In the late 1940’s and early 50’s Chicago offered children many parks to play in. One I particularly remember had a fountain and surrounding it was an area of sand to build castles and other structures.
There were also the usual swings, merry-go-rounds, climbing gyms, teeter-totters and slides with wooden rollers (some of you are now smiling). Nowadays, with most of these parks remodeled, kids play on large modular construction systems, adventure playsets designed to last a lifetime and unharmed by any type of harsh weather.
If your child’s day care center has one of these “large-scale” modular constructions systems to play on he will able to play safely as he develops gross and fine motor skills as well as social play interaction. The play set may even have a nice smooth slide or a ball cage to jump in.
Even though these adventure playsets may be more educational than the merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters we played on as a child we can only hope their memories will be more pain free than we experienced from sliding down wooden roller slides.