ABSTRACT
Quiet play spaces should enable play as varied as picking flowers, gentle gardening, lying down and looking at trees, sharing time with best friends, building sandcastles and watercourses, connecting pipes to water and learning about drainage, creating art in many and varied forms, dressing up, putting on impromptu concerts and building cubby houses. Quiet areas set aside for this kind of play provide space which, by its very size and nature, encourages socialisation and language skills. A large hub or smaller quiet spaces capable of coping with either large or small groups of children are needed. The term 'quiet area', when viewed in light of children's play, is more apt than the more commonly used landscape term passive area. Quiet areas should be visually attractive. Sandpits are one of the most heavily used of these facilities, especially when they are sited in a sensory rich area. Secret places encourage solitude, quiet thinking and close one-to-one contact.
