Formed in 1999, the Alliance for Childhood advocates for children's healthy development, love of learning, and joy in living. The Alliance for Childhood seeks to restore free play for children while warning against the trend of "high stakes" testing in education and the overuse of technology by children that limits their active play time.
Bullying has been defined as a type of aggressive behavior that causes distress or harm, demonstrates an imbalance of power, and is repeated over time. There are three major forms of bullying: physical, emotional, and verbal.
Johan Huizinga was a Dutch historian who lived from 1872 to 1945. His book, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, published in 1938, suggested the instinct for play as the central element in human culture and examined the role of play in law, war, science, poetry, philosophy, and art.
Adventures in Risky Play: What Is Your Yes? was written by Rusty Keeler and published in 2020. This book invites its readers to consider the boundaries and feelings they have about what risky play should be allowed and challenges them to discover where their boundary lines might be movable.
In the development of social play by preschoolers, cooperative play has been designated as the highest category of play. Cooperative play focuses on children working together to achieve a common goal, such as building a play structure, putting together a puzzle, or engaging in dramatic play.
Sand play areas for children in large cities were originally known as sand gardens and were subsequently called playgrounds as their popularity increased. The introduction of sand gardens in Boston in 1886 has been credited as the beginning of the playground movement in America.
Proprioception is an automatic sensitivity mechanism in the body that sends messages through the central nervous system relaying information to the body about how to react to stimuli and with what amount of tension. The muscles, joints, and connective tissues contain specialized sensory receptors that enable the body to process the information and turn that information into action.
The International Toy Library Association is an association of toy library associations and individuals from around the world who serve children by giving them opportunities to experience play at their homes by lending toys and games to them as well as offering shared play opportunities at their library facilities with other children.
Marc Armitage is a playwork consultant, trainer, researcher, lecturer, and author. He believes that play is “what children and young people do when they follow their own ideas and interests in their own way and for their own reasons” and that playwork is “not 'adult-led' or 'child-led', but 'play-led'.”
The American Journal of Play was established in 2008 by Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. Two years later the museum was renamed The Strong, and the journal became one of five Play Partners within that broader museum concept.
