As you may have already noticed, the ground underlying this playground at Bishan Park is sand filled instead of the foam overlays more commonly seen in HDB playgrounds. Sand is a great play media and I love it. It provides an overwhelming amount of tactile (touch) input necessary for children's sensory development. Young children first need to tolerate the seemingly uncomfortable sensation, they then learn to enjoy how the sand feels under their feet and in between their fingers.
For the under threes, scooping sand with various types of sand play spades, rakes or even a leave or a piece of cardboard can provide hours of fun. That said, the fun and learning does get more intense if you also provide some containers for them to transfer the sand, see the volume and feel the weight. For those yet to get that set of sandplay toys for your kids, fret not. Plastic bags, empty mineral water bottle containers, biscut boxes, leaf, and twigs are all easily available and provides just as much fun. After the kids get tired of transferring sand into the plastics bags and carrying them around, pinch some holes in their bags to turn into another fun activity and get ready to leave the sand pit!
I like these features at the play ground, the two holes you see at this "table" has tiny holes at the bottom to allow sand to flow away at different speed. Fun!
For the older kids, challenge their imagination by pretending that they are playing shop, maybe, they are baking cakes to sell at this shop of theirs? I once observed a group of kids setting up a whole entire processing line of a factory.
For the uninitiated kids, sometimes, it just takes an adult to suggest an idea and they can take it off from there. Your job is to refrain from telling them what's right and wrong in their play!
By the way, the sand at this playground, especially near to the above sand play feature, is really quite clean. Just remember to get there early in the morning so that it doesn't get too hot for the kids to bare their feet.
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