Does your organization want to give children freedom and inspiration when playing? Do you want to encourage children to be creative and inventive in a playful way? Then Hop Up is the play concept for you. With Hop Up, children are in charge. They turn out to be powerful researchers and resourceful architects of their own playground.
Play without limits
What is Hop Up?
Hop Up is an innovative playground concept that can be set up in areas where children between the ages of 3 and 12 play, learn and experience. Hop Up Playgrounds allow children to blossom into the rugged explorers and ingenious architects of a playground environment of their own.
Here, they can experiment and create to their heart’s content. In no time at all, they will build the most versatile structures and cosiest corners to curl up in with Hop Up Playgrounds, even though this consists of only a minimum of materials and play elements.
Imagination and creativity
Each Hop Up Playground consists of a number of life-sized, trapezoidal Hoppers, Stix & Tubes, and a Fixers Playset. All of them stimulate open-ended play. There are no instructions telling a child how they should be used, or for what purpose. This spurs children to appeal to their imagination and creativity. Children build the most versatile and original constructions. A pirate ship, a space station or a cool tree house? The possibilities are endless!
Setting up and putting away is child's play
Even the smallest children can get started with these light-weight materials. In addition to this, Hop Up Playgrounds are compact: they are easy to store and move about on the trolley that is included. As only one square meter of storage space is needed, Hop Up Playgrounds are ideal for multifunctional spaces. Cleaned up neatly.
Who is Hop Up for?
You are a childcare or youth service and you want children to play and romp freely. Qualitative use of space and collaboration between different services are at the top of your agenda.
You work in a kindergarten or primary school and you want high-quality pedagogical material to realize your schoolproject. Before, during or after school: children deserve a challenging play and learning environment at all times.
Your organization or company offers temporary childcare and leisure activities. From museum to sports camp, from corporate childcare to shopping center. You want to make optimal use of available space for free play.
Assets of Hop Up
Open ended play
Hop Up elements stimulate open-ended play. There are no instructions telling a child how they should be used, or for what purpose. This spurs children to appeal to their imagination and creativity. Children build the most versatile and modular constructions. Each part builds on the previous one or becomes the foundation of something new.
Cosy snuggle corners
Even the wildest kids out there sometimes need a place to curl up. Hop Up lets them create all sorts of small corners. This allows children to find peace and security in their playtime when they are confronted with too many stimuli.
Durable and safe
Hop Up's materials can withstand intensive play and have been extensively tested for safety. The Hop Up Playgrounds meet all standards for playground equipment.
21st century skills
Hop Up brings out the explorer, inventor and artist in every child. This kind of play, which promotes activity, exploration and a capacity for design, stimulates 21st-century skills like problem-solving ability, creativity and collaboration. Hop Up creates a play and learning environment that lends itself perfectly to STEAM education, arts and motion.
Choose the Playground that suits you
Hop Up comes in different Playgrounds and offers something for everyone: from a base of original Hop Up materials to unimpended play opportunities in large spaces. Each Playground consists of a specifically composed bundle of modular play elements that encourage children to active, exploring and designing play. Life-sized, trapezoidal Hoppers, a Fixers Playset, Stix & Tubes, Click’in Domes, ... are all materials that capture the imagination and can be combined endlessly. Children can create their own play environment in no time, full of quirky and versatile constructions and nesting corners.
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Children spend their free time more and more in uninspiring environments with a temporary play function. The call for more efficient cooperation and more shared use of space between education, childcare and youth service is getting louder. Hop Up, a contraction of grasshopper and pop-up, jumps on that social trend. With the Hop Up Playgrounds, (temporary) play environments pop up in places where you don’t always expect them.
Children are literally given the space to shape their own boundary-pushing games.
Hop Up is an initiative of Blenders vzw, a Belgian non-profit that detects needs and opportunities in society and evokes the power of collaboration to develop new solutions. We gathered children and professionals from childcare, education and youth service to exchange ideas and inspirations. With a strong vision on children, play and the space they need to play, Hop Up knocked on the door of the University of Antwerp and product developer Absintt, and the Hop Up Playground was born.