Arrangement of a sandbox on the balcony
To save space and diversify the child's leisure, you can safely use the balcony. With the right arrangement, even these additional meters can be turned into a children's playground with a variety of equipment, including a sandbox.
Advantages and disadvantages
All children, regardless of age, enjoy playing with sand. In addition to pleasant tactile sensations, the benefits lie in relieving emotional and physical stress, developing motor skills, coordination and imagination. With the help of sand, you can draw, sculpt, search for buried things, sift it, or simply pour it over. In addition to the obvious benefits for the child, the home sandbox has many additional advantages:
- no need to worry about the purity and quality of the sand mass;
- useful if there is no way to walk outside (during bad weather conditions or quarantine);
- the device does not need a lot of time, effort and money;
- with the correct organization of the play area, the sandbox can be used not only for its intended purpose, but also as a storage for toys, a table.
The main concerns of parents are related to the fact that cleaning will be required even after careful play. In this case, the balcony turns into a separate play area, the insulation of which will prevent the spread of grains of sand to other rooms.
At the same time, do not forget that such games of young children should be supervised by adults.
What do you need?
First of all, when arranging a balcony, you should think about safety - it is necessary to exclude the possibility of a child falling through fences or from a window. In order to play on the loggia at any time of the year, you need to take care of heating, ventilation, protection from the sun and drafts.
When choosing a sandbox, you need to focus on:
- the child's age and abilities;
- amount of children;
- the size of the balcony or loggia;
- planned classes.
A high-quality sandbox should first of all be stable, made of safe material, without sharp edges and chipping. An important role is played by the preservation of the contents inside the container and the possibility of quick cleaning, if necessary.
As a trial option, you can use any suitable plastic tray or container as a sandbox, as well as a wooden box (including furniture) or an inflatable pool. Besides, in stores, you can choose any of the specialized sandbox options you like - ranging from simple floor tables to multifunctional tables, as well as complexes with playhouses. And when the child grows up, you can turn the hobby into a constant hobby - for example, paint pictures out of sand.
In addition to the sandbox itself, the following details need to be thought about:
- filling in the form of kinetic, colored or ordinary sand (it can be bought at a hardware store, as well as collected in an ecologically clean place, and then thoroughly cleaned);
- a lid for the container and a comfortable floor covering around;
- a bench, high chair or built-in seat;
- inventory (molds, mills, convenient and various tools for manipulating the sand mass);
- lighting.
How to do it yourself?
A sandbox for a balcony can be made according to the same principle as a street one:
- first, you should prepare parts of the required length and width - these parameters depend on the size of the balcony or loggia;
- for a solid foundation, one or more boards (depending on the estimated height of the sandbox) are connected at right angles and fastened with screws;
- then, using a construction stapler around the perimeter, it is necessary to fix any suitable material (cellophane, tarpaulin), which will serve as the bottom;
- from above, along the perimeter of the base or on both sides, boards are fixed used as a seat.
To close the sandbox, you can form two flaps by fastening the boards with bars at some distance from the edges. Then the resulting blanks are installed in place using hinges. In the improved model, the sash can serve as a seat back.
It is much more convenient when the sandbox is on legs - then the child can play while standing or sit next to it on any suitable chair. The easiest option is to assemble a frame from bars that will hold the containers. Legged castors will make the structure more mobile, and hooks and accessory baskets will help you keep everything you need in one place.
As an alternative to wood, you can use plastic pipes - they are quite attractive, budgetary and easy to clean. The frame can be easily assembled from pieces of the desired length and fittings. In addition, PVC pipes bend well when heated, allowing you to create the option you need in shape and size.
