A friend asked me for some advice on an outdoor traversing climbing wall that they are building at the Grove Infant School on Portland. I’m a big believer in trying to make good use of space and I think that traversing walls in playgrounds and climbing walls in school gym halls are a great idea.
I’ve been involved in building lots of school climbing walls over the years and also the training of staff to use them safely with their students. One of the nice things about building climbing walls for young people is how the price of handholds have come down over time but also the variety of shapes that are now available.
Here are some of my favorite climbing wall holds to turn an old piece of playground wall into cross-curricular resource.
Dinosaur Holds
Tropical Creatures
Transportation (love the dumper truck!)
Letters (my favorite)
Lots of great activities for letter climbing holds eg: get from left to right using only the letters in your name, get from left to right using only vowels, get from left to right using handholds that spell a long word, etc…
More advice on building climbing walls here.
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