How do you play and learn with lines and shapes?

    You're probably familiar with school playground hopscotch, signs or markings for running, cycling or go-karting tracks.
    In school playgrounds, you may also have seen alphabet snakes, times table numbers or the popular Four Square game drawn in colour on the ground.
    But there's a whole world of opportunities to create learning and play on the ground.

    Which material can be used where? With thermoplastics, you can create imaginative spaces for learning play - without taking up space or blocking views in a school playground or urban space.

    We can also draw lines and shapes that suit your ideas and wishes. For schools, subject-based shapes such as a coordinate system, geometric shapes, world maps, colour systems or word bubbles can provide teachers with tools to bring teaching outside and incorporate movement in learning.

    In urban spaces, you can create games, visual experiences and colourful landmarks.



    How to create space for play and learning?






    Learn with maths and science


    Geometric shapes provide both attractive decorations on the ground and

    can be used in maths lessons to calculate perimeter, radius, angles and volume.

    10 ideas for the school playground:


    • circles that are divided into halves, quarters, eighths.

    • tracks for running and jumping during P.E. lessons, or lines for balancing on. In maths lessons, children can measure
    lengths and angles of the track and arcs.

    • lots of bubbles of different sizes to calculate areas of circles, distances, size differences. Letters or words can also be written in the bubbles to practise compound words or to form sentences.


    On the big and small bubbles you can also hop and jump, or play magnet games where you either attract or repel others depending on what 'material' you're made of.












    Draw a large coordinate system
    With a coordinate system in the school playground, children can get a sense of how big the outdoor space is in terms of, say, metres compared to a person's height.
    Here they can place themselves in different locations and find the coordinates of where they are.

    Other fun exercises include finding coordinates on trees, buildings, the slide in the school playground or a ball, and the distance between them.




    Discover your land and the world
    Give the school playfround a story about the Earth and the universe:

    • corners of the world
    • a local map or word map
    • figures of the phases of the Moon
    • position of the planets from the Sun


    Calculator game
    We draw a big 'calculator' around a trampoline with numbers and arithmetic signs - plus, minus, multiply
    and an equal sign.

    The trampoline is motorically challenging and children can jump back and forth, turn around, etc. The trampoline can be used to embed learning in the body, so sums and times tables stick!
    The game consists of the pupil jumping from a number and onto the trampoline, out onto a number and onto the trampoline again.
    Finally, the pupil jumps on the equals sign - and gives the result of their calculation.



    Can art and maths be combined?

    Yes by making patterns
    In a tiled area, you can create a creative little universe that can be used in both maths and art lessons.
    With tiles in geometric shapes, you can work on active colour learning by drawing with chalk and colours on the tiles. This encourages learning about mixing colours, cold/warm colours etc.
    With chalk, explore how to make reflections, patterns and new geometric shapes.



    Here you can practice:
    • Colour theory
    • Reflections
    • Geometry

    Senses strengthened:
    • The tactile sense
    • The kinesthetic sense