Pirate Park
The pirate park offers everything at once: a climbing frame, swings, other children and noise from every side. With so much to choose from, you do not know where to begin. The pictures below give the play a way in.
Pirate park
A playground shaped like a pirate ship with a slide, swings and sandbox surrounded by trees.
About this visual support
A pirate park is full of possibilities, and that is exactly what can become overwhelming. The climbing frame tempts, the swings call, other children dart back and forth and the noise runs high. For a child who takes everything in at once, it gets hard to know where the play should begin, and sometimes it simply stops at the gate.
Visual support helps sort the impressions. When a few of the park's stations sit on pictures, the child can pick one thing to start with rather than facing the whole space at the same time. Having a first point to head for makes stepping in easier, and from there the play can grow at its own pace.
One concrete tip is to let the child point to a picture of what to do first, perhaps climb up into the ship, so the visit gets a clear start. The rest of the park can wait until it feels inviting. In the Routined app you can gather the park's favourites as pictures and let the child pick one at a time.