Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Playing with Stuff
The subtitle of Playing with Stuff: "Outrageous Games with Ordinary Objects. " Oddly enough, it wasn't the Outrageous Games that attracted me as much as the Ordinary Objects part.
For example, there's one game that tells you to hang a potlid by its handle somewhere - wherever it can hang freely. And then get a lot of toy soldiers or maybe leggos or something of a similar multitude, and take turns, one at a time, adding a toy, until the lid tilts and everything falls off. A pot lid! Or another where you draw a grid on a sheet of paper, color in a few squares at random, cover the whole thing with salt, and then, using straws, take turns trying to blow away the salt, square-by-square, without uncovering a colored square.
Don't let the upscale design of the book distract you from the wonders its pages can offer the rained-out mind of a 10-year-old. Yes, the print is small and the graphics make it look like it's a book for even younger kids, but the games are positively inspiring, and the use of everyday objects an invitation to ingenuity.
For example, there's one game that tells you to hang a potlid by its handle somewhere - wherever it can hang freely. And then get a lot of toy soldiers or maybe leggos or something of a similar multitude, and take turns, one at a time, adding a toy, until the lid tilts and everything falls off. A pot lid! Or another where you draw a grid on a sheet of paper, color in a few squares at random, cover the whole thing with salt, and then, using straws, take turns trying to blow away the salt, square-by-square, without uncovering a colored square.
Don't let the upscale design of the book distract you from the wonders its pages can offer the rained-out mind of a 10-year-old. Yes, the print is small and the graphics make it look like it's a book for even younger kids, but the games are positively inspiring, and the use of everyday objects an invitation to ingenuity.
Labels: playfulness, theory
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