Playground Project

Jean Piaget studied cognitive development and divided his development into four stages. The first stage was the sensorimotor stage, then the pre-operational stage, then the concrete operations stage, and last the formal operations.

We built our playground for children of the pre-operational stage, ages 2-7 yrs. In this stage the children can't understand the principle of reversibility. They also can't understand the idea of changing some of an objects characteristic while keeping others the same, called conservation. They also have egocentrism, where they view the world from only there perspective.

We built our playground to help the children understand those concepts. On our playground we included hopscotch. Hopscotch would teach the children the idea of reversibility, that once you get to the end of it you just turn around and hop back, not making a huge circle. Also hopscotch would help with there balance and there is also a slide for balance too!

We put on our playground a beach with sand. Most children love to play in the sand and make sand castles. While playing with the sand and molding it into things can teach the children conservation.

On the playground is a set of rules. One rule says that when with your friend for 15 minutes you play what he/she wants to play and for 15 minutes you play what you want to play. This rule helps teach the children that the world isn't all about them, the concept of egocentrism.