We have a play area at a nearby shopping mall - the play structures include a small ferris wheel, some bounce houses, and one slide which bothers us greatly: it's an inflatable slide made to look like the sinking Titanic ship.

Ha! A slide that poops you out of an elephant's bum.

Um, my four year old would think it was the funniest thing in the world to be pooped out of an elephant's butt. The second photo of the slide is really depressing.

oh my! just visited the blog. shudder.

My 4-year-old just begged to go to the elephant playground sometime.

Also... About 8 years ago I lived/volunteered in Romania for four months, and there were several examples like these. I'm not a sociologist or historian, but I think things were easier for a lot of people there during the time of communism. Children had places - in good repair - to play, and communities tried their best to present art and play. Now...well, they look like the above examples. It was hard to see.

There's a new playground at a very upscale shopping/dining development inside a florida beach resort that used shredded tire mulch to cushion the ground. Unfortunately, the mulch gets extremely hot and there were complaints. Now there is a sign warning about the mulch and suggesting children not play during the hours of 10 am-4 pm. Smart, huh?

Aw, I want to slide out that elephant's butt!

Oh man...I don't know how I feel about these...

One part of me says "Shirley, they can't be serious" [sic...]

The other part of me feels awkward and judgmental...the same way I feel when I read The People of Walmart.

That elephant butt one is amusing at least!

Heh, yes Russia definitely has its share of wacky playgrounds - I grew up there and saw some of them. Probably played on some as a child, not even realising how weird-looking they were. :) It was just part of what you saw in playgrounds there! Some were kept up well by the neighbourhood, some fell into disrepair if the local street council wasn't doing its job (which was usually the case.)

Russian playgrounds have some lovely ideas too, though. One of my favourite parks in Moscow had a stone carved slide made to look like a snail shell. It also had wooden horses and a carriage (with a very strangely painted wooden coachman! We kids mostly played on the horses and avoided him) but they eventually fell into disrepair and were taken away.

One memorable winter morning I woke up to find that someone had carved an entire ice sculpture in the neighbouring building's courtyard! A massive Russian medieval warrior's head appeared overnight, made out of what used to be a useless pile of plowed snow. You climbed up into the head from behind and in the front was a slide, down the ice warrior's beard. It was AMAZING fun, and actually was really well-carved. It must have been a local ice sculptor's work, but we never found out who or why or how. It lasted for a couple of days under the winter sun and withstood constant sliding by children from the entire neighbourhood, then local teenagers destroyed it. We were hoping something similarly awesome would re-appear but it never did.

whoa.

http://thesweetest3.com/

dangerously hot? eh. when I grew up we all played on steel playground equipment in 100 degree heat and blazing sun. we just learned to feel it first to see if it was too hot. usually, we just slid with only our covered bums making contact with the metal and our legs hovering mid-air. it was fun and I lived. the equipment has since been removed and replaced by plastic coated structures and the kids don't play on it anymore.