Play Today * Cool Playgrounds

Would you let your children build this? We stumbled across this amazing photo on the blog, Mama's Minutia. Says Jennifer Jo, the author and mother of the children pictured:

"There is a shift that takes place when your kids gain the skills to construct monumental forts that reach truly frightening heights. I’m not exactly sure what to do with their newfound ability to threaten their physical well-being."

For more photos and the wonderful story behind this homemade jungle gym, including its eventual demise, read the full post, "rise and fall."

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In November KaBOOM! launched its first guest blogging contest, asking parents to muse about their experiences with play. We received lots of entries, and while it was tough, managed to narrow it down. Over the next ten weeks we will be publishing the top ten, and we hope you enjoy reading them as much as we did! Congratulations to all of our winners. In 8th place is Robert Rice…

It was an average afternoon at the Rice family household a few months ago. The weather was warm outside, and we were all just mulling about the house. “I’m bored,” came the first complaint from my youngest son. “There’s nothing to do,” his older brother agreed. Being the problem-solving father that I am, I gave them what I thought was the perfect solution and told them both: “Let’s go to a park!”

I was pretty proud of my quick thinking, and was ready to bask in the loving accolades of my children when I was immediately slapped in the face with the response, “…but all the parks are so boring!” I would have none of this negativity and I told them to get their shoes on, we were going out to play. They groaned and grudgingly complied, but they remained persistent in their complaints:

“The parks are no fun”

“There’s nothing interesting about them”

“Every playground is the same”

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These highly imaginative and exciting play structures from Copenhagen, Denmark are the work of a playground design group called MONSTRUM. A group of artists and theatrical set-designers, MONSTRUM focuses on visual design, motor challenges, safety, and they believe that, "playground design should be a reflection of the world surrounding us."

I certaintly hope there aren't giant spiders rampaging across the streets of Copenhagen, but if there are, I'm glad to see they've inspired these incredibly imaginative play structures.

There are many more interesting designs and pictures of the playgrounds above on the MONSTRUM website. What's the most interesting play structure you have seen? Have you added it to the Map of Play yet?

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