Dreaming of a day when there will be a real playground in her own neighborhood, a little girl is ecstatic when she learns that a local playground has been planned, in a story inspired by the construction of the first playground built by the KaBOOM! national nonprofit.

Let's Play! Promoting Active Playgrounds will help you know the activities that children ages 3 to 8 typically play on the playground and assess the specific skills they need in order to take part in those activities. It will also help you identify kids who are left out of the activities or choose to withdraw from them, and help those kids to acquire the skills they need to be part of the playground action.

In his final work, a visionary game designer reveals how a surprising range of play-based experiences can unlock our imagination and help us capture the power of fun and delight. Bernard De Koven (1941–2018) was a pioneering designer of games and theorist of fun. He studied games long before the field of game studies existed. For De Koven, games could not be reduced to artifacts and rules; they were about a sense of transcendent fun. This book, his last, is about the imagination: the imagination as a playground, a possibility space, and a gateway to wonder. The Infinite Playground extends a play-centered invitation to experience the power and delight unlocked by imagination. It offers a curriculum for playful learning. De Koven guides the readers through a series of observations and techniques, interspersed with games. He begins with the fundamentals of play, and proceeds through the private imagination, the shared imagination, and imagining the world—observing, “the things we imagine can become the world.” Along the way, he reminisces about playing ping-pong with basketball great Bill Russell; begins the instructions for a game called Reception Line with “Mill around”; and introduces blathering games—Blather, Group Blather, Singing Blather, and The Blather Chorale—that allow the player's consciousness to meander freely. Delivered during the last months of his life, The Infinite Playground has been painstakingly cowritten with Holly Gramazio, who worked together with coeditors Celia Pearce and Eric Zimmerman to complete the project as Bernie De Koven's illness made it impossible for him to continue writing. Other prominent game scholars and designers influenced by De Koven, including Katie Salen Tekinbaş, Jesper Juul, Frank Lantz, and members of Bernie's own family, contribute short interstitial essays.

Going into the playground can be like setting off on an adventure in the jungle – exciting, a little bit wild and filled with lots of different creatures. You’ll meet lots of people having their own adventures in the playground, and sometimes you might want to play together. There’s a lot to learn, but there’s also lots of fun to be had. This series deals with emotive issues that children face in direct and gentle terms, allowing children’s feelings and problems to be more easily shared and discussed with family and friends. Author Shona Innes is a qualified clinical and forensic psychologist with many years of experience assisting children.

How filling life with play-whether soccer or lawn mowing, counting sheep or tossing Angry Birds -- forges a new path for creativity and joy in our impatient age Life is boring: filled with meetings and traffic, errands and emails. Nothing we'd ever call fun. But what if we've gotten fun wrong? In Play Anything, visionary game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost shows how we can overcome our daily anxiety; transforming the boring, ordinary world around us into one of endless, playful possibilities. The key to this playful mindset lies in discovering the secret truth of fun and games. Play Anything, reveals that games appeal to us not because they are fun, but because they set limitations. Soccer wouldn't be soccer if it wasn't composed of two teams of eleven players using only their feet, heads, and torsos to get a ball into a goal; Tetris wouldn't be Tetris without falling pieces in characteristic shapes. Such rules seem needless, arbitrary, and difficult. Yet it is the limitations that make games enjoyable, just like it's the hard things in life that give it meaning. Play is what happens when we accept these limitations, narrow our focus, and, consequently, have fun. Which is also how to live a good life. Manipulating a soccer ball into a goal is no different than treating ordinary circumstances- like grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and making PowerPoints-as sources for meaning and joy. We can "play anything" by filling our days with attention and discipline, devotion and love for the world as it really is, beyond our desires and fears. Ranging from Internet culture to moral philosophy, ancient poetry to modern consumerism, Bogost shows us how today's chaotic world can only be tamed-and enjoyed-when we first impose boundaries on ourselves.

We accomplish extraordinary things when we do ordinary things together. This heartfelt and hopeful conviction led LSU professor Marybeth Lima to begin the LSU Community Playground Project in an attempt to involve her students in the larger Baton Rouge community. Fifteen years and over seven hundred students later, Building Playgrounds, Engaging Communities tells the story of the Playground Project's ongoing partnership with area public schools to build safe, fun, accessible, kid-designed playgrounds. Lima's experiences with the Playground Project range from outright failures to hard-won victories. Overcoming the challenges of working with scarce resources, Lima persevered despite many setbacks. Her accounts brim with hope, humor, and dedication. Building Playgrounds, Engaging Communities emphasizes the major impact people can have when they work together for the common good -- whether by building playgrounds, establishing neighborhood gardens, or having honest, respectful conversations. To this end, Lima provides an appendix with practical advice for local engagement. People wanting to get involved in their communities can use this book as a road map; those active in long-term endeavors can draw on it for ideas and inspiration.

When you hear the word "playground," what do you think of? Do you picture slides and swings? Do you think of climbing walls and tunnels? Or do you picture pirate ships and space to run? Over the years, playgrounds have changed in many ways. But they have always been a place where children can enjoy themselves and learn important lessons about safety and getting along with others. Discover how playgrounds came to be and how they have changed over the years.