Dancing On Tyres

Dancing on Tyres.  This is one of my favourite pictures of H ever.  He’s having so much fun playing on these old tyres which have been set into the ground for children to play on.    Another reason I love it is the view behind him in the picture as it brings to mind the Scottish Highlands.  It brings back memories of some great family trips to that area of Scotland. The landscape in this part of Perthshire is on such a gigantic scale that it’s difficult to convey the scale of it when you take a photo.  This particular picture was taken in the lovely village of Blair Atholl, which is well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

We’d gone to the local school to drop off or collect my nephews, either one or both of them were attending school at that time.  It was a tiny rural school with less than 20 children in the whole school.  Generally a more relaxed attitude to school security and so on was taken.  My sister said that the kids could play in the school playground during the weekends and holidays if they wanted.  There was certainly nothing to stop them accessing the space.  I loved that it was a resource they could use at almost any time.  In practice though, I think they tended to use the other playground outside of school times to ring the changes.

Another thing I love about this particular playground is the simplicity of it.  A couple of old tyres stuck into the ground provided some fun.  It just shows you that there is no need to toys and play equipment to be too fancy or all singing and dancing.  Sometimes the simplest things are the best.  H seemed to enjoying dancing on tyres.  It was something he did every time we visited the school playground. It encourages improved balance and coordination, so it’s good to develop gross motor skills.

There are plenty of ways to use old tyres for imaginative play.  Tyres could be used for rolling around (best to use a flat area for this and make sure the children aren’t too small). You can use them for sitting in or for creating a space to play.  A couple of tyres make a great addition to a garden play area. You could use one as a temporary sandpit for instance. The possibilities are endless.

Tyres are also a good way of separating things out, so you could play a sorting game.  Ask your child to put red things in one tyre and blue things in another.  Or you could use them to categorize treasure hunt items say. Of course, there are a number of ideas you could use for play around the tyres being on a vehicle.  Maybe your child is driving a car or an ambulance.  Alternatively they could be operating a digger on a building site or a tractor on a farm.  They could be pretending to be a car mechanic changing tyres to repair a vehicle.