With health organisations across the globe warning of the potential crisis of child obesity there has never been a better time to motivate your child to follow wholesome, happy and energetic lives. In the past encouraging children was never a complex job, with fixed hours of kid's T.V, no electronic based entertainment and a selection of local government maintained parks and playgrounds kids would naturally meet with friends and participate in active and energetic games. Sadly nowadays encouraging a child to play outdoors can be a real uphill battle and a battle that is sometimes left too late. As soon as your child is able to toddle they need to be shown the joy that can be found through energetic outdoor play and help to develop healthy habits for later life. With the closing of many local government run parks and playgrounds and growing concern about gangs on our streets many parents are unwilling to let kids play away from the home. A superb answer in this event is to have a range of outdoor toys and play equipment in your own garden that children can use and ask friends over to play.

In the past outdoor toys consisted of a bat and ball or a fishing net and plenty of imagination, refreshingly now the outdoor toy market is massive and the selection of options on the market makes sure there is an outdoor toy for everyone. Encouraging your children to play outside needn't be expensive though. By teaching them simple games from your own childhood such as Dodge Ball, Kick The Can or even Rounders you are able to get them playing energetically for free!

If you are considering buying a selection of outdoor toys to help drive your child's outside then there are a superb selection of toys to help you. Sandpits are a great buy for very young kids. Almost any child can learn from playing in a sandpit and at the same time develop key motor skills as they scoop, construct or even just run their hands through the sand. Very young toddlers have a desire to put everything they grab in their mouths so supervision will be essential until they getout of this practice. The selection and quality of sandpits has altered massively since the early eightieswhen the horrible 'shell' design was all parents could purchase. Nowadays you can purchase quality timber sandpits, picnic benches that conceal sandpits beneath the table surface and even flexible mini sandpits that can be kept in the garage or shed and carried out as and when needed. One thing to bear in mind when selecting sand for your sandpit is to purchase specific 'play sand' that has been washed and treated to remove staining clay components and to ensure it clean and soft to a youngsters. The other advantage of purchasing a wooden sandbox is that once the children have outgrown it you can simply load it with potting compost and a few flowering plants for a instant flower bed!

Another newcomer to Britain has been cedar 'Swingsets' or climbing frames from Northern America These fantastic swingsets are traditionally made from cedar or redwood lumber and range from basic swings and slides to multilevel adventure centres costing thousands of pounds. There are two main sort of wooden swingset on the market; modular or boxed. Boxed play centres from manufacturers including Adventure Playsets make a single structure that incorporates everything you require to make it in the box and allows anybody with basic tool skills to make a quality wooden swingset. The modular sets from manufacturers such as Rainbow and Backyard Adventures permint the customer to pick component 'modules' that bolt to one another to produce a brilliant and unique swingset. The main distinction are quality and price. The boxed swingsets range from three hundred pounds - £3000 whereas the modular sets are two thousand pounds - £25000+. The modular sets do tend to be of a better standard and come with wider ranging warranties. The other essential difference is that unlike boxed sets which are erected by the parent the modular option usually requires a salesman visiting you at home, helping you to build a design and then having a dedicated erection team build your swingset as part of the price. The advantage of a cedar swingset is that they survive for decades with most being guaranteed for ten or sometimes twenty years guaranteeing the swingset will last beyond your children's childhood years.

You needn't spend thousands though to get your kids playing in the garden, there are a wide range of toys and games that are able to do just that for a couple of quid. When the sun begins to shine a simple waterpistol can be enough to get the children charging about the back garden after one another burning up calories and developing agile bodies.

There are of course hundreds of other toys to engage your kids and encourage an active lifestyle that I really don't have room to go into. I hope this article has however, assisted to galvanise you into driving your children to develop healthy lifestyles that should have repercussions long after they grow out of their garden toys.