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They say that one of the ways to head off trouble with a toddler is to ensure that your toddler gets sufficient active playtime. The idea behind this is to help your toddler release all that pent up energy inside that deceivingly tiny body so they don’t drive you mad when they try to climb the kitchen cabinets (or stem the door frames - as I did when I was a child) while at home. 

Malaysian weather being what it is and child-friendly parks being few and far between in our area, I have always wanted to get a simple jungle gym for our garden so Gavin could run amok to his heart’s content.  Instead of getting the usual jungle gyms they sell at Toys ‘R’ Us (below: Gavin playing on one of their model jungle gyms outside the Toys ‘R’ Us store in Midvalley), I thought it would be cool to get something a little more unique.

I thought I had found just the thing when I saw some “castle” type jungle gyms for sale at York House in Bangsar Shopping Complex.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures to show but they’re basically a slightly more elaborate version of the jungle gyms at Toys ‘R’ Us and they are made up like mock castles.

Since then, I’ve seen other “jungle gyms” that even I find exciting and fun.  I first read about the Mobius® Climber on Abnerd.  Created by Landscape Structures, they are basically pretty funky wave-like climbing structures:

While browsing through their website, I discovered that Landscape Structures also makes other climbing structures for kids, like climbing walls, Spacenet™ Climber Models and Natural Elements™ (shown below).  I was particularly interested in the last because it is about as “natural” as a man-made play structure for kids is ever likely to get. 

In the growing concrete jungle that we live in, it is easy for children of today to lose touch with nature and the environment.  Although such structures are artificial, they will at least instil some interest in nature in our children, instead of the brightly-coloured and garish play structures we so often see in parks nowadays.

Speaking of natural structures, here’s another “natural” looking children’s jungle gym that combines both the elements of climbing and a slide created by Blocx.  Personally, I think I like this the best because it gives you the best of both worlds: a climbing structure as well as a slide - a very familiar element in many jungle gyms.  I think Gavin would also like it best because he appears to be quite fond of going down slides.

Although I was fortunate enough to have climbable trees during my childhood, I think I would have really enjoyed playing on these jungle gyms.  Perhaps then I might not have resorted to scaling the corridors at my aunt’s house.

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