What's in a Dream? Natural Elements, Risk and Loose Parts in Children's Dream Playspace Drawings

Abstract

IN THIS PAPER, CHILDREN'S idealised playspace drawings, arising from their participation in planning a children's playground in a local shopping centre, are examined. This examination is conducted by engaging with theories of human/nature connection, significance of place, and children as agents in co-construction of playspaces. Analysis of the drawings—through a combination of iterative visual methods and children's narratives—highlights the value children place on being outdoors and on natural elements, loose parts and activity in their play. The playspaces imagined/drawn by the children are in stark contrast to the design of play environments in many schools and early childhood settings where safety and supervision are the dominant focus. These conflicting views are examined in the context of international discourse on playspace design, and the concluding discussion adds to the growing number of voices affirming that children should be actively engaged in the planning process and become co-constructors in spaces that are designed for their use.

Environmental Correlates of Motor Competence in Children—The Skilled Kids Study

“…The theory of affordance has also been applied to young children’s motor learning contexts [10] as well as explaining PA in children, in terms of outdoor play [11], independent mobility [11,12] and the amount of affordances in the environment [13]. Previous research has shown that children find outdoor environments stimulating and motivating [12,14,15], for example, large yards that provide affordances to play and run [16]. Indeed, free running and playing are important for the development of locomotor (LM) skills, such as walking, running, climbing, galloping and jumping [17].…”

The dynamic relationship between outdoor environments and children’s play

“…on logs), rolling (e.g. down a grassy hill), and children have expressed a wish for nature spaces and nature features in order to engage in active and challenging play (Brussoni et al 2020;Jansson 2015;Ward 2018). In the present study, some of the participating ECEC institutions had limited or no access to natural spaces within their playground.…”

“…Children have a preference for play where they can manipulate, explore and construct with materials such as water, stones, sand, tools, leaves, twigs, dirt, flowers, tires, ropes, toys, etc. (Brussoni et al 2020;Jansson 2015;Ward 2018;Zamani 2016). Looking at spaces that promote constructive play, the results show that nature spaces and sandboxes afford opportunities for constructive play.…”

“…Nevertheless, there is reason to ask whether this makes less space for equipment that affords other types of play and as such makes the play space less diverse and inviting for more diverse play. On the other hand, in children's view, this kind of equipment are what they ideally want to be included in their play environment (Ward 2018).…”

“…Combining the use of diverse play materials in these spaces would give very good conditions for creating constructive play, with a mix of defined toys, open-ended materials and more natural materials. One could expect that this would lead to nonlinear creative exploration of different ways of using the material to construct new and existing play props (Fromberg, 2006;Muela et al 2019;Ward 2018;Zamani 2016). Earlier studies have, similar to the present study, found nature spaces (Zamani 2016) and sandboxes (Dyment and O'Connell 2013) to afford constructive and exploratory play.…”