Discover The Fascinating Story And Benefits Of Monkey Bars For Kids And Adults

Who would have imagined that monkey bars, or jungle gym, as they also used to be known, had quite a fascinating story behind them?!

To teach his children math skills, scientist Charles H. Hinton developed a three-dimensional climbing frame dome made out of bamboo, with geometric shapes that were evenly spaced. His son, Sebastian Hinton, always remembered how he used to climb on this frame as his father called out intersections for him and his siblings to identify and move towards as if the frame were a Cartesian Plane; he’d call out coordinates, for example, A2, C6, and his children would move around and climb towards the correct spots.

Little did he imagine that he was creating the precursor for the monkey bars for kids with his monkey bar backyard teaching tool!

Swing Set With Monkey Bars Story

Years later, around 1912, Sebastian married a schoolteacher with a vision; she hadn’t had a good experience in school growing up and wanted to make a difference to other children by creating alternative learning environments that would grant fun learning experiences for them, which included more outdoor activities like camping, hiking and farming and she called this: Progressive Education.

One day, as Sebastian observed his wife’s pupils playing outside, he had an idea; he thought of the structure his father had built so many years ago and he went ahead and designed and built a three-dimensional structure for the kids to climb and play on, he patented it and called it a Jungle Gym. Eventually, the jungle gym climbing frame was reduced to the monkey bars because of practical and financial reasons, monkey bars being cheaper and easier to deliver and assemble.

Nowadays, monkey bars are a staple in a swing set! The best part is that they are not only fun to play on but there are also a series of benefits that come when doing so. Here are our five top reasons why kids (and grown-ups, too!) should play on monkey bar.

Monkey Bars For Kids

1. Monkey bar develop and build up confidence in kids by building relationships with other children, giving space to decision-making, encouraging risk-taking in a safe way, and handling disappointment.
2. Physically, they allow stretching and flexibility and help deal with balance issues.
3. Monkey bar backyard improve posture, develop strength and help sleep better.
4. Climbing on monkey bars help relieve stress.
5. Simply as exercise, they offer an almost full body work-out, including the muscles in your back, your shoulder muscles, your biceps and even your abs.