The Essence of Play

The Essence of Play PDF Author: Justine Howard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415678080
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 167

Book Description
A unique companion to professional play practice All play professionals are united in their belief that play is important for children's development - and there are inherent characteristics of play that underpin professional play practice across contexts. Providing an overarching concept of play, drawing together the evidence base across disciplines and linking theory to practice, The Essence of Play is the ideal handbook for all those working with children. Play acts as a natural resource for children to meet physical, intellectual and emotional challenges and this book, unusually, considers play from the perspectives of children rather than adults. It provides a baseline of shared knowledge for all play professionals, exploring the fundamental value of play rather than a 'how to' approach to practice. It considers: the therapeutic potential inherent in play; how play reflects and promotes physical, emotional, intellectual, linguistic and social abilities; the emergence of different types of play skills and why these are important; cross-cultural patterns in play, gender, atypicality and adversity, highlighting the relevance of these issues to professional play practice; the benefits of utilising play for assessment and other professional practice issues such as ethical play practice, balancing risk with health and safety and the creation and management of boundaries. This text is designed for students and practitioners working with children across the helping professions, including early years education, play therapy, playwork, childcare, social care, nursing and allied health. Each chapter provides directed reading and small reflective tasks to encourage readers to digest key issues.

Critical Play

Critical Play PDF Author: Mary Flanagan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262518651
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Book Description
An examination of subversive games like The Sims—games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique. For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games—games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry—and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of “playing house” include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists’ alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns—including worldwide poverty and AIDS—can be incorporated into game design. Arguing that this kind of conscious practice—which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium—can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices.

The Essence of Play

The Essence of Play PDF Author: Barbara E. Chandler
Publisher: Amer Occupational Therapy Assn
ISBN: 9781569001066
Category : Occupational therapy for children
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Book Description


Purposeful Play

Purposeful Play PDF Author: Kristine Mraz
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
ISBN: 9780325077888
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Play is serious business. Whether it's reenacting a favorite book (comprehension and close reading), negotiating the rules for a game (speaking and listening), or collaborating over building blocks (college and career readiness and STEM), Kristi Mraz, Alison Porcelli, and Cheryl Tyler see every day how play helps students reach standards and goals in ways that in-their-seat instruction alone can't do. And not just during playtimes. "We believe there is play in work and work in play," they write. "It helps to have practical ways to carry that mindset into all aspects of the curriculum." In Purposeful Play, they share ways to: optimize and balance different types of play to deepen regular classroom learning teach into play to foster social-emotional skills and a growth mindset bring the impact of play into all your lessons across the day. "We believe that play is one type of environment where children can be rigorous in their learning," Kristi, Alison, and Cheryl write. So they provide a host of lessons, suggestions for classroom setups, helpful tools and charts, curriculum connections, teaching points, and teaching language to help you foster mature play that makes every moment in your classroom instructional. Play doesn't only happen when work is over. Children show us time and time again that play is the way they work. In Purposeful Play, you'll find research-driven methods for making play an engine for rigorous learning in your classroom.

The Game Design Reader

The Game Design Reader PDF Author: Katie Salen Tekinbas
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262195364
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 955

Book Description
Classic and cutting-edge writings on games, spanning nearly 50 years of game analysis and criticism, by game designers, game journalists, game fans, folklorists, sociologists, and media theorists. The Game Design Reader is a one-of-a-kind collection on game design and criticism, from classic scholarly essays to cutting-edge case studies. A companion work to Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman's textbook Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, The Game Design Reader is a classroom sourcebook, a reference for working game developers, and a great read for game fans and players. Thirty-two essays by game designers, game critics, game fans, philosophers, anthropologists, media theorists, and others consider fundamental questions: What are games and how are they designed? How do games interact with culture at large? What critical approaches can game designers take to create game stories, game spaces, game communities, and new forms of play? Salen and Zimmerman have collected seminal writings that span 50 years to offer a stunning array of perspectives. Game journalists express the rhythms of game play, sociologists tackle topics such as role-playing in vast virtual worlds, players rant and rave, and game designers describe the sweat and tears of bringing a game to market. Each text acts as a springboard for discussion, a potential class assignment, and a source of inspiration. The book is organized around fourteen topics, from The Player Experience to The Game Design Process, from Games and Narrative to Cultural Representation. Each topic, introduced with a short essay by Salen and Zimmerman, covers ideas and research fundamental to the study of games, and points to relevant texts within the Reader. Visual essays between book sections act as counterpoint to the writings. Like Rules of Play, The Game Design Reader is an intelligent and playful book. An invaluable resource for professionals and a unique introduction for those new to the field, The Game Design Reader is essential reading for anyone who takes games seriously.

Gertrude Stein and the Essence of what Happens

Gertrude Stein and the Essence of what Happens PDF Author: Dana Cairns Watson
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 9780826514639
Category : Conversation in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
Watson traces Gertrude Stein's (1874-1946) growing fascination with the cognitive and political ramifications of conversation and how that interest influenced her writing over the course of her career.

Peer Play and Relationships in Early Childhood

Peer Play and Relationships in Early Childhood PDF Author: Avis Ridgway
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303042331X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description
This book offers a rich collection of international research narratives that reveal the qualities and value of peer play. It presents new understandings of peer play and relationships in chapters drawn from richly varied contexts that involve sibling play, collaborative peer play, and joint play with adults. The book explores social strategies such as cooperation, negotiation, playing with rules, expressing empathy, and sharing imaginary emotional peer play experiences. Its reconceptualization of peer play and relationships promotes new thinking on children's development in contemporary worlds. It shows how new knowledge generated about young children's play with peers illuminates how they learn and develop within and across communities, families, and educational settings in diverse cultural contexts. The book addresses issues that are relevant for parents, early years' professionals and academics, including the role of play in learning at school, the role of adults in self-initiated play, and the long-term impact of early friendships. The book makes clear how recent cultural differences involve digital, engineering and imaginary peer play. The book follows a clear line of argument highlighting the importance of play-based learning and stress the importance of further knowledge of children's interaction in their context. This book aims to highlight the narration of peer play, mostly leaning on a sociocultural theoretical perspective, where many chapters have a cultural-historical theoretical frame and highlight children's social situation of development. Polly Björk-Willén, Linköping University, Sweden

Guidance of Childhood and Youth

Guidance of Childhood and Youth PDF Author: Child Study Association of America
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Child development
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description


The Essence Of The Blues

The Essence Of The Blues PDF Author: Jim Snidero
Publisher: Alfred Music
ISBN: 9783954810512
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56

Book Description
The Essence of the Blues by Jim Snidero provides beginners and moderately advanced musicians with an introduction to the language of the blues. In 10 etudes focusing on various types of the blues, the musician learns to master the essential basics step by step. Each piece comes with an in-depth analysis of blues styles and music theory, appropriate scale exercises, tips for studying and practicing, suggestions for improvising, recommended listening, and specific techniques used by some of the all-time best jazz/blues musicians, including Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, B.B. King, Stanley Turrentine, and others. The accompanying play-along CD features world famous New York recording artists including Eric Alexander, Jeremy Pelt, Jim Snidero, Steve Davis, Mike LeDonne, Peter Washington, and others. Recorded at a world-class studio, these play alongs are deeply authentic, giving the musician a real-life playing experience to learn and enjoy the blues.

Free Play

Free Play PDF Author: Stephen Nachmanovitch
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 144067308X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
Free Play is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms. An international bestseller and beloved classic, Free Play is an inspiring and provocative book, directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured, and how finally it can be liberated—how we can be liberated—to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice. Stephen Nachmanovitch, a pioneer in free improvisation, integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity, drawing on unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors. The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. Free Play brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had.