Draw a playground plan to make sure that it will be the way you want.
Planning a playground for your children or your local community can be as simple as making some lines and sketches on a piece of paper. You need a clear picture in your head of what you want and then basic skills to reproduce that onto paper in a way that you can understand.
Instructions
1. Decide how big the area of the playground will be and what you want to go in it. Much will depend on the area of land that you have available and the ages of the children that the playground is being designed for.
2. Decide upon a scale that you will use for your drawing, for example, 1 inch on the ruler equals 1 yard on the ground. Note this on the paper so that everyone who looks at the plan will know the scale.
3. Draw the outline of the area of the playground on your paper. This needs to be to scale, too. Mark on this drawing any natural features such as trees or slopes. These will also need to be drawn to scale. With the outline in place you can then decide where you want to put the fixtures that you are going to put in the playground.
4. Decide the best place for everything. A shady area might be a good place to plan for a seated area. If your playground is going to be a large communal one rather than in your backyard you should have more than one seated area so that parents can move around the playground and keep an eye on their children.
5. Make scale cutouts of swings and slides, which will allow you to move them around the plan without drawing them on the plan before you make a final decision.
6. Leave enough space around swings and slides. Swings need enough space to allow for children jumping off them while they are still moving. Factor in plenty of space around all the components of the playground to allow for moving around.
7. Draw everything onto the paper when you are happy with the design and that everything is in the right place. This plan will be your reference once the construction of the playground begins.
