From a leading expert, a groundbreaking book on the science of play, and its essential role in fueling our happiness and intelligence throughout our lives. We've all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever...
Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life
A leading expert in childhood development makes the case for why self-directed learning -- "unschooling" -- is the best way to get kids to learn. In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that in order to foster children who will thrive in today's constantly changing world, we must...
Play = Learning: How Play Motivates and Enhances Children’s Cognitive and Social-Emotional Growth
Why is it that the best and brightest of our children are arriving at college too burned out to profit from the smorgasbord of intellectual delights that they are offered? Why is it that some preschools and kindergartens have a majority of children struggling to master cognitive tasks that are...
The Wisdom of Play – How Children Learn to Make Sense of the World
A very short, free booklet that concisely covers the importance of play in childhood. Contains sections by leading experts on play and child development. Click the publisher link to download a PDF of the booklet.
Playful Awakening – Releasing the Gift of Play in Your Life
Forward by Stuart Brown MD Playfulness has the power to reconnect us with our sense of self, and help us achieve growth and self-fulfilment. The author of this wide-ranging book explores the universal significance of play in the pursuit of happiness and authenticity. Providing a brief overview of the role...
Children at Play: An American History
A chronological history of children's playtime over the last 200 years If you believe the experts, “child’s play”; is serious business. From sociologists to psychologists and from anthropologists to social critics, writers have produced mountains of books about the meaning and importance of play. But what do we know about...
The Self Respecting Child – Development Through Spontaneous Play
This classic study of the spontaneous play of young children combines vivid and delightful observations with profoundly important insights. Alison Stallibrass, an expert on children's play and the mother of five children, makes clear the importance of uninhibited games and activities, without adult interference, in building a child's skill, judgment,...
When Children Play:Proceedings of the International Conference on Play and Play Environments
This book is a compilation of 47 wide-ranging papers presented at the International Conference on Play and Play Environments. The introduction reviews both the historical recognition of the value of play by various philosophers and educators and the historical disregard for childhood that has prevailed through the centuries, particularly in...
Users’ Needs Report on Play for Children with Disabilities: Parents’ and Children’s Views
This book is the result of the first two-year work of Working Group 1 of the network “LUDI – Play for children with disabilities”. LUDI is an Action (2014-2018) financed by COST; it is a multidisciplinary network of more than 30 countries and almost 100 researchers and practitioners belonging to...
The Power of Play: Learning What Comes Naturally
Today's parents often worry that their children will be at a disadvantage if they are not engaged in constant learning, but child development expert David Elkind reassures us that imaginative play goes far to prepare children for academic and social success. Through expert analysis of the research and powerful examples,...
The Philosophy of Play as Life
It is now widely acknowledged that play is central to our lives. As a phenomenon, play poses important questions of reality, subjectivity, competition, inclusion and exclusion. This international collection is the third in a series of books (including The Philosophy of Play and Philosophical Perspectives on Play) that aims to...
The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Play
The role of play in human development has long been the subject of controversy. Despite being championed by many of the foremost scholars of the twentieth century, play has been dogged by underrepresentation and marginalization in literature across the scientific disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Play marks...
The Normal Course in Play: Practical Material for Use in the Training of Playground and Recreation Workers
The purpose of the Normal Course in Play is to give a conception of the scope of play and its influences on life which will challenge the student as well as give practical information. The book lays before the instructor the main facts about the play movement and program, its...
The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It
The Art of Roughhousing teaches parents how rough-and-tumble play can nurture close connections, solve behavior problems, boost confidence, and more. Drawing from gymnastics, martial arts, ballet, traditional sports, and even animal behavior, the authors present fifty illustrated activities for children and parents to enjoy together – everything from the “Sumo...
The Ambiguity of Play
Every child knows what it means to play, but the rest of us can merely speculate. Is it a kind of adaptation, teaching us skills, inducting us into certain communities? Is it power, pursued in games of prowess? Fate, deployed in games of chance? Daydreaming, enacted in art? Or is...
The Aesthetic of Play (The MIT Press)
A game designer considers the experience of play, why games have rules, and the relationship of play and narrative. The impulse toward play is very ancient, not only pre-cultural but pre-human; zoologists have identified play behaviors in turtles and in chimpanzees. Games have existed since antiquity; 5,000-year-old board games have...
Spotlight on Young Children: Exploring Play
Play is an essential part of children's development and learning. Play helps children learn to understand themselves and get along with others, explore their environment, investigate science, math, and literacy, learn about their communities, and much more. The articles in this collection emphasize the importance of play—from infancy through the...
Self Active Play – Awakens Creativity, Empowers Self Discovery, Inspires Optimism
Self Active Play shares with readers the principles and experiences of 30+ years of exploring play through the Institute for Self Active Education and with hundreds of children and educators. Self Active Play delivers: - insights you can use in opening up environments for play; - advice for stocking play...
Saving Play: Addressing Standards through Play-Based Learning in Preschool and Kindergarten
Play, academics, and standards can work together with the right strategies and support from educators. Take an active role in child-directed play to guide learning. Become a strong advocate for saving play in early childhood education by empowering teachers to join play and standards, and learn how child-led, open-ended play...
Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (Or Anyone Who Acts Like One)
Based on the work of one of the world’s foremost child development experts, Rest, Play, Grow offers a road map to making sense of young children, and is what every toddler, preschooler, and kindergartner wishes we understood about them, Baffling and beloved, with the capacity to go from joy to...
