth R. Ginsburg, and the Committee on Communications on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. :
“Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. Play is important to healthy brain development. It is through play that children, at a very early age, engage and interact in the world around them. Play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while practicing adult roles, sometimes in conjunction with other children or adult caregivers. As they master their world, play helps children develop new competencies that lead to enhanced confidence and the resiliency they will need to face future challenges. Undirected play allows children to learn how to work in groups, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts, and to learn self-advocacy skills. When play is allowed to be child driven, children practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover their own areas of interest, and ultimately engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue. Ideally, much of play involves adults, but when play is controlled by adults, children acquiesce to adult rules and concerns and lose some of the benefits play offers them, particularly in developing creativity, leadership, and group skills. In contrast to passive entertainment, play builds active, healthy bodies. In fact, it has been suggested that encouraging unstructured play may be an exceptional way to increase physical activity levels in children, which is one important strategy in the resolution of the obesity epidemic. Perhaps above all, play is a simple joy that is a cherished part of childhood.”
We would love a part of bringing a playground or many other options to add fun and “PLAY” to your families’ backyard. In fact, it is all right there in our name: ALL ABOUT PLAY.
