Materials--Using the materials--How to do it, how not to do it.

From building blocks to city blocks, an eye-opening exploration of how children's playthings and physical surroundings affect their development. Parents obsess over their children's playdates, kindergarten curriculum, and every bump and bruise, but the toys, classrooms, playgrounds, and neighborhoods little ones engage with are just as important. These objects and spaces encode decades, even centuries of changing ideas about what makes for good child-rearing--and what does not. Do you choose wooden toys, or plastic, or, increasingly, digital? What do youngsters lose when seesaws are deemed too dangerous and slides are designed primarily for safety? How can the built environment help children cultivate self-reliance? In these debates, parents, educators, and kids themselves are often caught in the middle. Now, prominent design critic Alexandra Lange reveals the surprising histories behind the human-made elements of our children's pint-size landscape. Her fascinating investigation shows how the seemingly innocuous universe of stuff affects kids' behavior, values, and health, often in subtle ways. And she reveals how years of decisions by toymakers, architects, and urban planners have helped--and hindered--American youngsters' journeys toward independence. Seen through Lange's eyes, everything from the sandbox to the street becomes vibrant with buried meaning. The Design of Childhood will change the way you view your children's world--and your own.

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.

A compelling history, a manifesto, and a manual for change.

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

Join Louie, a crafty Llama with Dwarfism, who loves to build, construct and create. Together, he and his friends dream up a plan to bring the very first all-inclusive playground to their town.

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.

A history of post-war playgrounds and their enduring legacy. After World War II, a new kind of playground emerged in Northern Europe and North America. Rather than slides, swings, and roundabouts, these new playgrounds encouraged children to build shacks and invent their own entertainment. Playgrounds tells the story of how waste grounds and bombsites were transformed into hives of activity by children and progressive educators. It shows how a belief in the imaginative capacity of children shaped a new kind of playground and how designers reimagined what playgrounds could be. Ben Highmore tells a compelling story about pioneers, designers, and charities—and above all—about the value of play.

A thought-provoking re-examination of children's play drawing together insights and experiences across fields such as education, sociology, philosophy and psychology to encourage an inter-disciplinary approach.

Lonely Planet's The Best Things in Life are Free is packed full of money-saving tips, tricks and recommendations for the best-value sights and experiences around the world. From parks, museums and exercise classes that are free, to insider ideas on food and experiences offered at great value, this book features over 60 major cities around the world and promises to help any traveller on a budget to make the most of their trip. Includes parks and gardens, street markets and food trucks, viewing points, museums and galleries, free experiences, spectator sports, city beaches, and much more. For many, free and cheap things are not only appealing but essential for stretching the funds to last as long as possible for an extended journey. Yet, even on a short trip, many unforgettable blasts of freedom and discovery can happen on a thin budget. You quickly realise that cheap can mean much, much better. No fancy Roman trattoria dinner can truly rival the bread and cheese picnic in Villa Celimontana, a short walk from the Colosseum, on a visit to the Eternal City. Needless to say, the monetary value implied in the term 'free' can misrepresent what's on offer within these pages. The quality of an experience, after all, is not always attached to a price tag, such as the priceless experience of unearthing the world's secret wonders, whether that's swimming around Sydney's ocean pools or strolling the tombs and monuments of Delhi's Lodi Gardens. Additionally, it's an exaggeration to say that everything good is 100% free, so you'll find plenty of excellent value cheap things to experience throughout this book as well. Dip into your spare change for classy street food like a choripán (chorizo sandwich) in Buenos Aires, the best views of Hong Kong's skyline from the Star Ferry and a Boston brewery tour. After using the tips in this book, you'll be left with great memories, a happier you and a grateful wallet. Happy travels! Destinations covered: AFRICA Cape Town Marrakesh ASIA Bangkok Beijing Beirut Delhi Dubai Hong Kong Mumbai Shanghai Singapore Tokyo EUROPE Amsterdam Athens Barcelona Berlin Bruges Budapest Copenhagen Dublin Edinburgh Geneva Helsinki Istanbul Lisbon London Madrid Milan Moscow Oslo Paris Prague Reykjavik Rome Stockholm Venice Vienna NORTH AMERICA Austin Boston The Caribbean Chicago Detroit Las Vegas Los Angeles Miami New Orleans New York City Portland, OR San Diego San Francisco Seattle Toronto Vancouver Washington, DC SOUTH AMERICA Bogota Buenos Aires San Salvador Lima Rio de Janeiro Sao Paulo OCEANIA Brisbane Melbourne North Island, NZ South Island, NZ Sydney About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.