The Summit on the Values of Play produced the following "Calls to Action"

• From the list of attendees, “create a Coalition for Play to communicate and advocate for a new play movement”
  • Strategically grow the Coalition for Play by “targeting others from related professions” and organizations in areas of needed emphasis
  • “Mobilize youth and young adults as key players in developing a play movement”
• Begin “synthesizing existing research on play as it affects a person’s lifelong cognitive, physical and affective development”
  • “Identify the costs to society and individuals that result from lack of play”
• “Develop a robust national communications campaign” on promoting a play movement
  • “Inspire families to change their perceptions and behaviors regarding the essential value of play”
• Develop the capacity to “Advocate for legislation in support of play”
  • “Change liability laws to be friendlier to play”
• “Develop national guidelines for healthy play and healthy communities”

 Let us wish them every success.

See this for more.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Labels: play learning, play power

Brian Sutton-Smith (shown here with a passel of his playful progeny) - the same guy who said: "The opposite of play is not work, it's depression" - has been a friend of mine for 35-some years. I first came across his name in a book called The Study of Games that he and Elliot Avedon had co-authored. I was at the time working on my Interplay Games Curriculum, and was in the heat of searching for everything I could find out about games and the study thereof, and this particular book turned out to be a godsend. The next godsend occurred a few years later when I discovered that he was teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. I don't remember exactly what the next steps were, but for several years he brought his classes to my play study retreat center, the Games Preserve, and he, his students and I shared some wonderfully deep play together.

Dr. Brian Sutton Smith, author of The Ambiguity of Play, Professor Emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania where he taught in the Graduate School of Education and the Program of Folklore and Folklife, had this to say about himself:

"first of all I don't consider myself just an academic. I have reached that point in life where my initial pretenses of being a scholar and of being impersonal no longer serve as a convincing dis guise for myself. I've come to believe that a central issue in understanding life or social science or gaining wis dom about anything that is significant is to determine the way in which one's own internal narrative interacts with their personal scholarship. In New Zealand where I was born, I was deeply influenced by my aggressive and physically active older brother into considering play largely as a matter of power. My father was the Wellington chief postmaster who longed to be a university professor and was active as a storyteller and amateur actor. From him I got my academic interests in drama and in stories. These individuals certainly have influenced much of my life. I wish it was sufficient simply to announce that I have been persistently interested in play and that I think it's important." (from an interview with Dr Stuart Brown).

Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith, "...persistently interested in play and...its importan(ce)," Defender of the Playful.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Labels: Defender of the Playful

The Major Fun Award identifies games that are:
from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Labels: PR

From our friends-in-spirit at Afrigadget , here's how to make your own soccer game:

"Firstly you look for old clothes or blankets. Then you put a few condoms around, which you blow up with your mouth, but not with too much air. Just so it’s the same size as a soccer ball. After this you put either a plastic bag or a piece of old clothing over the condom. Then to make it strong, you tear up the old clothing or blanket into long strips and tie the strips all around the condom to strengthen the shape of the ball and make it heavier. Once you can feel it bounces well, you take a strong plastic bag and wrap it around the ball. Lastly you reinforce it by wrapping strong rope or tire wire around it."Maybe you are surprised but let me tell you about the field. It is not a play ground or a park but it is a field that is full of drains and the half of it has a long grass and some kind of a wetland and a dumping place. And as we all know that when you are playing soccer you need scoring nets. These boys don’t have scoring nets, but take wood or cardboard that is in the carpet and make poles."

Read the whole article, and be sure to look at the commentaries and links for more, here .


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Labels: Junkyard Sports

Löffelfußball und Poolnudelhockey, a.k.a. Junkyard Sports. Now available in Germany.




from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Labels: Junkyard Sports