Play Anywhere: Creative Ways to Extend Play Beyond the Playground Structure

Children have always found ways to turn everyday spaces into opportunities for play. A few chalk squares become hopscotch, a bench becomes home base and a simple walk around the block turns into follow-the-leader. When a playground is designed, that same creativity can extend beyond the main play structure to the entire environment.

Every part of a commercial playground can invite movement, imagination, sensory exploration and connection. That includes its edges, its landscape and the open ground between play areas. Play can even move indoors.

What Does It Mean to Design Play Anywhere?

Designing play anywhere means looking beyond the main play structure and recognizing opportunities throughout the entire playspace. From fences and slopes to open areas and indoor environments, every space offers the potential to encourage movement, imagination, exploration and connection. By incorporating play throughout a site, communities can create more opportunities for children to engage, interact and discover something new.

On a new installation, the space beneath a play structure's platforms can hold play of its own when it's planned into the design. The Niche Capsule Nano™ is sized to fit under a platform, and single-post activities add sensory and fine motor play along the posts.

Playground Fencing That Invites Play

A fence defines the space, and it can be one of the first things children play with. Fusion Playful Fencing^® builds activities into the perimeter itself, with panels for games, spinning, tracing and touch set at a child's height. Add-on play panels attach to new or existing fences and walls, so a boundary can hold a three-in-a-row game or a mirror panel without changing what it already does. A welcome sign at the gate marks the entrance as the start of the fun, and families waiting there or siblings hanging out at the edge find something to do. By incorporating play into the perimeter, spaces that traditionally serve a functional purpose can also create opportunities for engagement, exploration and interaction.

Hillside Slides and Climbers on Sloped Sites

Sloped ground is one of the most natural places for play. Rather than viewing changes in elevation as obstacles, playground designers can use the natural landscape to create unique play experiences that complement the surrounding environment. Hillside slides, sometimes called embankment slides, run along the grade, and hillside climbers turn the same slope into a way up. Together they connect different levels of a site and give a pocket park, schoolyard or destination playground a feature that works with the land.

Play Beyond the Main Structure

Open ground between play areas offers space to spread activity out. MOVMNT^® is a people-powered electronic game that gets children chasing, reaching and reacting together. It can spread out as a freestanding game, or a more compact version can integrate into compatible play structures. PlayEnsemble^® outdoor musical instruments invite anyone passing by to make music, no lessons required. StemPlay^® adds hands-on panels where children work through science and engineering concepts on their own terms.

Classic games belong here as well. A Gaga Ball pit, Funnel Ball™ or tetherball gives a group a quick game to rally around. Placed across a site, pieces like these keep children and the adults with them moving from one end of the playground to the other, with more places to play together along the way.

Indoor Play All Year

The concept of play anywhere extends indoors, too. Indoor environments offer additional opportunities to incorporate movement, exploration and active play throughout the year. From schools to community centers, indoor playspaces can help keep children engaged when outdoor play isn't an option.

Milwaukee College Prep, a network of K3-8 schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, brought play inside to keep students active and support their learning. A colorful play structure with slides and climbing routes anchors the space, and the Stability Sanctuary gives kids a chance to sit, socialize and sway. The playspace serves the whole school community, whatever the forecast. A Burke representative can help configure play structures and freestanding play to fit an indoor space.

A Few Spots That Could Use a Little Extra Play

A walk around the site is often the best place to begin. Some of the places worth a closer look:

• Arrival and waiting areas, where families gather before and after play
• Fences, walls and other boundaries that already define the space
• Slopes, berms and changes in grade
• Open ground between play areas and along the paths that connect them
• Indoor spaces that could host play when the weather turns

Each one is a chance to add play value, whether the project is a brand-new playground or one that grows in phases over time.

Bringing Play Anywhere Across Your Site

Play anywhere comes down to intentional design: noticing where children already wander, wait and explore, then giving each of those places a reason to play. When play reaches past the main structure that way, more children find a place to start and more families find a reason to stay. That's Play That Moves You^® in action. Explore more ideas on the Play Anywhere page and connect with your local Burke representative to help map where play fits on your site, from the fence line to the gym floor.