Tool 12 Evaluate Results
Ensure that the natural playground offers a variety of opportunities by evaluating it against developmental play needs.
When do you use the Evaluate Results tool?
When you evaluate, you want to establish if your playground is offering play opportunities that will impact on the holistic development of children. The evaluate results tool helps you to check that as many as possible of the developmental play needs of children are catered for in your playground.
Who can use the Evaluate Results tool?
- Individuals
- Groups or teams
How do you use the Evaluate Results tool?
Work through the tool to determine whether your playground offers a variety of play opportunities for children. Mark if the listed opportunity is available in your natural playground.
Use Figure 12 to refresh your memory on the different types of play and the play opportunities in Section 1 as a guide for the appropriate type of play for different age groups.
Evaluate Results
Does your playground offer opportunities for…
Physical play:
- Running, walking
- Crawling under and over
- Skipping, hopping, and jumping
- Climbing
- Sliding
- Balancing
- Rocking
- Rotating and spinning
- Playing with a ball
- Riding scooters and bikes
Social and solitary play:
- Quiet places to sit, talk, or think
- Places to hide
- Interaction with other children
- Playing on their own
Creative play:
- Sand and mud
- Water
- Natural loose parts
- Recycled loose parts
- Chalk, drawing, or painting
- Music or sound making items
- Pretend play items and places
- Performing areas
Does the playground?
- Encourage play
- Stimulate the senses
- Stimulate curiosity
- Stimulate imaginative play
- Support maths and science play
- Support opportunities for communication
- Encourage a love of nature
