Outdoor Classroom Equipment for New Jersey Schools and Daycares
- What Is an Outdoor Classroom?
- What Are the Key Elements of an Outdoor Classroom?
- Outdoor Classroom Ideas for Preschool and Elementary
- How to Build an Outdoor Classroom: What the Project Looks Like
- Outdoor Classroom Design: Where It Goes and What Goes Under It
- Outdoor Classroom Furniture Kids Can Use
- How Much Does an Outdoor Classroom Cost?
- Outdoor Classroom FAQ
Most of the outdoor classroom pieces we sell and install go in around a playground, outside the play area. It’s mostly preschools and daycares buying them, but we’re seeing more public schools add them now.
What Is an Outdoor Classroom?
An actual outdoor classroom is its own thing, not a few pieces set around a playground. It’s a space set up just for teaching outside, with benches, tables, planters and easels. Most of it isn’t anything kids climb on.
What Are the Key Elements of an Outdoor Classroom?
The most common things we sell are sensory play items, along with art and chalkboard panels.
For sensory play, we’ve added freestanding Sports Play panels. Some are musical, like drums and chimes, and some are hands-on, like a ball maze or a Tumble Ball.
We carry the Grounds For Play line. For art, we’ve got easels and the Deluxe Art Studio, which is a chalkboard with two clear easels. On the science and math side, there are weather stations, science centers and a MathMagic sandbox. Then there are the basics, like planters, growing boxes, activity tables and benches.
The best outdoor classroom guide I’ve found comes from Washington, DC’s school agency, and a lot of our info comes from it. If you’re planning an actual outdoor classroom, the guide calls for shade, seating for up to 35 students, storage within 100 feet and an outdoor water spigot nearby. For garden beds, it says no wider than 3 feet for preschool and elementary kids and 4 feet for older students. It also suggests one bed a wheelchair user can work at.
Outdoor Classroom Ideas for Preschool and Elementary
Preschools usually lean more toward sensory play items. Older schools look more for pieces they can teach with, like chalkboards, art, planters and plantings, desks and chairs, things like that.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) playground handbook splits playground equipment by age, 2 to 5 and 5 to 12. If you’ve got both ages on one site, the handbook suggests schools and child-care centers think about a separate area for each. For a preschool, the Grounds For Play Deluxe Art Studio and the little nesting table with chairs are rated for ages 2 to 5. The two-bay easels are rated for 2 to 12.
How to Build an Outdoor Classroom: What the Project Looks Like
It usually starts with a call, and we talk through ideas based on your space. That part can take several weeks or longer. Once the equipment is ordered, it takes about 4-6 weeks to make and ship. If we’re installing it, add another 1-2 weeks after that, depending on whether surfacing is needed. Some surfacing and walkway options take longer than others.
Outdoor Classroom Design: Where It Goes and What Goes Under It
When we add pieces around a playground, they usually go on the grass outside the play area. Most go in on concrete footings, and since most have no fall height, they don’t need safety surfacing.
If you want playground pieces in your outdoor classroom, like a small climber or a raised bridge, those need safety surfacing.
A lot of the time the area is being repurposed and there’s already a path out to it. When there isn’t, we can build one. If the path needs to work for a wheelchair, the ADA says it has to be at least 36 inches wide, with gentle slopes and a firm, stable surface that isn’t slippery.
Outdoor Classroom Furniture Kids Can Use
For the little ones, there’s our Nesting Table and Chair Set: one plastic table with four plastic chairs. On the seating side, two of our benches are 6 feet long, one with a back rest and one without.
If the tables are mostly for kids 5 and under, the ADA’s table-height and knee-room rule doesn’t apply, as long as a child can still pull up alongside. Older kids’ accessible tables can sit 26 to 30 inches high, with 24 inches of knee room underneath. Whatever ages you’re buying for, at least 5 percent of your tables and other work surfaces have to be accessible.
How Much Does an Outdoor Classroom Cost?
If you’re sprinkling outdoor classroom pieces into a school or daycare, I’d say $15,000 to $30,000 is a good budget for pieces plus installation. A strictly outdoor classroom varies with what goes in it, but you’re looking at six figures and up, especially at bigger sites where gazebos and large shade structures come into play.
To keep the budget down, I’d stick to pieces with no fall height, meaning nothing kids can climb or play on.
For school districts, we’re on the Bergen County Cooperative Pricing System contract. If your district is a co-op member, you buy equipment at the contract’s prices without running your own bid. Districts outside Bergen County can join by resolution. The contract covers installation too. Grounds For Play isn’t on our contract yet, but if a district wants it through the co-op, I’ll add it.
For a number on your own site, call 201-670-4000 or jump down to the quote form.
Outdoor Classroom FAQ
Does outdoor classroom equipment need safety surfacing?
Usually not. Most pieces don’t have a fall height, meaning there’s nothing for kids to climb up on and fall from. Playground pieces like small climbers and raised bridges are the exception. Those need it.
Do New Jersey’s playground safety rules cover outdoor classroom equipment?
Inside a playground area, yes. Pieces you put in that area fall under New Jersey’s Playground Safety Subcode, which makes the CPSC handbook law there. A teaching garden off on its own doesn’t. If a bench or table sits in a piece’s use zone, meaning where a kid falling or getting off would land, it’s covered by ASTM F1487, the playground equipment standard. Outside that zone, it isn’t.
What do licensed child care centers have to follow for outdoor equipment?
If you run a licensed center, New Jersey’s licensing rules say your outdoor equipment and furniture has to be sturdy, non-toxic and used the way the manufacturer’s instructions say. They also say the center has to follow the Playground Safety Subcode. If your program is run by the public school district itself, those licensing rules don’t cover you, but the Subcode still covers your playgrounds.
Can a school district outside Bergen County use your co-op contract?
Yes, once your district joins the Bergen County co-op by resolution. If you want Grounds For Play through it, I’ll add it to our contract.
Getting a quote
Tell me what you’re looking at and whether it’s part of a playground job. Use the form below, or call me at 201-670-4000.
Or send the details here