Early Childhood Playgrounds

Playgrounds can be found all over neighborhoods, towns, and schools and provide an excellent way for children in early and middle childhood to develop and work on physical growth in a safe way. Children go through a sensitive period which is a point in development when organisms are susceptible to stimuli in their environments (Feldman, 2017). Gross and fine motor skills are able to be developed further through play in an environment such as parks and are different for children in the early and middle childhood phases. Several senses are stimulated in this type of environment and provide different forms of play. The materials used to make playground equipment can have an effect on the senses, gross, and fine motor skills that are used. To further …show more content…
Swings are a common piece of equipment that can be found in most parks and allow children to further develop coordination as well as gain a concept of how movement affects speed. Gross motor skills for early childhood on the swing are the ability to balance and have body coordination which are related to the development of the brain and neurons in the brain. In the early childhood phase they are able to sit in the seat of the swing and use their legs back and forth to propel themselves forward which. As the development of children go into middle childhood they are able to show the improvement of their gross motor skills of swinging by running and jumping into the seat of the swing or even jumping off the swing while they are in the air. Fine motor skills that are developed are in early childhood would be hand and arm coordination or even grip strength. Middle childhood children would be working on the motion of their arms and legs in a simultaneous motion when doing actions such as jumping off the swing. Senses that are stimulated are depth perception because of the feeling of height that a swing gives you. Visual senses are also engaged because swings provide a different perspective of the park as a child would be