This time last year we invested in a jungle gym for the kids. We have a small garden and found that the kids were running around the place like caged lions and that they really needed a way to exert more energy in our garden as it isn’t  always possible to take them to the park for a run around. I shared a little while back about how important it is to give your kids ‘green time’ and I wanted to find a way to encourage the kids out of the house.

We’d explored various jungle gym options that didn’t take up too much space in our garden but still offered enough for the kids to do. I can’t even remember how I first heard about the Pole Yard but I subsequently spent lots of time on their website dreaming about the kids playing in our back garden during the long summer afternoons. It soon became clear The Pole Yard ‘Dassie’ jungle gym would be the best way for us to go and would provide hours of fun for the kids. This jungle gym is perfect for smaller gardens (we’ve got a pretty small back garden behind our townhouse) as it covers only 1.5m x 2.1m.

The Dassie is a DIY jungle gym that comes with the basic, a cargo net, a climbing wall and a ladder. We customised ours by purchasing wood to create a sandpit at the bottom which has worked surprisingly well as the platform provides decent shade for the kids on sunny days also allowed them to continue playing in light drizzle too. We then recently customised our Dassie further by adding a wooden roof, fireman’s pole and the kids’ absolute favourite addition – the bucket pulley system.

The kids were stoked when their dad turned Bob the Builder and brought out his hammer to knock this the jungle gym together and it didn’t take long for them to learn how to have fun on the jungle gym – playing is a skill that needs to be practised! The pulley has definitely helped add a level of imaginary play to the jungle gym time and they can spend ages playing on and around the jungle gym, hoisting items up and down in the bucket.

Ilan is the biggest fan of the sandpit and can spend up to two hours in there while the kids are having their midday nap – he plays with trucks in there, makes magic medicine and recently a home for a field mouse. It’s been great seeing the kids become braver and more competent on the jungle gym and feel like they have really benefited from the extra fresh air and gross motor play.

We found the Pole Yard team extremely friendly and generous with advice on how to DIY our backyard dream into reality. I’d highly  recommend that you choose them if you’re thinking of investing in a jungle gym. Some helpful tips: find some friends with muscles to help speed up the DIY process, pay the little extra for delivery unless you have access to a big bakkie and make sure you treat the wood with linseed oil to protect it against the elements.

You can find The Pole Yard in Paarden Eiland, Retreat, Noordhoek, Vredenburg and are about to open in the Helderberg area too. Check our their website and Facebook page if you’d like to find out more about the gift that keep on giving for a growing child.

*This post was written in partnership with The Pole Yard who sponsored the most recent add-ons to our existing jungle gym.