How an Indoor Playground Can Help Your Day Care or Preschool
When you’re running a day care or preschool, you have several equally important goals.
You want to keep the kids engaged and entertained. You want to provide educational options that are great for their development, and, most importantly, you want to keep them safe.
It can be very hard to balance all of those goals but adding an indoor playground for day-care or preschool facilities is a great start. Here are a few reasons why indoor playground equipment is great for your business, and the families you serve.
What Are Indoor Playgrounds?
Indoor playgrounds are any kind of play equipment that is installed inside a building instead of outdoors.
These days, day care indoor playground equipment usually means a commercially manufactured and professionally installed playscape, because they’re built strong and safe enough for lots of kids to use every day.
Generally, when you have indoor playground equipment for a business like a day-care or a preschool that will get a lot of use, you don’t want to use the same kind of residential equipment you would put in your backyard.
These systems can be any size or shape though, and are often designed specifically for the space they will be installed in. There are also different kinds of custom playground equipment for different age groups, and many different themes to choose from – so they’re great for any kind of childcare facility.
You Can Use Indoor Playground Equipment All Year Round!
No matter where you are, there’s a good chance that there’s at least some parts of the year where outdoor play is not a good idea. Maybe it’s thunderstorms, or smoky air from wildfires. Perhaps you live in a place where you get a lot of snow, or you could have a serious summer bug problem.
Whatever the reason, it can be very hard to keep kids active and entertained when you have to keep them indoors. But not if you have day-care indoor playground equipment!
When you have custom indoor playground equipment for your kids to enjoy, it doesn’t matter what the weather does! No one will mind if there are swarms of mosquitos outside, or if it’s too hot, too cold or too wet – because they can do all their playing in a temperature controlled space in your building!
A Contained Space
Sometimes, day-cares and preschools have outdoor play areas that are fenced. However, they frequently don’t, or they use public playgrounds for their outdoor play.
Even with the required number of people nearby, supervising play, there’s always a chance that one or more of the kids using the playground might decide to explore further afield. This can be dangerous if there are busy roads nearby.
There’s also a chance that other people and even dogs might be using the space at the same time, and not being able to keep them separated from your day-care or preschool group might be a safety problem.
Indoor playground equipment is installed inside your facility, so you have complete control over who uses the space, and where they can go. So there’s no risk of any children wandering off, or of any unwanted visitors being nearby during play time!
Safe Design
If your day care or preschool is using outdoor equipment for play, there’s a chance it might be a little older, and might not have some of the safety features newer, custom playground equipment does.
When you install an indoor playground for day-cares or preschools, you have complete control of all the safety features. So whether it’s padded matting for toddler play areas or carefully rounded corners, every step that can be taken to keep the kids in your care safe will be taken care of.
Fun and Educational Themes
Play is so much more than just a way for kids to get rid of some energy. It’s how children learn and develop, and it’s so important to having happy, healthy children.
You want to give the children who attend your day care or preschool the very best support for their learning and growth and creating fun and educational playgrounds for day care is a great way to do that.
Whether you choose a nature theme, pirate ships or something else, there are so many opportunities to build pretend play, puzzles and more into the custom indoor playground equipment you choose.
The sky really is the limit, so you can get creative so your kids not only have great indoor playground equipment, but they also have a special place where they can let their imaginations run wild!
Easy to Monitor
Another great reason to have indoor playground equipment rather than using a public playground or outdoor play space is that it’s a whole lot easier to monitor this kind of space.
You can install benches or seating for teachers and parents, and you can also have a security cameras and other monitoring features, so you always know exactly what is happening!
No More Vandals
Unfortunately, vandalism of public spaces is a fact of modern life. Even if you have a fenced outdoor play area for your day care or preschool, there’s still the chance that you will have to deal with graffiti, broken equipment and other problems from time to time.
When you have custom indoor playground equipment, you can be sure that when you lock up for the night and turn the security system on, your playground will be just the way you left it the next day.
So you’ll never have to restrict access because of broken equipment or deal with insurance claims.
Easy to Clean
When you take the kids from your day care or preschool to an outdoor playground or a public space, you really don’t have any control over how clean it is. There are usually no options to wash their hands before and after either, and everyone uses the equipment with their shoes on!
Add the usual outdoor problems like bird droppings and more, and you’ve got a pretty unsanitary situation to deal with.
Indoor playground equipment isn’t exposed to those kinds of environmental issues, and you have complete control over how kids use it. So you can make sure they take their shoes off and wash their hands before and after.
This kind of custom indoor playground equipment is also made to be cleaned frequently and easily, so you can keep it in great shape at all times.
Happier, Healthier Kids
When children have easy and safe access to active play, they are happier, healthier and more open to learning.
Children learn through play, and not just academically. They also learn to share, and master important social skills. They learn to problem solve, and how to navigate difficult situations. They learn to be creative, and how to use their imagination to create games that are fun and challenging for everyone involved.
They also learn that it’s okay not to get things right the first time you try, and how great it feels when you do!
Giving the children in your day care or preschool a custom indoor playground where they can experience all that and more any time, they want to be one of the best things you can do for the kids in your care.
Be the Day care or Preschool Everyone Wants to Attend
The final reason you should consider day care indoor playground equipment is that if you are the only day care in your area that has this fantastic feature, you’re always going to have a waiting list that’s longer than any other facility!
Families are always looking for special features like this, and they all want to give their children the very best. There may even be an opportunity to earn extra money from your space by renting the indoor playground area to families who want to host birthday parties and other family events on weekends!
Whether you choose that option or not, however, if you’re the only day care or preschool with indoor playground equipment, you won’t have to do a lot of marketing to set yourself apart from the rest!
Whatever You Need, We Can Help!
Day-cares and preschools come in all shapes and sizes, and no two are exactly the same.
You will have a different budget, different amount of space, and cater to a different group of kids. Maybe your day care already has a theme, or maybe you’re just starting to create a dream day care of preschool for families in your community.
Whatever your custom indoor playground needs are, our team can help. We build high quality, commercial grade play spaces for every need and age group. From swings to slides and cargo nets to climbing walls, you can choose exactly what you want from our extensive catalog and build the kind of indoor playground you wish you had when you were a kid!
We work with day cares, out of school cares and preschools to design and build their dream indoor playground, and we can help you too! So contact us, and let’s make your ideas come to life!