One of the big surprises many years ago was the versatile way in which children chose to play with a pair of Cosy willow lattice arches. When I first saw these in a Derby nursery, I could see they were very open-ended.

I was not surprised that the children used them to make different sorts of dens. Some types were the “block ups” which are all about keeping other people out and are territorial.

They have also been places to hang out in a casual sort of way. Draping material over the top of these or having material available for this purpose has worked well. Interestingly, a fishing net was ignored yet this camouflage net was popular.

For a long time we had a mini swing set up. The children adored this. Swings are something they love and enjoy. Amazingly the arches withstood the weight and the abuse. If you look carefully we tied the arch on both sides to the heavyweight benches. This helped keep the arch in a fixed position.

Many children like to experience height and climb whatever they can. The child in the photo below has a very good head for heights and is extremely good at climbing and balancing on all sorts of things. Needless to say most of the other children do not attempt to hang out on top of the arch.

The other arch has not been fixed to any other features. This meant it was prone to much more moving about and experiments of different sorts. Once one child realised it could be knocked over, then this proved to be a compulsive daily test. Then the same child below discovered it could become a massive rocker.

There was more than enough room for two children. This involved a fair amount of cooperation to get the arch to rock. It was a very physical act involving a high degree of whole body work (if this makes sense).

The other resource I also ordered simultaneously was four willow panels from Cosy. These are perfect for moving and den building especially in flat tarmac spaces which do not have nooks and crannies.

Children of all ages played with them for hours. Every den I see is always different. One thing I did with these panels is added duck tape along the top and bottom. This stops the willow from springing out. With lots of wet and dry weather the willow does expand and contract.

As you can see, there’s a lot of den building associated with these resources. If you want a very readable and informative guide to dens and forts then have a look at Morgan Leichter-Saxby’s report: Children’s Places of Secrecy and Play. Morgan also has a great play blog, Play Everything, which has links to more of her work on dens. She is one of the founders of Pop Up Adventure Play.

Finally, please note that the children in these photos have used the willow lattice arches in ways that it was not designed for. You will need to use common sense here about what is and is not appropriate practice. However I thought the photos serve to show two purposes:

• Children see a resource in terms of what it has the potential to be, not what an adult perceives its use.
• That this is a tough resource – far tougher than I had thought. Sometimes it is so hard to tell what resources will withstand hard use and which won’t.

This blog post was originally published in December 2012. The Cosy Foundation owns this Creative STAR website but I have not been under any pressure or expectation to blog about their resources. I just do so when it’s appropriate.