Outdoor Play Equiptment for young children

[Cheeky Little Monkey]

Can anyone tell me whether the hard plastic outdoor play equiptment ( ie Activity Climbers/ Play Houses/ slides) are worth the money?
What age of children do they generally cater for?
I must admit I love the look of them and as my DD is only 8 months old obviously have a bit of time to go before she would even look twice at them. I am interested to hear if you have one and if they are worth it.

Thanks

[mum_2_5]

The playgroup I am with has a outdoor play equipment. It is the plastic type of one with 1 slide. We use it every tuesday and the kids love it. We have had it for over a year and it is still in one piece. We have over 20 kids a week who attend our playgroup.

[mummy short legs]

:yelclap: :yelclap: :yelclap: We have two children aged between 4 and 15months with one on the way in December. I have also worked in Childcare for near of ten years. So equipement can be beneficial if you do some research. There are websites that cater for these, but can be quite expesive, so I recommend eBay or Toyworld do stock some of the item Childcare centre get. Little Tikes and Step 2 are pretty much it or there is the cheap items in like Kmart, Target or BigW. We have at home a rocking whale, cosy coupe car, townhouse climber which is 1.5 metres high and a sunshine cubby house, oh and a picnic table from these two brand names. Both children play for hours on them and at the moment Jai who is only 15 months slides belly down the slide on the town house climber. I can not tell you how much developmental learning they both achieve from these. My mother in law thinks we have gone to far when it has come to this, but we have only brought 2 brand new items the rest were from eBay. And all up we have spent about $5oo including the new. Oh the best buy I got was a Step 2 tug boat pool/sandpit for $92 off ebay. So have a look there are some great buys just make sure that you check what is near you before you bid.


Tennille

Me- 26
Ian - 33
Tatum Jade -4

Jai - 15months
Baby due 13/12/06 And IT"S ANOTHER BOY!!!

[twins+another]

Hi, I know this is not really what you mean but it might be a good idea for now.

We recently bought from Aldi an outdoor playset that has a tent, a teepee and a tunnel that connects the two. The have waterproof floors in them and are good for indoors or outside. My two are 15 months old and they love crawling through it and playing in the tents. It was only $25.