I'm reading the incredibly extensive and exciting Woodstown Conservation Plan today and saw a Viking themed playground mentioned. These would be amazing playground themes to incorporate! @AbartaGuides https://twitter.com/WeArePlayscheme/status/829275469753225218

I've been thinking about the differences between how our kids play and how Viking kids played. No plastic for a start, all natural materials. Sticks, stones, trees and puddles. No metal either, it was too valuable, so those shiny slides should go too.

Playgrounds should have lots of humps, bumps and hiding places to enable kids develop their balance,coordination and judgement (and spring ambushes on each other! )

And lots of things to move around, buckets and containers, weights and tubes. And things that make noise, pipes, drums, shouting, echoes

They don't have to be brightly coloured either, allow the different shades of greens and browns and textures of wood, stone, clay, sand, mud to come through.

But expect the kids to get muddy because they will. But they'll have so much fun 'playing like a viking' than in yet another plastic and metal surfaced playground...