Zoom around play area under fives toddlers
Play Area
A playground or play area is a venue for children to play in a safe area. It may be indoors but is typically outdoors.
Most up to date play centres will have recreational equipment which may include apparatus which can help children develop physical coordination, strength and flexibility, as well as providing recreation and enjoyment.
Playground
A playground or play area is a place with a specific design for children be able to play there. It may be indoors but is typically outdoors (where it may be called a tot lot in some regions.
Modern playgrounds often have recreational equipment such as the see-saw, merry-go-round, swingset, slide, jungle gym, chin-up bars, sandbox, spring rider, monkey bars, overhead ladder, trapeze rings, playhouses, and mazes, many of which help children develop physical coordination, strength, and flexibility, as well as providing recreation and enjoyment. Common in modern playgrounds are "play structures" that link many different pieces of equipment.
Playgrounds often also have facilities for playing informal games of adult sports, such as a baseball diamond, a skating arena, a basketball court, or a tether ball.
Social Skills
Professionals recognize that the social skills that children develop on the playground become lifelong skill sets that are carried forward into their adulthood. Independent research concludes that playgrounds are among the most important environments for children outside the home. Most forms of play are essential for healthy development, but free, spontaneous play-the kind that occurs on playgrounds-is the most beneficial type of play.
Seesaw with a crowd of children playing
Rope bridge for improving balance
Children have devised many playground games and pastimes. But because playgrounds are usually subject to adult supervision and oversight, young children's street culture often struggles to fully thrive there. Research by Robin Moore (Childhood's Domain: Play and Place, 1986) has clearly shown that playgrounds need to be balanced with marginal areas that (to adults) appear to be derelict or wasteground but to children they are area's that they can claim for themselves, ideally a wooded area or field.