The New Smart Playground™ from Kompan Combines Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale Themed Playground Structures with Educational Teacher Guides and Educational Apps
Tacoma, Washington (PRWEB) April 02, 2014 -- The 21st century outdoor classroom for the whole child: The Smart Playground™ offers fascinating design detail for young children to explore and plenty of age-appropriate physical free play activities to support children’s development and learning. Today, we know that young children benefit from free play, but why limit the playground to free play when so much more can be achieved?
“This is the world’s first playground with its very own app,” says Kerrin Smith, President of Kompan North America, the company that has developed the interactive Smart Playground™. “It combines the physical playground with a digital learning concept based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales; stories we all know like The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling and The Tinderbox.”
Through QR codes placed on the playground equipment – or via the Apple or Android App Store - kids can download the Hans Christian Andersen Play Gate app. When the app is opened, a world of augmented reality appears, adding an extra dimension of characters and stories to the playground.
“The playground can be used without a smart device, but the option is there to take advantage of kids' natural love of technology, get them outdoors and create an environment where physical, social and intellectual learning take place,” says Kerrin Smith, who explains that the app also contains the full version of the fairy tales in e-book format so parents or children can read the stories aloud. The app has a range of other functions like allowing parents or teachers to enjoy the storytelling e-books and other apps or setting up challenges specific to their child.
In addition to the play structure and fairy tale apps, schools, child care centers and parks receive teacher guides that contain playful learning activities to be used during the day at school or as a fun educational activity for after school and camp programs. The teacher guides are developed by curriculum specialists, evaluated by teachers, and aligned with the American Common Core State Standards for high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy.
“The playground is such a developmentally appropriate, appealing space for young children to be exposed to language learning, reading, and pre-literacy components. We had to respond to the current challenge of exposing children to additional creative literacy environments for language development by adding playful educational elements to the playground. Our solution is the Smart Playground, created to meet all young children’s needs outdoors in free, guided and instructed play. It is the ultimate outdoor classroom,” states Helle Burlingame, Kompan Play Institute Manager.
You can visit our Smart Playground™ website for more information at http://www.smart-playground.us or http://www.kompan.com.
Kompan is the world’s No. 1 playground supplier.
Kompan develops, produces and markets an extensive range of playground equipment that covers all age groups.
All Kompan ’s playgrounds are designed using extensive research into child development to improve childhood health and learning. Kompan is renowned for their compelling design, environmental sustainability, uncompromising safety, unique innovation, and long-lasting quality.
The Smart Playground™ is the first children’s playground to have its own app. The Smart Playground™ represents a significant investment by Kompan, which is committed to pioneering breakthrough innovations for play and learning. The Smart Playground™ is patent-pending.
Helle Burlingame, KOMPAN Playgrounds, http://www.kompan.com, +1 800-426-9788 Ext: 235, [email protected]
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