Literature Input Tables Theme 1 - Play

Literature Input Tables
Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development
Theme 2: Concern for Children’s Overall Development and Well Being due to Changes in Play in Modern
Society
Theme 1: Literature Input Table 1

Book: Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul.
Topic: Play
Date Retrieved/Used: January 27th 2018
APA Citation Brown, S. (2009). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and
invigorates the soul. New York, NY: Avery.
Author(s) Stuart Brown – M.D. Medical doctor, psychiatrist, clinical researcher, founder of the
Affiliation: National Institute for Play.
Type of
Resource
Book
(Scholarly/Trade/
Website/ Book/
Government
Report
Summary of
Chapter 1 - The Promise of Play
Essential
 Consumed with joy of play (p.4)
Information
 Captivating, gleeful, unexpected (p.4)
 Energizes and enlivens, eases burdens, renews our natural sense of optimism and
opens up new possibilities (p.4)
 When we play we are engaged in our purest expression of our humanity, our
truest expression of our individuality (p.5)
Chapter 2 - What is play, and why do we do it?

 Properties of play (p.17)
i. Apparently purposeless (do for its own sake)
ii. Voluntary
iii. Inherent attraction (authentically pleasing)
iv. Freedom from time (no time parameters)
v. Diminished consciousness of self (fully in the moment, “flow”)
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vi. Improvisational potential (Spontaneous, not rigid, see things in a different

way)
vii. Continuation desire (pleasure of experience drives that desire)
 The feeling (emotion) of play cannot be ignored (p.20).
Chapter 3 - We are built for play

 Play “creates a low-risk format for finding and developing innate skills and
talents” (p.49)
 Play is a state of mind – depends on emotions (p.60)
 Play fosters a sense of belonging (p.62).
 Eight play personalities are defined. Brown (2009) explains that most people are a
mix of categories (p.65):
i. The joker – begins with nonsense
ii. The Kinesthete – moving, push bodies
iii. The Explorer – going new places
iv. The Competitor – enjoys playing to win (solidary or social)
v. The Director – planning and executing scenes and events
vi. The Collector – collecting objects (coins, wine etc)
vii. The Artist/Creator – joy found in making things
viii. The Storyteller – imagination is key
Chapter 4 – Parenthood is child’s play

 “Parents who had the experience, as I did, of exploring fields or woods in
freedom, worry their kids spending too much time playing video games or in
“safe” activities…Schools have evolved into assembly lines for high test scores,
where skills are drilled, supposedly all the better to prepare kids for college”
(p.79).
 Describes different types of play (attunement, body and movement play, object
play, imaginative play, social play, storytelling and narrative play, transformative-
integrative and creative play) (p.82-93).
 “Storytelling has been identified as the unit of human understanding. It
occupies a central place in early development and learning about the world,
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oneself, and one’s place in it. A critical function of the dominant left
hemisphere of the brain is to continually make up stories about why things
are the way they are, which becomes our understanding of the world. Stories
are a way of putting disparate pieces of information into a unified context. As
we grow, the drama of stories enliven us and the narrative structure tells us
something about how things are and how things should be…Stories remain
central to understanding well after childhood…Storytelling has the capacity
to produce a sense of timelessness, pleasure, and an altered state of vicarious
involvement that identifies narrative and storytelling with states of play”
(p.91-92).
 Play = “trying out new behaviors, frees us from established patterns” (p.92)
 Play enhances learning and memory. Therefore, teachers incorporate play in their
teaching (role-play or simulation) (p.100).
 State of play – attention is focused exclusively on the pleasurable activity (p.102)
 Authentic play “comes from deep down inside us” (p.104). Play “emerges from
the imaginative force within. That’s part of the adaptive power of play: with a
pinch of pleasure, it integrates our deep physiological, emotional, and cognitive
capacities. And quite without knowing it, we grow” (p.104)
Chapter 7 – Does play have a dark side?

 Video game addiction, gambling
 Complex nature of teasing
 “When our interactions are based on a foundation of caring, these hurts are
corrected and avoided in future. Bending rules and pushing through limits
should happen within the realm of play. They aren’t the dark side of play- they are
the essence of play” (p.193).
Chapter 8 – A world at play
 “Play sets stage for cooperative socialization. It nourishes the roots of trust,
empathy, caring and sharing…the foundation for our understanding of fairness
and justice” (p.197).
 Arguing and negotiating involved regarding rules during games.
Way in which  Stories help the reader to make sense of the world around them – strengthen
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this source understanding.

influences the  Parents worry that children are not engaging in as much play as children did in
field related to the past.
your inquiry (e.g.  Schools placing more emphasis on behavior, discipline and testing.
math  Play enhances children’s learning and memory.
teaching/learning
elementary
 Properties of play (attempts to define play and explain why one is inherently
Potential drawn to engage in play).
relevance to your
research topic
and study
Stage of action List all stages of the action research process where this source will be used and
briefly describe how it has informed your work.
research where
the source will Background:
 Build my understanding of what constitutes play
be used:
 Build my understanding of the benefits of play (for both children and adults)
Design:
1. Guided my research question (One of my embedded questions is, ‘What
dimensions of Stuart Brown’s characteristics of play are presented in Caldecott
Medal Winning books?’
 Guided the development of my framework to record and analyze the Caldecott
Medal Winning books.
Data Collection/Analysis Methodology:
 Framework based on Brown’s properties of play to record and analyze the
Caldecott Medal Winning books
 Referred to explanations of each property in Brown’s book regularly while
recording and analyzing the codes.
Findings/Conclusions:
 It might be possible to identify what characteristics were most often not
present and therefore, prevented “full play” (e.g. purposeless and freedom
from time were often the only properties of play that were not present –
perhaps that is due to the authors’ need engage readers’ interests, create
excitement throughout the story).
Implications/Action Planning:
 My action plan (recommendations/suggestions for teachers to use literature as
a tool to encourage children’s engagement in play will be guided by on Stuart
Brown’s properties of play).
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Book: Children at Play: An American History
Topic: Play
Date Retrieved/Used: February 20th & 21st 2018
Bib. Information Chudacoff, H. (2007). Children at play: An American history. New York
(APA Formatting): University, NY: New York University Press.
Author(s) Howard P. Chudacoff – Professor of American History and Professor of Urban
Affiliation: Studies at Brown University, RI.
Type of Resource: Book: Children at Play: An American History

(Scholarly
/Trade/Other)
Summary of Introduction
essential  Articulating a single definition of play is almost impossible (p.1)
information:  Child’s play has a purposeless quality; play also has a function that is
immediate in its behavioral, social, intellectual, and physical rewards and in the
development of the child into an adult (p.1).
 Play inspires imagination and invention, helping children attain positive
emotions and control negative ones (p.1).
 The dynamic factors that characterize play are legion. They traverse a spectrum
from elation and freedom to tension, conflict, and (p.1) destructiveness. Along
this path lie various intensities of behavior: fantasy, competition, risk, and
mimicry (p.2).
 Structured play activities (competitive games), semi structured (museum visits)
and unstructured/informal/childish – playing house etc.
 Children’s innate biological impulses to investigate and engage with their
world (p.2).
 Daydreaming and exploring are considered as play activities (p.2).
 Children play in vastly different ways – what might be fun for one child
may not be fun for another (p.2).
 Psychologist Catherine Garvey – play is pleasurable, no extrinsic value,
voluntary, active engagement on the part of the player (p.3).
 Environment of play – three main (nature, public spaces, home). Children
have always sought to create spaces for themselves both within and outside the
environment circumscribed by adult regulations (p.4).
 Differences between children’s play for children living in urban and rural areas
(p.4).
 Environment is not just backdrop for play – children interact and transform
play spaces (p.5).
 Material Culture – modern era – play is connoted doing something with toys.
In past, toys were more decorative and for adults. Most common form of
children’s play occurred with other children (not with toys) (p.6).
 Consumer culture – emphasis on formal toys; less emphasis on “junk” (p.6)
 Plaything – Child could use anything as a plaything. Children transformed the
space and the object. Imaginative uses of informal artifacts (rather than toys
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received as gifts) (p.7)

 Dramatis Personae – Children learn special skills of socialization by playing
with other youngsters (p.10).
 Increased solitary play in recent years (p.11).
 Freedom – children need adult supervision for safety, education, socialization,
family mutuality (p.13).
 Educator William Wells Newell – one of first Americans to apply scientific
method to study children’s play in late 19th century, also realized that parents
and other adults overlooked the importance of free ply (p.15).
 There has never been a time of carefree childhood in American history. In
every era children have been deprived of that legacy (play is every child’s
birthright) (p.18).
 Adults increasingly tried to restrict and control children’s pleasure by
obliging them to follow adult rules, presumably for safety reasons of
rationality and safety. The result was a constriction of autonomous,
unstructured, or self-structured play (p.18).
 Technology dominated, competitive, future-oriented culture has required both
adult guidance and adult protection lest children’s and society’s healthy
development be jeopardized (p.18).
The Invasion of Children’s Play Culture (p.98)

 President Herbert Hoover – White House Conference on Child’s Health and
Protection – play was every child’s right..”with the young child, his work is
play and his play is work (p.98).
 Play should be a productive activity through which a child rehearsed for
modern adulthood by following the guidance of wise, rational adults (p.98).
 Dewey – child’s own interests, instincts and activities should be appreciated
and used in their education (p.103).
 Unlike 19th century predecessors, 20th century analysts did not deem children’s
spontaneity and precociousness of childhood to be unacceptable, rather
children’s innate energies needed ot be carefully channeled (p.105).
 Hall, Gulick, and Dewey – warned that too much intervention might stifle
a child’s creativity (p.105).
 1920s and 1930s – view that the teacher must notice, evaluate, and then guide
children’s play (p.106).
 The Playground Movement (1910) – supervised play areas – not just an
alternative play space, viewed to supplement the schools, supervised
playgrounds could serve as incubators of cognitive skills, social values, and
citizenship (p.112).
 Themes of security, discipline, and development – physical and moral –
characterized the playground movement (p.113).
 Increase in toy production (p.116)
 Toys reflected two dichotomies affecting children’s relationship to them –
gender divisions and the tug between “free” play and educational play (p.116).
 Dominant middle-class aspiration for self-improvement influenced toys
becoming instrumental to a child’s intellectual development (p.117).
 Many of the new toys and games, if they actually had occupied most of
children’s playtime – but they often did not – would have had the effect of
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increasing solitary and small-group play and keeping youngsters indoors

(p.118).
 Dolls (girls); Construction sets – Lego, model railroads (boys) (p.118).
 Refers to Glover and Dewey’s work (1934) “Our adult world owes children
many apologies, but one it owes more than any other. The special apology is
for having intruded upon their play. That, at least, one feels, might have been
left to them uninvaded, free, without scrutiny and imposition…We have cut
peepholes in fences and spied on children at play, have written theses and
treatises about what we saw, have created organizations about their play life,
have made artificial places for them to play and set organizers and supervisors
over them. We have seized their love of play and capitalized and
commercialized it (p.122).
The Golden Age of Unstructured Play 1900-1950 (p.126)

 Adults, like those of previous generations, wanted to be sure that children
learned as they played, to guide young imaginations toward functional ends,
and to safeguard their kids from harmful influences. But no less than their
forebears, children of the era concocted mischief and courted danger. They
just could not help it (p.127).
 Gillespie recalls that she “knew perfectly well we were being naughty but I
also knew with calm certainty that we were naughty only in grownup terms”
(p.27).
 “Adults wanted young people to “grow” emotionally and intellectually as they
played, to always do something useful, and to “play nice”, children craved fun
as they defined it. That definition sometimes included mischief – being
“naughty” and ‘having a fling at the illicit” (p.127).
 First half of the 20th century was a golden age of play as children blended
childish curiosity with traditional and new play sites, with old and new
materials, with conventional and different play partners, and with expanded
time for unsupervised activity” (p.127).
 Indoors and outdoors, in plain sight and in secret, under adult control and
unsupervised, preadolescent children of the early 20th century adapted a
range of environments to their play (p.128).
 Incorporation had always been a common theme of outdoor play in rural
environments and it remained so in the early 20th century (p.128).
 Natural environment offered backdrops for private reverie and invented drama
(p.129)
 As urbanization made uninhabited environments inaccessible, the cityscape
took a more important role in children’s play cultures. Instead of forests and
fields used by rural kids, city kids appropriated, incorporated and transformed
streets, sidewalks, backyards, alleys, vacant lots, dumps, sewers, fences,
rooftops, and buildings for their amusement (p.129).
 Ruskay claims “Children owned the streets in a way unthinkable to city
children of today. We shared the life of the street unhampered by our parents
who were too busy trying to mold us into a more respectable pattern” (p.130).
 A quality that separated many urban neighborhoods n the first half of the 20th
from those of the latter half was the fact that undeveloped green space, even in
the urban core, still existed. Consequently, vacant lots served as informal
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playgrounds and left many a child with fond memories of make-believe

settings for play dramas of all sorts (p.131).
 Inner-city sidewalks during the 1930s and 1940s spawned one of the most
unique child-generated games of the period: the chanting jump-rope game of
Double Dutch, a game still in vogue today (p.132)
 Double Dutch was, and is, a game easily adapted to the outdoor urban
environment. Not even three players were required because a fence post, door
handle, or any inert object on which the end of a rope could be tied could act as
one of the turners (p.133).
 Public playgrounds and parks as alternatives to the streets had only limited
success; unsupervised outdoor spaces, even if they had to be shared with
meddling adults and dangerous traffic, often remained the play sites of choice
(p.134).
 When weather and darkness halted outdoor activity, children proved
imaginative in incorporating indoor spaces into their play. At home, for
example, attics and cellars offered valued retreats for solitude and fantasy
(p.134)
 Usually settings for solitary or small-group play and seldom visited by adults,
remote indoor places were key to children’s urge to control their activity
(p.135).
 Parents and other kin used toys as means to reward children and secure their
affection, particularly on special holidays and celebrations, and children
usually accepted the gifts with appreciation (p.135).
 Children continued to use the toys in a variety of independent ways that adults
did not anticipate…like counterparts in previous eras, youngsters of the first
half of the 20th century fashioned their own playthings and in doing so
expressed their quest for autonomy (p.136).
 The expanded stock of play apparatus in the new consumer society however
could induce jealousy on the part of youngsters who felt deprived (p.136).
 Levenson – transformed common objects during his childhood (p.137).
 Poor children growing up during the Depression had special need to substitute
informal playthings for commercial toys (p.137).
 The new profusion of board games shifted a considerable amount of play
indoors, where boys and girls spent more time than their predecessors
mastering symbolic information (p.142).
 During the first half of the 20th century – sex segregation became an especially
prominent feature of a young person’s life (p.143).
 Girlhood pastimes also included a variety of active amusements that resembled
those that did appeal to boys. Like boys but separate from them, girls engaged
in chase-and-base games, capture games, and ball games, in addition to simple
running, skating, biking, and sledding (p.147).
 Peers did not monopolize all of a child’s free time; solitary amusement took
place as well. Whether the private meanderings of city (p.148) streets and rural
countryside, or the sedentary entertainment of indoor games and hobbies, or
individual fantasy play with dolls and myriad other playthings, children found
ways to occupy themselves. Such play often was dictated by circumstances
(p.149)
 Child-study and child-recreation experts of the early 20th century “danced on a
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narrow ledge.” They believed that children needed to be able to play freely, but
with objects selected by their parents or other arbiters; moreover, play must
occur in ways and places that sheltered youngsters from the dangers of the
adult world. Example – Hall’s model of ideal play included activity initiated by
children but managed by adults (p.150).
 Children challenged adult prescriptions, infusing their independent
activity with both creativity and risk (p.151).
 Resistance and the quest for autonomy flourished in ways that previously
had not existed and would fade after mid-century. This is not to say that
children were uncommonly disobedient and that they consistently
subverted adult authority; most kids were “good” much of the time.
Rather, between the early 1900s and about the mid-1950s, the nature of
unstructured play, the places in which it occurred, and the peer-oriented
culture of childhood promoted a type of behavior that, in varying degrees,
signified children’s freedom of action (p.151)
 Youngsters simply followed their own customs, aware of adult rules but
ignoring them just the same because that was the way to preserve independence
(p.153)
 The quest for independence was not always guileless; mischief, more serious
wrongdoing, and genuine danger always lurked when children went
unsupervised (p.152)
 Author presents a child’s diary entry from 1945 to convey how the golden age
of play was coming to an end and what was replacing it – a new, organized
world of childhood was dawning. Under its aegis lurked not only all the
impositions on time hinted by diary entry but an array or mighty forces that
included a box with a screen on which characters and scenes could be viewed
passively (p.153).
Children’s Play Goes Underground 1950 to Present

 Burgeoning amusements, from board games to television to computers, lured
children indoors, and protective parents discouraged their offspring from
roaming neighborhoods and woods. The built environment of many a
community, including both housing developments and commercial and
industrial structures, filled open play sites and organized activities (p.185).
 In the later half of the 20th century and into the 21st, children had less
inclination and less capacity to resist these impositions than their forebears had.
Whereas in earlier periods young people waged guerrilla warfare against adult
co-optation of public places they now have found that the large-scale forces of
modern society are difficult to contest (p.185).
 By the later years of the 20th century, playscapes were harder for children to
create, and so many of the treasured street games had disappeared that some
nostalgic adults tried to revive them – website set up (p.186).
 Playgrounds have provoked adult concern for safety (p.187).
 Adventure playgrounds set up in Denmark – failed to catch on in the United
States because they were “unsightly” and lacked adult supervision (p.187).
 A major trend in the location of children’s play of late is that much has moved
indoors – parents feel the streets are unsafe – take their children to public
organizations or places (p.188).
Society
 The increasing primacy of television and computers in children’s lives over the
past 50 years has affected their environments in a way that has shifted their
activities from a manual involvement with objects and places to a symbolic
relationship with information and amusement (p.189).
 Study – 51 school aged children’s non-work hours: 30 minutes spent on
unstructured outdoor activity, 14.5 hours indoor unstructured play, more than
12 hours spent watching television. The fields and woods where rural
youngsters once roamed, the streets and sidewalks where urban kids invented
amusements, and even the parks and playgrounds where children cavorted
away from adult eyes no longer constitute playscapes that they once provided –
indoor play and structured outdoor play (p.189).
 In 1979 enthusiasts were arguing that the gaming and learning taking place on
computers were, according to one writer - solitary activities do not seem
solitary because the intense interaction between one person and one computer.
The results – not only a new kind of thinking, but what amounts to a strange
new way of socializing (p.197).
 Studies – many video games sharpen skills in inductive reasoning, memory,
and planning, all of which prepare a youngster for the challenges of the adult
world – “making decisions, some of them snap judgments, some long-term
strategies” (p.197).
 A shift in the composition of playmates has marked another change – up to
1980s the make up of play grounds consisted of neighborhood friends and
schoolmates who frequently associated themselves with one another (p.198).
 1980s onward – different characteristics – for many preteens especially from
middle-class and wealthy families, a schedule of adult-structured, formal
activities has at least partially precluded improvised pastimes such as becoming
blood sisters or roaming a nearby park. As a result, they retain peer-oriented
relationships, contemporary children experience multiple and sometimes
differently combined groups, depending on the activity (p.199).
 For many youngsters, the neighborhood has declined as a source for playmates,
as well as an environment for play, leaving the school as the main site of
continuous peer association but mostly in a controlled setting (p.199).
 The waning in what might be called camaraderie play has been replaced to a
considerable extent by an increase in solitary play (p.199).
 By the 20th century, the number of hours children spent in isolated, sedentary
activity has occupied a considerable portion of their waking, non-school time
(p.200).
 Horwich (TV host) – worried that her child was constantly on the go from 7am
to 8pm. She believed that children’s need to play independently would provide
children with ample opportunities to live and grow and to enjoy what he/she is
doing on their own (p.205).
 When a parent takes a child’s play too seriously, when she comes to
regard play as ‘good’ for her child and self-consciously proceeds to make a
project of it, somehow it loses its spontaneity and the parent discourages
what she is determined to encourage (p.206).
 Over the past few decades, organized out-of-school activities whether
instructional or recreational, have replaced much of the time preteen
children previously had for play (p.206).
Society
 The quest for autonomy in what can be termed “illicit” play among boys
and girls typically involves taking risks. Parents and other adults have
endeavored with increasing intensity to shelter children from danger, yet young
people are naturally curious, and a part of their development involves
experimentation and testing their abilities (p.208).
 How much risks should children be allowed to take? Jambor (child
development scholar) believes that eliminating risk in play is not only
impossible but a disservice to children’s needs. He and others have argued that
youngsters continually seek new challenges and that once they master a skill
they naturally seek new levels of excitement. Inevitably, bumps and scratches
occur along the way. Differentiates between a risk and a hazard (p.209)
 Children who tempt risk in their play must negotiate with adults whose
attitudes sprawl across a spectrum with (p.209) trust in a child’s judgment at
one end and a desire to strictly program activities at the other (p.210).
 Jambor and others charge that attempting to remove all challenge and risk
taking, adults force children into unnecessarily dangerous ways of finding
thrills and play value on their own. The critics contend that children should be
able to engage in activity away from adult supervision where they can “explore
and play with their environment by touching, manipulating objects and
materials to test their developing cognitive constructs against reality” (p.210).
 By the beginning of the 21st century, children’s attempts to control their play
had assumed different elements from those that had prevailed in earlier eras
(p.212).
Conclusion
 Children’s play and culture over the course of American history reveals several
themes of continuity and change. Shifts have been both subtle and dramatic;
continuity has been both obvious and overlooked. Over time, three basic
changes have altered the play of American preadolescences: place, things and
time (p.214).
 Place: Natural play sites have diminished while constructed settings have
multiplied; parents and social arbiters always tried to protect children from the
dangers of their surroundings, but they have applied different strategies at
different times. (p.215).
 The hazards and temptations lurking in modern urban society of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries intensified efforts by adults to divert children from
unsafe environments into protected spaces (p.215).
 By the end of the 20th century, parents’ desires to shelter and entertain
youngsters resulted in expanded formal play sites but those same desires also
enlarged home-based play activity (p.215).
 Things: Not only has the volume of commercial toys expanded, but also there
have been critical changes in the nature of toys and in the ways children have
used playthings (p.216).
 The recent nexus between play objects, mass media, and electronics has
produced another noteworthy effect. That is, media-based computer and video
games in particular have helped create a play culture in which age identities
have become compressed: preteens prefer to think of themselves as older
youths (p.217).
Society
 Time: In every era, a catalog of constraints has impinged on the time children
have had to play. The limitations have operated in complex ways. Social class
has always determined how young people use their time. In most eras, children
from farm and urban working-class families have had to labor in the family
economy – they had to steal time from their play or blend playful activity into
their work. Middle-class culture came to value and romanticize childhood in
the 19th century – parents became more willing to grant their children more
time for toys, games and hobbies as long as time was not spent “idling” and
that these pastimes cultivated obedience and “habits of (p.217) reflection
(p.218).
 In the 20th century, two related forces converged to alter the playtime of
preadolescents in significant ways. First, the extension of compulsory
schooling filled much of all children’s daytime hours, regardless of social
class, incidentally strengthening peer cultures that increasingly socialized
young people in play choices (p.218).
 Parental anxieties over child safety and child achievement has intensified to the
point that parents supported by all types of public and private interests have
imposed formal activities on children’s formerly unstructured and “free” play
time (p.218).
 Two main continuities are the quest for autonomy and the demonstration of
creativity (p.219).
 Children have always had places, things and opportunities for unstructured,
child-centered play, especially in the “golden age” of the early 20th century
when the concept of joyous childhood converged with American consumer
society. But these have diminished in recent times (p.221).
 Children’s time outside of school is occupied by “useful” pastimes intended to
enhance their physical, social, and intellectual skills (p.222).
 Our open, technological society has made children increasingly vulnerable to
all kinds of dangers. So we legitimately take every precaution to insulate them
from accidents, from faulty equipment, from predators, from pornography,
from drugs and more. Most of all, we try not to leave them unsupervised, as a
result they either play indoors or they fill their time with activities that have left
them over organized (p.222).
 The ambiguity over children’s role – playful kids or serious achievers has
infected some modes of structured play, particularly organized sports
competition, where of late ugly incidents have occurred – parents fighting with
parent of opposing team etc. (p.223).
Way in which this  Importance of play to children’s learning and overall development/wellbeing.
source influences  Decreasing free play (autonomous, unstructured, self-structured play).
the field related to
your inquiry (ex.
Math
teaching/learning
elementary)
Potential relevance 1. “Defines” play – overlap with Stuart Brown’s (2009) characteristics of play.
to your research 2. 1900-1950 = the golden age of play (children wanting authority, peer
topic and study: influence).
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3. Context regarding the history of play and changes that have occurred since
1900.
4. Increase in the number of structured, “useful” play activities.
research where the briefly describe how it has informed your work.
source will be Background:
used:  To build researcher understanding of the context of play, how play
changes, what elements remain the same from previous centuries
(children’s wanting autonomy).
Design:

 Link findings to context of play – present and past.
Implications/Action Planning
 Consider the context of play – present and past.
Society

Book: Free to learn: Why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant
and better students for life
Topic: Play
Date Retrieved/Used: January 27th 2018
APA Citation Gray, P. (2013). Free to learn: Why unleashing the instinct to play will make our
children happier, more self-reliant and better students for life. New York, NY: Basic
Books.
Author(s) Peter Gray – Developmental psychologist and research professor at Boston College
Affiliation:
Type of
Resource Book
(Scholarly/Trade/
Website/ Book/
Government
Report
 The book raises concerns regarding children’s lack engagement in free play.
Summary of Children are designed, by nature, to play and explore on their own, independently of adults.
They need freedom in order to develop; without it they suffer. The drive to play freely is a
Essential
basic, biological drive. Lack of free play may not kill the physical body, as would lack of food,
Information
air, or water, but it kills the spirit and stunts mental growth (Gray, 2013, p.4-5).
 The value of providing choice and freedom to engage in self-directed play for
healthy learning and development must not be underestimated and is a central
tenet of this book.
 Csíkszentmihályi (1990) utilizes the term ‘flow’ to describe this state of mind,
which results from complete immersion in an activity (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990 as
cited in Gray, 2013, p.152). Referring to Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory,
positive emotions widen one’s perspective, strengthening the consideration of
alternative viewpoints (Fredrickson, 2001; 2003 as cited in Gray, 2013, p.153).
Therefore, play assists in fostering children’s problem solving skills and the
Society
ability to think creatively (Gray, 2013, p.139). This creative thinking promotes the
capacity of children to think hypothetically, enhancing their logical reasoning
skills (Gray, 2013, p.151). Imperatively, rewards and external pressures such as
grades, on children, impede their playful state of mind, thus having a converse
effect on such learning (Gray, 2013, p.139).
 Recognizing the difficulties embedded in defining play, Gray (2013) attempts to
devise characteristics of play, aiming to provide “strong clues for explaining its
educative power” (p.139). The characteristics successfully convey play’s capacity
to support children’s social and emotional development. Firstly, Gray (2013)
believes that the context of play is “mentally removed from the real world” and
therefore, play inherently has an imaginary context (p.149). Imperatively, while
play is self-chosen and self-directed, it is governed by mental rules (Gray, 2013).
Therefore, interacting appropriately with others is key to ensuring play will
continue successfully. This makes play a powerful medium in promoting
children’s ability to develop skills such negotiation, cooperation, self-assertion
and self-regulation.
Way in which  Gray (2013) criticizes practices embedded in traditional schools that place
this source demanding pressures on children in today’s society. The author argues that
influences the longer school days as well as strong emphasis on testing and performance have
field related to significantly decreased children’s freedom to engage in meaningful play. This,
your inquiry (e.g. coupled with parents’ heightened control over children’s lives, pupils are
math surrounded by supervision and lack opportunities to make their own choices.
teaching/learning  Conceptualizing the cognitive power of play is conveyed by Gray’s (2013)
elementary premise of a playful state of mind. Fuelled with curiosity, children are
intrinsically motivated to play. Gray (2013) argues a playful environment
induces an “alert”, “non-stressed” mindset, therefore, facilitating an optimum
state for learning (p.152-153).
 Gray (2013) believes the decline in free play is a contributory factor to higher
rates of psychological disorders in young people (p.17).
 Peter Gray’s (2013) Free to Learn fully explores the need to reconsider
educational practices that hinder children’s opportunities to engage in free play
and exploration.
Society
 Benefits of engaging in play.

Potential  Characteristics of play (attempts to define play and explain why one is inherently
relevance to your drawn to engage in play). Connections can be made to Stuart Brown’s properties
research topic of play.
and study
research where briefly describe how it has informed your work.
the source will
be used: Background:
 Influenced my interest in this topic (I read this book for one of my classes in
the fall semester and although I knew that play was beneficial for children, I
had a very vague understanding of the benefits of play as well as what
‘defined’ play).
 Build my understanding of the current context of play (in education and
society)
Design:
 To support making decisions during data collection and analysis (Coding
Caldecott books): Used in conjunction with Stuart Brown’s characteristics
(particularly when looking at the property “purposeless”. When recording the
codes, I often found it challenging to determine if the instance of play was
purposeless. I referred back to Stuart Brown’s explanation of “purposeless”
and looked Peter Gray’s characteristics of play whereby he explains that there
is not external goal/motivation (which corresponds with aspects of Stuart
Brown’s explanation of “purposeless”).
Findings/Conclusions: Possibly
 to support or refute your findings, suggesting how your findings are similar to
or different than what is presented in the professional literature
Implications/Action Planning: Possibly
 to support or refute your plans for future teaching.
Society

Article in Book: The science of play In The Editors of Time
Topic: Play
Date Retrieved/Used: February, 15th 2018
APA Citation O’Connor, S. (2017). The science of play. In The Editors of Time (Eds.), TIME The
science of childhood: Inside the minds of our younger selves (no pagination). New
York, NY: Time Inc. Books.
Author(s) Siobhán O’Connor – Child Adolescent Adult Psychotherapist.
Affiliation:
Type of Resource
(Scholarly/Trade/ Article in book - TIME The science of childhood: Inside the minds of our younger
Website/ Book/ selves
Government Report
 Play is so basic to childhood that it is seen even among children in the most dire
Summary of conditions, in prisons and concentration camps (p.42).
Essential  Play is so important to the wellbeing of children that the UN recognize it as a
Information fundamental human tight on par with rights to shelter and education (p.42).
 Refers to the 20th century as the “golden age” of play (p.44).
 Play is somewhat an “endangered” activity among American children (p.44).
 Children’s free, unscheduled play time has been declining steadily over the past
half-century (p.44).
 When children do play it’s more likely to be structured – think playdates and
enrichment classes (p.44).
 Adults exerting control over children’s activities (p.44).
 As even elementary schools come under greater and greater pressure to have their
students score well on standardized tests, recess time has been increasingly cut. In
1989, 96% of elementary schools had at least one recess period, yet a decade later,
one survey found that only 70% of even kindergarten classroom had any periods at
all (p.44).
 Decline in recess time - Lasting an negative effect on children (p.44).
 Parents and teachers cutting back on children’s playtime aren’t doing it to be mean
– even if it might seem that way to children. They believe that in an increasingly
competitive world, there’s less time for a kid to be a kid; that is free, unstructured
play doesn’t have the payoff that another lesson or test-prep class would (p.44).
 They’re restricting playtime because they want their child to thrive (p.44).
 Play is by definition, an activity that has little clear immediate function. That’s
what separates it from work or education (p.44).
 Free play is something children need to do – keeps the physically active, exercises
their minds and their creativity, how best to work together. Play teaches them how
to be human (p.44).
 Understanding play – animals. Play has a major impact on the brains of animals
(p.44); randomness of play – helps creativity, flexibility and adaption (p.46).
 Children who can entertain themselves or play with one another are unconsciously
Society
learning how to adapt themselves to challenges they’ll face further down the road
(p.46).
 Play also has a vital social drive – children can organize themselves into groups,
predict and respond to another’s shifting movements and interpret their desires. It
helps them to learn to work together in groups and to share, negotiate and resolve
conflicts especially if parents and other adults give children the space they need to
work out problems on their own (p.46).
 The good news is that after years of cutting back on free playtime for children,
smart schools and parents are beginning to understand the benefits of letting
children of all ages roam relatively free (p.46).
 In 2013, American Academy of Pediatrics Council on School Health argued that
safe and well-supervised recess offers cognitive, social, emotional and physical
benefits that may not be fully appreciated when a decision is made to diminish it
(p.46).
 LiNK program in Texas – children in K and G1 go outside to recess as often as 4
times a day in short bursts that add up to an hour – encourages children to sit still
when they are in the classroom as they know a break isn’t too far away (p.46).
 Academic competition, and standardized testing etc. – easy to believe that play is
something children will have to do without. But free play encourages the
development of the two skills that no robot can replace – creativity and teamwork.
Just as the most imaginative and innovative leaders in business and politics needed
time away from work to come up with their best ideas, children need time to play
on their own, away from schools and screens and even adults (p.46).
 Play is fun (p.46).
Way in which this Describe how this article influences the field that is related to your topic.
source influences  Importance of play; long term benefits of play.
the field related to  Importance of recess time.
your inquiry (e.g.  Benefits of play for children’s overall development.
math
teaching/learning
elementary
Potential relevance  Problems associated with play in current context – structured activities, reduced
to your research recess time.
topic and study  Link to animals and play (common theme emerging).
research where the briefly describe how it has informed your work.
source will be used: Background:
 To build researcher understanding of the context of play, benefits of play,
problems in current context (scheduled play times after school, less recess,
academic pressures/competition).
 Links play to animals (common theme emerging – Brown, Gray)
Design:

 Link findings to benefits of play
Implications/Action Planning
Society

Book: The serious need for play
Topic: Play
Date Retrieved/Used: February 4th 2018
APA Citation Wenner, M. (2009). The serious need for play. Scientific American Mind, 20(1), 22-
29.
Author(s) Melinda Wenner – Freelance science writer based in Brooklyn.
Affiliation:
Type of
Resource
Scholarly Article
(Scholarly/Trade/
Website/ Book/
Government
Report
Summary of
 Refers to Stuart Brown’s research – “lack of opportunities for unstructured,
Essential
imaginative play can keep children from growing into happy, well-adjusted
Information
adults” (p.23).
 “Free play,” is “critical for becoming socially adept, coping with stress and
building cognitive skills such as problem solving” (p.23).
 Refers to difference in amount of play children engaged in in the past – “in the
past, few children grew up without ample frolicking time. But today free play
may be losing its standing as a staple of youth” (p.24).
 Refers to parents “sacrificing playtime for more structured activities” in order to
“get their kids into the right colleges” (p.24).
 The author mentions that Brown and other psychologists “worry the limiting of
free play in kids may result in a generation of anxious, unhappy and socially
maladjusted adults” (p.24).
 Benefits of play described in the article:
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ix. Fosters creativity (p.24)

x. Assists the development of “strong social skills” (p.25).
xi. Helps children to develop persistence and negotiating abilities (p.25).
xii. Use of sophisticated language (when playing with other children) (p.25);
play “appears to help with language development” (p.28).
xiii. Play is “critical for emotional health because it helps kids word through
anxiety and stress” (p.26-27).
xiv. Play improves problem solving (p.28)
 Previous studies indicate that lack of play “impede[s] social development”
(p.26).
 Play is “a way in which children learn…and in the absence of play, children miss
learning experiences” – Quoting Elkind (p.29).
 “Curiosity, imagination and creativity are like muscles: if you don’t use them,
you lose them” – Quoting Elkind (p.29).
Way in which  Reiterates the benefits of play for children’s overall development (as well as the
this source benefits of play for children’s learning).
influences the  Refers to the current context – children engaging in less play than the past;
field related to parents getting their children involved in activities from a very young age to
your inquiry (e.g. prepare them for college (The article does recognize that parents have their
math children’s best interests at heart).
teaching/learning
elementary
 Adding to my understanding of the benefits of play as well as the current context
Potential of play (see above).
relevance to your
research topic
and study
briefly describe how it has informed your work.
research where
Background:
the source will  Build my understanding of the benefits of play (for both children and adults)
 Description of the current context of play.
be used:
Design:
Society
 It might be possible to identify what characteristics were most often not

present and therefore, prevented “full play” (e.g. purposeless and freedom
from time were often the only properties of play that were not present –
perhaps that is due to the authors’ need engage readers’ interests, create
excitement throughout the story).
Implications/Action Planning:
 My action plan (recommendations/suggestions for teachers to use literature as
a tool to encourage children’s engagement in play will be guided by on Stuart
Brown’s properties of play).

Literature Input Tables Theme 1 - Play

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Literature Input Tables Theme 1 - Play

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Literature Input Tables

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Literature Input Table 1

Chapter 2 - What is play, and why do we do it?

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

vi. Improvisational potential (Spontaneous, not rigid, see things in a different

Chapter 3 - We are built for play

Chapter 4 – Parenthood is child’s play

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Chapter 7 – Does play have a dark side?

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

this source understanding.

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Literature Input Table 2

Type of Resource: Book: Children at Play: An American History

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

received as gifts) (p.7)

The Invasion of Children’s Play Culture (p.98)

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

increasing solitary and small-group play and keeping youngsters indoors

The Golden Age of Unstructured Play 1900-1950 (p.126)

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

playgrounds and left many a child with fond memories of make-believe

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Children’s Play Goes Underground 1950 to Present

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Literature Input Table 3

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

 Benefits of engaging in play.

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Literature Input Table 4

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

Theme 1: Literature Input Table 5

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

ix. Fosters creativity (p.24)

Theme 1: Importance of play for healthy learning and development

 It might be possible to identify what characteristics were most often not

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