FRC: Playground

"I was the ruler and the playground was my kingdom..."

In developing an FRC, the environment around the center can be as important as the facilities inside. Developing an outside play area is one way of increasing your visibility in the community and promoting a child friendly neighborhood.

Other Ideas

Many FRCs are intentionally located near local parks or playgrounds. Make these existing resources part of your activities with parents and children.
Collaborate with local parks and recreation departments in developing classes for parents and children.
Even a small fenced in area near an FRC can become a play area. Plant grass, create a sand box (with a cover), buy or have donated a small slide and sturdy indoor-outdoor toys and then add children and caregivers - voila! A toddler playground is born!
Take families on nature walks in the community; bird watch from the front steps of your center, watch the clouds and tell stories.
Create a mural on the walls of your family resource center. Include hand prints of all the children or work with your local arts council to find a muralist who knows how to incorporate children and families into creating a mural.
Visit the web sites below for many more creative ideas and resources!

Helpful Links

KaBOOM!
www.kaboom.org

KaBOOM! is a nonprofit organization devoted to helping community groups during each step of building and maintaining their playground. This group provides technical resources, fundraising ideas, and help in getting local companies involved through employee volunteers, funding, etc., and provides a free "Getting Started" kit. Very helpful areas of this site to click on are "Build It Yourself", which gives an extensive 8-step roadmap to create a playground, each of which is further broken down with lots of information about each component; and "Resources," which gives helpful publications, tips, factoids, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commissin Public Playground Safety Checklist.

Parent Teachers Organization - Playground Pages
www.ptotoday.com/playground.html

This site is the source of information on building a community playground, bringing the community together to raise funds and support the construction, safety issues, and a playground marketplace for needed products.

National Program for Playground Safety
www.uni.edu/playground

This site's "Resources and Statistics" section has links to many sites for safety guidelines and materials available. For example, there are links to playground equipment and playground surface manufacturers/distributors, safety and injury prevention resources, and potential sources of funding for playgrounds. The organization has several brochures to order on fundraising for playgrounds, planning the play area, safety, etc. (one copy of each is free).

Game Central Station
www.gamecentralstation.com

A resource for parents and anyone working with children. There are over 350 games for preschool-12th grade. Each game includes instructions, equipment needed, skills, related sports, and more. You can search by name of game, grade, skills, related sport, and location. Many are outdoor games and most are for groups. Includes links to physical education and lots of other game sites

Games Kids Play
www.gameskidsplay.net

Site with a wide variety of children’s games, the majority of which are for the outdoors. Site is divided by category, eg., ball games, circle games, jump rope rhymes, strength games, etc. There is a section on international games and lots of games that have not yet been indexed.