How to Build a Shaded Play Area for Kids

Make your summer a memorable one. Build an unforgettable shaded play area for you and the kids to photograph and play in with minimal expense and maximum fun. Shaded play areas can mean a tepee made out of your largest bedsheet and bamboo poles. It can be a "green" tepee from bean vines you have planted climbing up your tepee frame. Make more than one tepee and create a village. But the most eco-friendly, most imaginative shaded play area for kids of any age is the cardboard playhouse. Reconfigure, repaint and redesign as often as you wish. The possibilities are endless.

Things You'll Need

• 4 or more huge boxes from movers, refrigerators, air conditioners, large televisions
• 4 or more boxes for storage and organizing
• 2 or more child-size baskets for storage and organizing
• Gallon of glue
• 5 or more paint brushes in various sizes
• Tempera in pint cans and gallons, various colors
• 3 pieces of chalk
• Cardboard blade cutter
• Pea gravel
• Landscape/filter cloth for ground sheeting

Instructions

1. Decide on the play area based on available natural shade and easy sight lines. Optimize by combining natural shade (trees and trellises) and man-made shade (walls, playhouse, awnings). Consider time of day when the playhouse is most used, as well as the season; shade and shadow shift and change constantly.

2. 

   Experiment with the boxes on how you want your shaded play area configured. Glue the final design together using paint brushes and glue.

3. Chalk in windows and doorways, then cut them out. Use these discarded pieces to decorate later.

4. 

   Paint the whole structure any color combination the kids desire. Amp the fun by mixing colors to create new ones. Decorate by using cut-out pieces from windows and doorways; extra panels can create a roof.

5. Consider laying ground sheeting and pea gravel inside the play area and out --- wherever a fall can occur. Make the ground soft, easily drained and easy to move around with proper depth to break a fall. Putting soft ground material has its pros and cons, so weigh the best option for your kids.

6. 

   Accessorize with plastic dinnerware, play food made from left-over cardboard and painted with left-over tempera, blankets/sleeping bags, favorite books, art supplies ... you get the idea. In a "village," add their own pool, billiards table --- even a playground. A playground definitely needs a fall protection system like soft ground material.

Tips & Warnings

• Sand, mulch and wood chips are other alternatives for soft ground cover, but they tend to rot, become animal litter boxes, stay damp longer, and get into everything inside your house, while pea gravel does not.

• Adult supervision is easier when your shaded play area is always within your line of sight.

• Make each rainfall an opportunity to reconfigure, redesign and repaint.

• Cutting out windows and doors requires adult supervision.

• Any soft ground material (sand, mulch, wood chips, pea gravel) can be thrown around and put inside little noses and ears.

References

• Safety in the Play Area

Resources

• Bean tepees
• Wholesale crafts supplies