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To make schoolyards supportive for outdoor play and physical activity, it’s essential to understand how children play in these spaces. This includes understanding how play practices and schoolyard environments interact, and what schoolyard facilities are essential to different types of play.
In this study, researchers from the World Playground Research Institute explored play in the schoolyard by examining how children aged 6-9 interacted with their environment during recess.
Observations were made over 710 minutes of break time at five Danish schools, and 12 group interviews with 57 students in first to third grade provided further insights. These insights are important to understanding children’s perspectives and giving them a voice.
In total, five different play types were identified, offering valuable guidance for practitioners aiming to design schoolyards that support diverse types of play behavior.
Each play type highlights common ways children tend to play, rather than focusing on the specific actions or preferences of children. While some children might prefer one type of play, they usually explore different types of play during recess and over time.
The researchers identified the following five play types:
Many children preferred active games involving running, throwing, or kicking a ball, such as football, tag, or hide-and-seek.
They enjoyed games with specific rules and often played in larger groups, usually in open spaces or sports courts. Boys preferred playing football, while both boys and girls enjoyed tag and other ball games.
Rule-bound game players were motivated by competition, trying to run faster, score goals, or avoid being tagged.
Games like hide-and-seek also required creative use of the environment for hiding spots, like climbing frames or trees.
Numerous children enjoyed imaginative play, where they transformed the schoolyard into different fantasy worlds.
They played in small groups, often divided by gender, with girls taking on roles like bakers, fairies, or witches, and boys playing as cops, robbers, or spies.
They explored all areas of the schoolyard, using things like branches, walls, or swings creatively.
The variety and randomness of the schoolyard’s natural features helped spark their imagination.
Children who exhibited the Physical Skill Master type of behavior enjoyed showcasing their motor skills in activities like climbing, jumping, balancing, and swinging.
All children were motivated by a desire to improve their physical skills, while others sought challenges that provided a thrill.
They played in small groups, often on equipment like climbing frames, trampolines, and swings.
Both boys and girls engaged in this type of play, usually in same-gender groups.
In some situations, children preferred talking over playing. They formed small groups of 2–3, mostly with same-gender peers, to have conversations.
While talking was their main activity, they also engaged in secondary pursuits, such as swinging, walking, or climbing.
They liked to find quiet spots away from the busy schoolyard, such as hidden areas behind bushes or high up in trees or towers.
Some children had a special interest in the natural environment. They spent their time exploring the schoolyard, look- ing for shelters and food for animals.
They often searched for animals like spiders and snails or pretended to be animals themselves, like squirrels collecting acorns.
These activities were usually done in small groups, either with same-gender or mixed-gender friends.
Identifying these five types of play in young children helps us understand how to design better schoolyards for everyone.
Children see and use the schoolyard in different ways, so the environment should reflect these differences to encourage fun and exciting play experiences for all.
Based on the findings, the researchers behind this study recommend creating schoolyards that incorporate:
Doing this will provide a variety of facilities that accommodate all types of play.
All our briefs are accessible through our website, www.playgroundresearch.org.
On the website, you’ll find a compilation of briefs that offer a clear comprehension of research findings and their implications for future research and practical application.
You can also download a printable PDF version of this brief to facilitate sharing.
