Make Your Yard A Playground For All the Chidren

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 51, 9 February 1949, Page 3

Make Your Yard A Playground For All the Chidren

If you have children and a space around your house, you probably have a “yarden,” as one mother rather mournfully nicknamed the area she would have liked to see an emerald velvet lawn.. With work, a little money, a little knowledge, and a little ground you can make an ideal place in which your children can live, play and learn. Plan Your Yard If your space is not too small it can be so. planned that you may still have some lawn and a little garden besides. If you have cooperative neighbours with children the same ages as yours, it may even be possible to pool your playground space, thus providing a bigger play area and leaving more room for flowers and grass. j These play spaces are real nutturing and proving grounds for children. They keep them off the streets, centre their interests and development around the home, provide social contacts and, equally important, can supply the child with the equipment for creative effort and play—especially that active kind of play which is so difficult to provide indoors. Simple Equipment Here are some items you could provide for your children’s playground. A sandbox. This is almost indispensable and a source of endlesspleasure. With an awning it can be used even in hot weather. Add shovels and pails, simple chutes for the sand, little pans and a judicious amount of water for “pies” and your little children will be wisely occupied for many hours. A swing. Children adore it Two ropes from a high apple branch and a well-sandpapered board of the right proportions for the seat can be used by even a very small child who is at all venturesome. Of course, you must be prepared to do the pushing at first. A low table and chair have many uses outdoors for the very young and are “easy as pie” to make. Children can eat lunch at the table, look at books, draw, and even build and play with small toys.