A GIANT COLLECTION OF HANDS-ON KIDS ACTIVITIES. The perfect book to have on hand for inspiring you on holidays, weekends, or anytime the kids just need something to do! A fun mix of hands-on fun with learning, celebrating, and appreciating family time.

The innovative and creative games in Learning to Play, Playing to Learn foster social skills to help young people deal with conflict without resorting to violence. It guides parents and educators in helping children identify their own set of values and feelings while playing with others. It also discusses several ways to modify popular games to encourage fairness and trust in children and encourages the use of healthy play techniques to increase self-esteem, cooperation, personal responsibility, and emotional and physical health.

Presents instructions for 130 indoor and outdoor activities for children ages two to six, including arts and crafts, songs and dances, games, nature investigations, and others, and explains what children learn from each one.

The mind-set that has dominated the history of computer game playing relies on straightforward exploitation of the available computing power. The fact that a machine can explore millions of variations sooner than the sluggish human can wink an eye has inspired hopes that the mystery of intelligence can be cracked, or at least side-stepped, by sheer force. Decades of the steadily growing strength of computer programs have attested to the soundness of this approach. It is clear that deeper understanding can cut the amount of necessary calculations by orders of magnitude. The papers collected in this volume describe how to instill learning skills in game playing machines. The reader is asked to keep in mind that this is not just about games -- the possibility that the discussed techniques will be used in control systems and in decision support always looms in the background.

See How to Unobtrusively Incorporate Good Teaching into Your Game’s Mechanics Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games shows how to embed a tutorial directly into your game design mechanics so that your games naturally and comfortably teach players to have fun. The author deciphers years of research in game studies, education, psychology, human–computer interaction, and user interface and experience that equip you to make dynamic tutorials that help players enjoy your games. The book links game design principles with psychology through the game tutorial. It offers easy-to-implement changes that can make a huge difference in how players receive your games. It explains how you can educate new players and engage experienced players at the same time through a combination of good design and basic understanding of human educational, motivational, and cognitive psychologies. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, this book improves your understanding of the science of learning and the art of teaching. It helps you design game mechanics, or tutorials, that teach people how to have fun with your games without ever feeling as though they’re being instructed.

In modern childhood, free, unstructured play time is being replaced more and more by academics, lessons, competitive sports, and passive, electronic entertainment. While parents may worry that their children will be at a disadvantage if they are not engaged in constant, explicit learning or using the latest "educational" games, David Elkind's The Power of Play reassures us that unscheduled imaginative play goes far in preparing children for academic and social success. Through expert analysis of the research and powerful situational examples, Elkind shows that, indeed, creative spontaneous activity best sets the stage for academic learning in the first place: Children learn mutual respect and cooperation through role-playing and the negotiation of rules, which in turn prepare them for successful classroom learning; in simply playing with rocks, for example, a child could discover properties of counting and shapes that are the underpinnings of math; even a toddler's babbling is a necessary precursor to the acquisition of language. An important contribution to the literature about how children learn, The Power of Play suggests ways to restore play's respected place in children's lives, at home, at school, and in the larger community. In defense of unstructured "down time," it encourages parents to trust their instincts and resist the promise of the wide and dubious array of educational products on the market geared to youngsters.

A guide to educational play Montessori style offers ideas for activities and games to supplement preschool learning.

Prepare opportunities for purposeful play with students in grades PK–K using Let's Learn and Play! This 160-page book is a comprehensive resource for creating purposeful play centers that help students solve problems, experiment, navigate social situations, and prepare for learning. These well-designed, modifiable center ideas allow teachers to put a personal stamp on the classroom. The book supports NAEYC standards.

Updated version of bestselling Learn and Play the Recycle Way to involve children in thinking "green".

Praise for the first edition:"The key advantage to this book is the way in which it is easy to read and the amount of information it provides with regard to the role of play in supporting young children's learning." Karen Phethean, University of Winchester"This book is excellent. It is an invaluable resource for both qualified and trainee early years practitioners. Tina Bruce has a real talent with how she expresses ideas. The concepts are presented in an accessible way. The material is suitable across a range of levels of study." Caroline McGrath, Programme Manger for Foundation Degree in Early Childhood Studies, City of Bristol College in partnership with the University of Plymouth"I would always recommend books by Tina Bruce to my students as she is highly accessible, combining theory and practice closely together. They are attractively laid out and are therefore popular with students." Maureen Brookson, University of East AngliaProfessor Tina Bruce CBE, an acknowledged expert on play, clearly presents the key ideas and demonstrates the best practices for cultivating play in an Early Years setting. The book covers historical perspectives, how we can observe and study play, and the role of play in learning, developing abstract ideas, helping children to relate to one another. She shows that play helps children to achieve the highest form of learning in early childhood.This new edition of Learning Through Play will provide students and practitioners with an invaluable guide to the core values behind play, the importance of play for children from 0 to 5 years old, and practical schemas for getting the best out of play in an Early Years or Educational setting.It will be an ideal text for those studying play at levels 3 and 4, Foundation Degrees, Undergraduate Early Childhood Studies and Primary Education courses, Post-graduate study and for those working in an Early Years setting.