Describes the history and purpose of outdoor play areas. Both a reminiscence and a practical manual, this study probes the philosophy of play, the stages of a child's behaviour and social interaction in recreation, and the educational value of playgrounds.

Over 170 fun, safe, and ready-to-use activities to help create meaningful play experiences for children.

A project-filled introduction to coding that shows kids how to build programs by making cool games. Scratch, the colorful drag-and-drop programming language, is used by millions of first-time learners worldwide. Scratch 3 features an updated interface, new programming blocks, and the ability to run on tablets and smartphones, so you can learn how to code on the go. In Scratch 3 Programming Playground, you'll learn to code by making cool games. Get ready to destroy asteroids, shoot hoops, and slice and dice fruit! Each game includes easy-to-follow instructions with full-color images, review questions, and creative coding challenges to make the game your own. Want to add more levels or a cheat code? No problem, just write some code. You'll learn to make games like: Maze Runner: escape the maze! Snaaaaaake: gobble apples and avoid your own tail Asteroid Breaker: smash space rocks Fruit Slicer: a Fruit Ninja clone Brick Breaker: a remake of Breakout, the brick-breaking classic Platformer: a game inspired by Super Mario Bros Learning how to program shouldn't be dry and dreary. With Scratch 3 Programming Playground, you'll make a game of it! Covers: Scratch 3

On the ideal playground, all kids are equal. They take turns on the swings, play fair during kickball, and help each other up when someone falls and skins their knee. In all areas of life, we have much to learn from the playground kids. Be Nice. The End. distills the wisdom of the playground kids into seven simple values: Inclusion Empathy Acceptance Courage Perseverance Perspective Kindness Featuring thought-provoking messages from inspirational speaker Bryan Skavnak and darling, diverse faces illustrated by Wendy Kieffer Shragg, Be Nice. The End. teaches us that all the playgrounds of life are better when everyone--no matter their age, skin color, ability, shape, or size--is nice.

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.

Ruby feels anxious about her show and tell presentation. But when she discovers that Joey is having a hard time at lunch, it's up to Ruby to use her SEN Superpowers to cheer him up. Will it help ease her own anxiety too? SEN Superpowers: The Playground Problem explores the topic of anxiety with an empowering story and adorable illustrations. The SEN Superpowers series celebrates the positive traits associated with a range of common SEN (Special Education Needs) conditions, boosting the confidence and strength-awareness of children with those conditions, while also allowing for better understanding and positivity among their peers. Each book includes a page of discussion points about the story, a page of tips for how to boost abilities (inclusive for children with and without special educational needs), and, finally, a further page of notes for parents and teachers. The books feature a dyslexic-friendly font to encourage accessibility and inclusivity for all readers.

In the vein of Running with Scissors, Playground is the glitzy, glamorous, and surreal true story of a young girl who grew up inside the Playboy Mansion and never learned where the party stopped and the real world began. You are six years old. Every day after school your father takes you to a sprawling castle filled with exotic animals, bowls of candy, and half-naked women catering to your every need. You have your own room. You have new friends. You have an uncle Hef who's always there for you. Welcome to the world of Playground, the true story Jennifer Saginor who grew up inside the Playboy Mansion. By the time she was fourteen, she'd done countless drugs, had a secret affair with Hef's girlfriend, and was already losing her grip on reality. Schoolwork, family, and "ordinary people" had no meaning behind the iron gates of the Mansion, where celebrities frolicked, pool parties abounded, and her own father—Hugh Hefner's personal physician and best friend, the man nicknamed "Dr. Feel Good"—typically held court. Every day was a party, every night was an adventure, and through it all was a young girl falling faster and faster down the rabbit hole—trying desperately hard not to get lost.

Harry the hippo continues to play his favorite game—but luckily for his friends, it’s hard to hide a hippo! At the playground, Harry’s friends search high and low. Whether he’s under the seesaw, behind the park bench, or hanging precariously from the swing set, it’s hard not to find Harry. But the fun is in the searching, and the friends are always up for another round!

"Beautifully written and suffused with dread. Jane Shemilt's domestic settings are seductively vivid, and the final outcome is profoundly shocking and terrifying." — Gilly Macmillan, New York Times bestselling author of The Nanny Big Little Lies meets Lord of The Flies in this electrifyingly twisty psychological thriller, follow-up to Jane Shemilt’s breakout debut The Daughter. Over the course of a long, hot summer in London, the lives of three very different married couples collide when their children join the same tutoring circle, resulting in illicit relationships, shocking violence, and unimaginable fallout. There’s Eve, a bougie earth mother with a well-stocked trust fund; she has three little ones, a blue-collar husband and is obsessed with her Instagrammable recipes and lifestyle. And Melissa, a successful interior designer whose casually cruel banker husband is careful not to leave visible bruises; she curates her perfectly thin body so closely she misses everything their teenage daughter is hiding. Then there’s Grace, a young Zimbabwean immigrant, who lives in high-rise housing project with her two children and their English father Martin, an award-winning but chronically broke novelist; she does far more for her family than she should have to. As the weeks go by, the couples become very close; there are barbecues, garden parties, a holiday at a country villa in Greece. Resentments flare. An affair begins. Unnoticed, the children run wild. The couples are busily watching each other, so distracted and self-absorbed that they forget to watch their children. No one sees the five children at their secret games or realize how much their family dynamics are changing until tragedy strikes. The story twists and then twists again while the three families desperately search for answers. It’s only as they begin to unravel the truth of what happened over the summer that they realize evil has crept quietly into their world. But has this knowledge come too late? "Countless psychological thrillers get compared to Big Little Lies; Shelmilt's is the real deal." — People

Originally published: London: Frances Lincoln, 2005