Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence, KS
Product Line: Berliner
The Linda Reimond Arts-based Preschool, named for preschool founder and longtime director Linda Reimond, is for children ages 3-5 and provides social, motor, and creative experiences that excite love for learning. Music, sculpture, painting, drawing, and creative movement are integral parts of the program.
“A moving child is a learning child.”
The school recently installed an O’Tannenbaum 2.5 spinner, a smaller playground piece for ages 2 to 5. Linda told us why they chose this piece for the playground.
It’s important for the kids to be outdoors, climbing, spinning, running, swinging, jumping and more. Playground activities stimulate sensory processing development.
This particular piece gives kids something to climb on, spin and even a little bit of swinging as it moves back and forth. The floor gives a bit enabling them to jump, too.
Spinning develops balance and the vestibular system – that sense of balance and movement, helping kids to move more smoothly and efficiently, giving them confidence in moving and interacting with their surroundings.
And it’s fun to watch the younger children play on it.
They get on it because its low enough and they might just sit there. Then, they want it to move so an adult may help get the spinner moving or a child may get off and try to make it move. Another child may get brave enough to stand up and hang on to the ropes. Other children might start climbing. Of course, the older children get on and climb right to the top!
Why did we choose the O’Tannenbaum spinner?
The kids love it!
Of course, other reasons are that it:
- Fit the needs of the age group at the school
- Wasn’t as big as some equipment so it fit the space we had
- Affordable and within our budget
- Good piece for sensory processing development
Spinning is also an activity that can calm children down, too. For most of the kids, once they have moved, they can then come back to the classroom and learn better.
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