The importance of a playground. #ip-dip-dopp

Earlier this month I was fortunate to get the opportunity to visit Stockholm through Meynell Games' Ip-Dip Dopp Mobility scheme. You can find out more about Ip-Dip here: http://www.ip-dip.com
Originally the visit was to look at the impact of the adult of children's play but the focus then changed to the training of those working with children outside of school time in Stockholm.
Whilst there, I took the opportunity to meet up with a fellow blogger who I had been on line friends with for around 4 years. It was lovely to meet up with Suzanne from Interaction Imagination & we also got the chance to visit her preschool for a morning.

Suzanne & I finally meet up in person, after years of chatting on line!

One of the days on our tour, we spent the morning visiting playgrounds across Stockholm with a landscape architect and member of the Swedish Play Association. Anna, explained how originally when many of the new apartment blocks were built around the city, it was intended couples who had already raised their families would live in them but instead many young couples and families moved in. Therefore there was suddenly a need to provide play spaces for children and preschools and schools. Now, when new housing is being built the ground floor is usually set aside for use by schools or preschools. This in turns leads to other issues as these spaces do not usually have dedicated playgrounds for the schools to use.
We saw lots of schools in blocks that had offices, shops or housing in the rest of the building. This meant that there were always lots of children evident in the city as we walked about, the younger children were in hi-vis vests walking with teachers whilst with the older children we noticed the teachers wore the hi-vis vests not the children.
Suzanne had explained to me many times that her school had no playground and therefore she had to take her class out and about to various play parks each day for them to have outdoor play experiences. We were lucky to accompany her and a colleague and their class to a great play park with lots of natural elements and there was another preschool in the park at the same time as us.

The class had to climb up a steep, muddy bank to reach this amazing play park, situated on a hill overlooking Stockholm.

Whilst I marvelled at the experience of choosing a park and then travelling by subway or bus to explore these spaces, I did have to wonder about the fact that the children don't have a familiar everyday play space to explore. I know that my class love just being in the playground some days & even when we come back from Bear Woods or being on a trip off site, they want to just play for a while in the playground. By being in the same space every day they can revisit familiar play types but also build upon their experiences and extend their play day to day. It is a well known fact that young children need the opportunity of repetition to master many skills and make sense of their world, we have all seen children try and try again to master a new skill e.g. climbing on a wobbly log or getting up on a structure. So I do wonder about those children in the Stockholm preschools who are not having these opportunities to build upon their skills through repetition - it is not as if they go to the same space off site again and again on a daily basis.
Suzanne did take us to visit the playground of an older preschool and it was easy to spot the more established ones as we walked about the city as they usually and a dedicated outdoor space attached to the building. Interestingly, though, these playgrounds must be available to the surrounding residents in the evenings and weekends. (The same was true of our partner school in Iceland)
The playground at Mosebacke Forskolor seemed a more familiar space to me, as a nursery teacher and it was great to see so many different areas zoned off for the children to use and interact with on a regular basis. Their loose parts display was one to be envied indeed. They also had an incredibly high sloping structure and climbing wall.

Apologies - it was dark when visiting the playground! Such a treasure haul of loose parts & a very steep climbing slope!

I think that is admirable that city planners are  making sure developers take the educational needs of children into consideration with every new site but I do have concerns that the free nature of play - just opening a door and allowing children to play in a familiar space is being lost to many in Stockholm. We saw some great play parks but they are not the same as a well used and resource playground.

Suzanne has written many posts on some of the many play parks around Stockholm - you can read them here: http://interactionimagination.blogspot.co.uk/p/parks-and-play-in-stockholm.html