Crates!

One of the best things I ever discovered for our playground was milk crates - and not just any old crates oh no - ours are the deluxe version!! Originally we did have some of the traditional ones but I found that the children got their feet stuck in the spaces for the milk bottles. A few years back our milk provider changed & the new one began to leave 2-3 crates a week outside the school. They were just perfect for us! I managed to gather up a whole pile of them over the months until the milk man stopped using crates at our school, I suppose he was fed up of them not coming back!

Crate seats

A walk way of crates - running because she is so keen to get back to the start of the course!

We use them as seats mostly, they are brilliant for this purpose & can be left outside in all weathers with no fear of them being damaged. They can be lined up to provide a walk way or with planks added to lengthen the walk, they can be stacked on top of each other to provide steps. The children can carry stuff about in them or put dolls to bed in them. They have to learn to be careful when walking on them as they are very hard if they fall onto them. 

(When Peter from Cosy Direct visited our school, he loved these crates & managed to persuade the suppliers to start making them for him, to be able to sell them as an outdoor resource for schools. So if you ring for a copy of the latest Cosy catalogue 01332 370152, you'll see packs of these same crates available to buy for your setting. They are in packs of 6 or 30 and if you can't get them from a friendly milkman you should invest in them, they will last for ever, promise!)