our education and curricula programs

PlayCore has launched a variety of educational programs to help schools link outdoor play on their playgrounds to a standards-based learning curriculum. With outdoor play and recess being cut from many schools in the United States, these tools will help educators get children outside to play and learn and also increase their physical activity.

NatureGrounds®: Putting Nature into Play™

PlayCore and the Natural Learning Initiative, a design and assistance program of the College of Design, North Carolina State University, have partnered to develop NatureGrounds, a comprehensive program that provides best practice guidelines for combining manufactured play equipment and the living landscape to help reconnect children with nature and to stimulate play for children, families, and communities.  Components of the program include a guidebook entitled, Creating & Retrofitting Play Environments®: Best Practice Guidelines™, which serves as an educational resource and training tool that highlights research-based procedures for developing new play spaces and retrofitting existing play spaces with a focus on natural play for parks and school grounds.  Additionally, NatureGrounds.org offers a wealth of online information including a searchable plant selection database and galleries of NatureGrounds Demonstration Sites that exemplify best practice principles and showcase leadership in Nature Play initiatives.

For more information about how to order the guidebook, click here.  To learn more about the NatureGrounds program, visit NatureGrounds.org.  We are currently seeking participants across the country to implement NatureGrounds best practice principles and serve as model demonstration sites.  To learn more about how to participate in this program as a model demonstration site, contact info@playcore.com. 

Play On! Playground Learning Activities for Youth Fitness


PlayCore and the American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation (AAPAR) have partnered to develop a physical education program that utilizes the playground for meeting national physical education standards through fun activities focused on balancing, swinging, sliding, climbing, overhead climbing/brachiating, and spinning. 

Authored by a team of experts from Louisiana State University, Play On! helps physical educators, classroom teachers, and school administrators access the physical fitness benefits of their traditional playground equipment and promote physical activity throughout the school day. Click here to learn more about Play On! 

Outdoor Creative Play & Learning System

The Outdoor Creative Play & Learning System is a unique standards-based program for outdoor play developed by PlayCore/Play & Park Structures in partnership with Robert Leslie Publishing. The system is designed to help educators link learning activities to the outdoor play environment for increased physical activity, learning, and fun for children preschool age through 5th grade. The system includes 100 activity cards designed to encourage creativity and imagination with links to national standards in language arts, science, mathematics, physical education and health, social studies, early childhood, and creative arts. Help kids get moving through fun learning activities on the playground! For more information visit www.playandpark.com/amaze_kit.iml.

Developed in partnership with Robert Leslie Publishing.

GT Jams™ Music & Movement Playbook
Bringing standards-based music and movement activities to your playground for a new kind of play.

Children move and play on the playground to their own beat. Now they can move in new and creative ways as they explore music and movement outdoors with GameTime's exclusive GT Jams™ playground instruments and GT Jams Music & Movement Playbook. With GT Jams children can explore sound and move to the beat of musical instruments, adjusting their bodies and movements with changes in beat or contrasts such as slow and fast, light and heavy. They can even experience levels of moderate and rigorous physical activity as they engage in free play and guided play activities from the GT Jams Music & Movement Playbook. Linked to national standards in physical education and music, this program provides fun activities for children to explore the creative arts while being physically active on the playground. 

The GT Jams Music & Movement Playbook is included with system purchases that include four GT Jams instruments and is also available separately. To learn more about GT Jams, check out GameTime’s interactive web page, where you can discover the history of each instrument, and even create a mini-concerto all your own. GT Jams…because Play is Instrumental™

Music Makers™ Activity Cards
Making music...to their ears!

The early years are critical for children’s musical development. Play & Park Structures’ Music Makers & Music Makers™ Activity Cards provide a rich musical environment in which children may experiment with music, exercise their imaginations, and strengthen their creative skills. Each Music Makers™ Activity Card has its own set of music standards and benchmarks, based on the latest research into best practices for performing, creating, listening, and responding to music. The cards are aligned with key national standards in the content areas of music, physical education, and creative arts, and each activity card offers adaptations to ensure that children of all ability levels benefit from the outdoor games and activities. Physical activity is incorporated into each card with creative movement and dance. Enhance learning opportunities on your playground with Play & Park Structures' Music Makers activity cards!

For more information visit www.playandpark.com/music_makers.iml or call 1-800-727-1907.            

FitKid™ Curriculum Based Fitness Program   

GameTime's FitKid™ Curriculum Based Fitness Program features an ergonomically designed fitness system that can be easily integrated into existing physical education programs. Intended for elementary, junior high and high school students the FitKid™ curriculum includes exercises with beginning, intermediate and advanced skill level options and step-by-step action photos. Many of the activities included in the program have been shown to help develop strength, concentration, spatial awareness, and coordination skills. 
Benefits of using the program include:
• Enhanced ability to clearly understand directions
• Improvement in students’ academic readiness 
• Heightened achievement levels 
• Increased motivation  
• Accelerated learning timeline
• Expanded creativity

For more information visit www.gametime.com or call 1-800-235-2440.

A-maze™ Activity Folder

The A-maze™ revolutionary motion panels from Play & Park Structures offer a unique playground structure that allows children to use their imaginations to create and change the play environment every time they visit the playground. The A-maze Activity Folder offers standards-based, guided play activities that link play and learning to a variety of national standards across the curriculum.

With the pressures of high stakes testing, overscheduled lives and the epidemic of childhood obesity, children need more opportunities to be outside, to play and learn in fun and physically active ways. In addition to the physical benefits of outdoor play, A-maze panels foster creativity, imagination, and social, emotional and cognitive development. With A-maze™ revolutionary motion panels and the A-maze Activity Folder kids have fun  and teachers bring indoor learning outside while meeting important content standards. A free Amaze™ Activity Folder is provided with every Amaze™ product purchase. 

To learn more, call 800-727-1907 or visit www.playandpark.com/maze_systems.iml. 

Climbing in the Classroom Educational Series

 Although rock climbing has gained tremendous popularity in the world of physical education, there are not many resources available to educators.  Everlast Climbing Industries is proud to offer Climbing in the Classroom, the most comprehensive set of educational climbing materials available.

Climbing in the Classroom programs were developed by the staff at Everlast Climbing Industries, Inc., a leader in the manufacture and installation of climbing walls in schools, camps, and other youth-serving agencies.  For more information visit www.traversewall.com or call 1-800-476-7366.

Coming Soon!

TouchMath Activity Panel and Curriculum

PlayCore and Innovative Learning Concepts Inc., creators of TouchMath, an award-winning multisensory program that uses its signature TouchPoints to engage students of all abilities and learning styles in a variety of mathematical concepts, are proud to collaborate to bring classroom learning outdoors in unique and creative ways.  Our new TouchMath Activity Panel is an interactive outdoor play event that offers a fun way to increase child’s computational skills, provide healthy physical activity, and encourage positive social interaction — enriching childhood through play! The hands-on panel, corresponding activity manual, and program training materials are the ideal way to integrate learning into the play experience outdoors while deepening understanding of critical math concepts.  The TouchMath Activity Panel Manual outlines the basic steps for teaching the TouchMath method and offers dozens of counting, addition, subtraction, skip counting, and multiplication activities to implement outdoors with children preschool through fifth grade.  Panel owners have exclusive access to an extensive selection of downloadable worksheets designed to complement the panel and a package of materials to help educators learn how to teach TouchMath effectively including a Training Manual and DVD, Classroom Sampler and Activity Panel Poster.  To order or for more information, please visit Touchmath at www.touchmath.com/playcore.

Developed in partnership with Innovative Learning Concepts Inc