| Brief Guide to playground marking and painting |
| Why are playgrounds so important? |
| Playground environments are important because they can influence and enable children's creative play. A safe, calm and creative space will probably help inspire good play whereas a dull, hard open space will inspire boredom and will allow "boys games" like football to dominate everyone. Playground design is a large subject but this guide assumes playground designs within a given space. Marking certainly can help make a big difference in improving an outdoor play space. |
| Whose job is it anyway? |
| Often no one wants to take responsibility for this "no-man's land" overstretched teachers often don't feel it's within their territory and caretakers feel it's more than just repair. You can find specialist line-marking companies to do the job but that is expensive and you tend to get "standard" patterns. This guide assumes you are a parent or teacher who has decided to do the job yourself. |
| Ideas of what to paint |
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Playground games where pieces are needed can work well. For example giant chess, giant draughts, noughts and crosses or nine-men's-morris. The pieces for all these games can be obtained from http://www.giantgames.co.uk.
You can also mark down patterns for many games that require no pieces such as: skipping grids, square grids, number squares, spirals, or large clocks. Many of these will encourage children to invent their own games around them. Compasses and maps or the UK or the world work well too. In most schools the playground will be used for PE and some other lessons so that you should consult with the PE department as to what will work well for them. They will often want goals marked, tracks for various races, cricket stumps or even netball courts. |
| Some wacky ideas |
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They say that the only limit to what you can do is your imagination and this is very true of playgrounds - what about marking out a treasure hunt, a mystery trail or a collection of linked words in French or German? Or you could be Magritte-like and write the names of colours in those colours - this could allow you to teach children what those really puzzling colours look like such as magenta, beige, lilac, primrose.
Mazes are popular (use colour as the key rather than hedges!) and you can find designs on the Internet (or make your own). |
| Before you design |
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Often playground painting is done at weekends, but when designing you should make sure that you have watched the children first during a break time or lunchtime. See how they use space, where the thoroughfares are and which areas are shady/sunny. See what other features there are and how the playground designs will work with the rougher games. How does the painting relate to the quiet picnic areas and footballing areas?
When you've sketched a design discuss it with the head, the children, the PTA and others. You will want to get wide support but also you can pick up good new ideas. You might well get a larger budget if people understand what you are trying to do. |
| Preparation of surfaces |
| Usually playgrounds are tarmac and it is very important to sweep it thoroughly. Not just a light sweep but really hard with a stiff broom so that you are not painting onto dust. Obviously the painting must be done on a day when it is very dry. |
| Types of paint |
| Masonry paint is easy to get hold of and to clean off brushes. It is also quite cheap. It doesn't last as well as special playground paints which are usually spirit based and available from most large paint suppliers but not from your local DIY store. You can find suppliers at http://www.paintshop.co.uk |
| Grid systems |
| If you have a design such as an outline of the UK you can draw or copy it onto a grid and then mark out the grid on the playground with chalk. Then draw the lines for each square. This is an easy and effective way to expanding your designs. To do the chalk lines you can use chalk sticks and rulers but a much quicker and more effective way is to use a chalk line. These are strings impregnated with chalk and you stretch them out and ping them to make a line. You can find supplies at http://www.toolshop.co.uk. |
| Chess or draughts boards |
| The chalk line system works well for these, but you will also need to do a right angle. The best way to do a right angle. The best way to do that is to use a 5,4,3 triangle which of course has a right angle opposite the longer side. In metres these are rather long lengths to measure so a triangle of 2.5metres by 2 metres by 1.5 metres works well. Surprisingly you can usually hammer galvanised nails (or masonry nails) into tarmac which is a great way to hold the strings while you are marking the lines. If you can involve the children while you are marking out the area this gives them a lot of ownership. Some schools will allow you to involve them in the painting too which can be fun (or just very painty!) |
| Conclusion |
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You can make a big impact for the better with playground designs. You may have to work hard to get staff and parents to see the playground as an area as not just a "one-off problem" but a continuing opportunity. It is at least a highly visible project. Good luck. Please email me with any photos of what you've done. We'll try to put them up onto the website as ideas that others can copy.
Supplies of paint can be found at http://www.paintshop.co.uk and other information at http://www.playgrounds.co.uk. |
| Comments, copyright and linking |
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Comments on this brief guide would be welcome. Also, please let us know if you do put in a link to this guide from your website and we will try to reciprocate with a link from us to your site.
Copyright: these pages are protected by copyright and reproduction of this material is strictly prohibited. Copyright belongs to Giant Games Limited, owner of the briefguides.co.uk and onlineshopping.co.uk websites. © 1997-2006 Giant Games Limited, but you are welcome to have a link to this webpage. |