Safe Outdoor Play Equipment and Surfacing (Workshop One) and Creative Alternatives for Safe Outdoor Play (Workshop Two)
 
Problem:
Family child care providers in Southwest Iowa often have no safe surfacing, fall zones, or equipment for young children in their care.  Nor do they have many ideas for safe creative play WITHOUT expensive equipment. Providers need to have resources and new ideas to rediscover the world OUTSIDE their door!
 
Response:
A training was designed specifically for child development homes who do not have the financial means for expensive equipment/safe surfacing. 
 
The first two-hour evening the providers were given the specifics needed for safe equipment and surfacing, and terms they did not understand were reviewed.  Measuring fall zones, how to determine whether community park equipment is safe, entrapment, etc. were topics we covered.  Each provider was given our full set of playground safety publications, including the Univeristy of Northern Iowa’s National Playground Safety  website and our ISUE template for measuring entrapment.
 
The second two-hour evening occurred one week after the first workshop and included making several inexpensive safe pieces of equipment, sharing fun activities across the curriculum, and planning for outdoor play.
 
Impact:
Twenty-seven providers attended both trainings, as they could not sign up for just one of the trainings. I invited providers to complete the usual, required end-of-meeting form and asked them to write their written plan on a 3x5 card. Twelve providers completed the cards:  From the 12 mailed cards (4 weeks after the training along with another short questionnaire), 5 providers completed an enclosed questionnaire to determine the following:
 

1. I accomplished my goal: 4 of the 5 responded “yes”.  1-“no” with this comment: “it’s still on my agenda to do: plastic tube with funnel to mix colors, though did some of the fun games you shared…” 
2. Other ideas we tried that were shared at the workshops: “Criss-cross dancing;  more take-home projects for the kids/parents to do together to discover the outside; we explored the color-changing tube – I would add one color and have the kids guess what color would be mixed;  we made a glitter tube; poured water through a clear tube and watched it come out the other end!  Parachute games, blowing balls with straws across the picnic table; it was evident that new skills were developed; paint with water outside …”
3. How effective were the handouts: All providers who attended the training were asked this question and all 27 providers responded that the handouts were very effective. Comments from the 5 returned cards 4 weeks after the second workshop included: “Many new ideas for me”; “I am checking public playgrounds now and can’t believe what I see!...parachute games”;  “many new outside games to try that aren’t competitive”;  “never knew outside could be so fun - the cross-over dancing has been really fun-they love it!”;   “the handouts reinforce that we, as providers, need to plan activities for BOTH inside and outside – and they don’t have to be the fancy toys to be fun.”

Contact:
Mary Hughes
Family Life Field Specialist
3501 Harry Langdon Blvd
Council Bluffs, IA 51503-7837
Phone 712-366-7070; Fax 712-366-7024
Email mhughes@iastate.edu  

 

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