Playground equipment can consist of many types of play activities for children of all ages. The usual components of playground equipment are a swings, slides, teeter-totters, and sandboxes.  However, there is so much variation among the styles of each of these basic components that they look like completely different pieces of playground equipment.  They can be made from wood, metal or plastic and are available in many different shades and colours.

You can have a baby swing, regular flat seated swing, there are swings with rounded seats, tire swings, and disc swings. When adding slides, you can choose between curved, covered or open slides, or they can be designed to fit a particular theme or cartoon character, making it even more fun for your children. The teeter-totters can be straight or moulded. You can add sandboxes that can be built in any shape or size and can even have little seats so the children can sit up out of the sand.

Extra accessories for playground equipment can include tree houses, forts, castles, periscopes, wheels, rope, wooden or metal ladders and even a net area for bouncing and tossing a ball. Decks can be built onto the tree houses and other accessories to produce a complete play area that will keep children playing contentedly and imaginatively for hours. Playground equipment can be purchased as a unit, or can be built from scratch using a set of plans. Remember, you can keep adding onto your backyard playground whenever you wish to, making it more interesting and enjoyable for your children.