Indoor and outdoor safety in childcare

Children love to play outdoors. It is a wonderful place to test one’s physical abilities and to just have fun. Keeping children safe outdoors requires some special precautions. Here are some tips for keeping children in your child care program safe outdoors.

General Outdoor Safety Tips for Child Care

• Never leave children alone outside
• Teach children not to play near the street
• Explain that children must ask for help if toys roll into the street or driveway
• Check the outdoor play area routinely. Remove trash, sharp branches, tools, lawn equipment, and animal feces

Safe Set-up of the Outdoor Environment

• Be sure all outdoor play areas are fenced, especially near a street, parking lot, pond, well, or railroad track
• Surround electrical appliances in the play area, such as air conditioners, with fences so children cannot reach them
• Remove gas grills from outdoor play areas
• Keep gates closed and install childproof latches
• Lock storage sheds, barns, and garages

Safety with Tricycles and Other Riding Toys

• Require children to use helmets when using tricycles, bicycles, skateboards, roller skates, and ride-on toys
• Reduce choking risks by having children remove helmets when playing on playground equipment
• Use safety straps to secure children in strollers
• Do not put children who cannot sit up well in wagons with low sides

Playground Safety

Ensuring that the playground area is safe requires careful planning and monitoring. Remember that infants and toddlers (ages 0 – 2), preschool-age children (ages 3 – 5), and school-age children (ages 5 – 12) have different developmental needs and abilities, and may need developmentally different. Different age groups may need different playground equipment in areas separated by fences to ensure that playgrounds are safe and fun for everyone. Here are some guidelines to assess playground safety.

• Regularly inspect surface and playground equipment for broken, worn, or missing parts. Remove, repair, or replace items immediately.
• Cover sand boxes when not in use so animals won’t use them as a litter box
• Provide some shade in the play space, either from natural sources like trees or from a tent, awning, or other shelter
• Place metal playground equipment, such as platforms and slides, in the shade to prevent burns. A slide that faces north will receive the least direct sunlight.
• Place equipment that has moving parts, such as swings, on the outside of the play area
• Teach children to stay away from the front and back of the swing area
• Keep outdoor play equipment at least 6 feet away from pavement, fences, trees, buildings, walkways, and other play equipment
• Provide guardrails or barriers for platforms or ramps over 30 inches high
• Cover all protruding bolts or screws with plastic safety caps
• Close S-hooks completely on swings
• Never attach any ropes or cords to play equipment
• Safely anchor to the ground permanent outdoor equipment such as swing sets or climbers

Tips for Playground Surfacing

To reduce the risk of injuries from falls, make sure all play equipment has soft surfacing underneath it. Materials such as sand, pea gravel, rubber mulch, and wood chips are soft enough to absorb falls. Grass and dirt are not soft enough to absorb the shock of a fall. Do not install loose-fill surfacing over hard surfaces such as concrete or asphalt.

Surface materials should be a minimum of 6 inches deep for equipment less than 4 feet high and 9 inches deep for equipment up to 8 feet in height. The material should extend at least 6 feet beyond all sides of edge of stationary equipment. For swings, surfacing should extend in back and in front, two times the height of the suspension bar. NOTE: The Outdoor Home Playground Safety Handbook published by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recommends an initial fill level of 12 inches. It will compress to about a 9-inch depth of surfacing over time. The surfacing will also compact, displace, and settle, and should be periodically refilled to maintain at least a 9-inch depth.

For More Information

To learn more about safe outdoor play in child care, check out the following eXtension Alliance for Better Child Care articles:

One thing all the parents want for their toddlers is to build an environment where children feel safe and secure. Though, nothing can beat the parental supervision for children, installing different safety equipment will help you to protect those little ones in a better way.

Toddlers require a lot of supervision because of their inquisitive and enthusiastic behavior. They are always busy in different high energy physical activities like jumping, kicking, running around. So, as parents, you would always try to balance between protection and freedom during their playtime. Childcare experts of Child care West Covina, CA suggest parents using different child safety equipment with the essential safety features to keep children safe from unexpected situations.

Indoor safety equipment for kids:

• Gates and barriers: You can install gates and barriers in front of the staircase or rooms with potential hazards so that children cannot climb up the stairs or go into the rooms in which they are not allowed to enter alone.
• Window locks: Window locks are important so that your windows do not open far too much. Toddlers are so inquisitive that they may try to climb up the window and jump from there.
• Keeping floors dry and anti-slip: If you have a toddler at home, you need to be careful and follow certain basic steps to keep them safe and secure at home. you need to keep the house and bathroom floors dry or you can install anti-slip carpet on the floor to make sure they do not slip off on the floor and injure themselves.
• Covered edges: In your house, there must be some furniture with sharp edges and picky corners. In Child care West Covina, CA, teachers have covered up all the sharp edges with corner guards to protect children from getting scratched.
• Night lights: You can keep the night lights on in their bedroom while they are sleeping to ensure they do not trip or bump into objects when they get up to go to the washroom at night.
• Closed-circuit camera: If you want you can install a closed-circuit camera in your house as that will enable you to observe your kids from outside.

Outdoor safety equipment for kids:

Kids don't stay to indoor always; they go out and play with their friends. As parents, you need to make sure they are safe outside also.

• If your toddlers have started going to Day care you need to make sure that the playground equipment such as swing, slides, see-saws, merry go round, climbers, etc have been installed properly by some professionals.
• All the playground equipment should be used as per your toddler’s age. For example, if the swing is not for children under 3 years, and your little one is still not 3, do not let him use the swing.
• All the playground equipment should have basic safety features. For example, slides should have a large top deck and rails on both sides to hold. Swings should be installed at a decent distance so that two of them do not hit with one another.

Online learning is beneficial for kids as some advanced online learning tools provide ongoing, real-time assessment opportunities for kids. They can tailor the learning experience and provide individualized progress feedback. These feedbacks help children to understand the areas to improve and also encourage them to do well in the next assessments.

Why is it important to identify safe place indoors and outdoors?

Why is it important to provide a safe and secure environment?

What are the most common hazards in a childcare environment?

How can we ensure safety in the environment?