100+ Top Play Resources

'Just Rome' courtesy of Pensiero at Flickr

There’s growing recognition that play is not just, well, child’s play. Mounting evidence shows play has a crucial role in cognitive, physiological, behavioral and social development and adaptation at all ages and stages of life.

In essence, we need to take play seriously. Play has been recognized as a right of every child by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. It is also the right of teens, adults and seniors. As we learn more about the benefits of play, it’s apparent it belongs in living rooms and boardrooms, and in sand lots and parking lots – any place there’s room to move. Play sculpts our brains, our bodies, our relationships, and our future.

Below is a wide ranging – but by no means exhaustive – list of play resources that includes organizations, resources, guidelines and reports, current news stories, books, audio and video, e-newsletters, blogs, twitter hashtags, programs, locations, and events.

Many of these sites offer extensive resource lists and news feeds of their own that integrate the fields of education, urban design, transportation, the environment, physical activity, sports, nutrition, and obesity. While the list focuses on more recent resources that mainly center on play, there are many, many outstanding resources I’ve overlooked. Please feel free to add them in the comment section…on your way out the door to play.

Play: Organizations (alphabetical)

• Alliance for Childhood
• Association of Children’s Museums
• Boundless Playgrounds
• Children and Nature Alliance (Canada)
• Children and Nature Network (C&NN)
• Common Good: The Value of Play
• Fair Play For Children (U.K.)
• Free Play Network (U.K.)
• Imagination Playground
• International Playground Equipment Manufacturers Association (IPEMA)
• International Play Association (IPA)
• KaBOOM!
• National Institute for Play
• National Program for Playground Safety
• National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA)
• Partnership for Play Every Day
• PlayBoard (Northern Ireland)
• Play England
• Play For Peace
• Play Wales
• Playwork Partnerships
• Project For Public Spaces
• Shane’s Inspiration
• The Association for the Study of Play (TASP)

Play: Resources (alphabetical)

• Active Healthy Kids Canada
• Active Living Resource Center (ALRC)
• Adventure Playgrounds
• American Journal of Play
• Eat Smart. Play Hard. USDA
• Kids Outdoors (U.K.)
• Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation: Invention at Play
• Let’s Go Outside! U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
• London Play
• National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE)
• National Center for Bicycling & Walking (NCBW)
• National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity (NCPPA)
• Natural Learning Initiative
• Outdoors: The Ultimate Playground (Toronto, Canada)
• Playground Magazine
• PlayPumps International
• Safe Routes
• Sports4kids
• Streetplay
• Trust for Public Lands
• Voice of Play
• Wild Zones
• YMCA of the USA

Play: Guidelines & Reports (most recent first)

• F as in Fat 2009. How obesity policies are failing in America. Trust for America’s Health, July, 2009.
• The built environment: Designing communities to promote physical activity in children. Pediatrics. Vol. 123 No. 6 June 2009, pgs 1591-1598. (Policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics)
• What is playwork? Fact sheet No. 14. Frazer Brown, June, 2009. The Children’s Play Information Service. (pdf)
• Creating & retrofitting play environments: best practice guidelines. PlayCore, Inc. and Natural Learning Initiative, 2009.
• Crisis in the kindergarten: why children need to play in school. Alliance for Childhood, March 2009. (pdf)
• 2008 Physical activity guidelines for Americans. U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, Oct 2008.
• Time out: Is recess in danger? Patte Barth, The Center for Public Education, August 2008.
• The VERB campaign. Not about health, all about fun: marketing physical activity to children. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Vol 34, Issue 6, Supplement, June 2008.
• Call to activity: getting kids moving in the great outdoors. President’s Council on Physical Fitness & Sports, DHHS, February, 2008. (pdf)
• Recess Rules. Why the undervalued playtime may be America’s best investment for healthy kids and healthy schools. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2007. (pdf)
• Building “Generation Play”: Addressing the crisis of inactivity among America’s children. A report by Stanford University, February, 2007. Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine. (pdf)
• The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds. Pediatrics vol 119, No. 1, Jan 2007. Clinical report from the American Academy of Pediatrics. (pdf)
• A Guide to the ADA accessibility guidelines for play areas. U.S. Access Board, Oct 2005.

Play: Current News Stories (most recent first)

• In summer, kids need real play time. Nanci Hellmich, USA Today, June 24, 2009.
• 10 reasons play can make you healthy, happy, and more productive. Nancy Shute, U.S. News and World Report, March 9, 2009.
• Deskercise: Staying jazzed and focused at school. Allison Aubrey, NPR, Morning Edition, February 26, 2009.
• The serious need for play. Melinda Wenner, Scientific American, January 2009.
• The new playground: bye, jungle gym. Kathleen Kingsbury, Time, Jan. 28, 2009.
• Old-fashioned play builds serious skills. Alex Spiegel, NPR, Morning Edition, February 21, 2008.
• Taking play seriously. Robin Marantz Henig, The New York Times (magazine), Feb 17, 2008.
• No outdoor play ‘hurts children.’ BBC News, September 10, 2007.
• Putting the skinned knees back into playtime. Alex Williams, The New York Times, May 20, 2007.
• A classroom of monkey bars and slides. Jane E. Brody, The New York Times, April 3, 2007.

Play: Books (alphabetical order)

• The ambiguity of play. Brian Sutton-Smith, Harvard University Press, 2001.
• Children at play: an American history . Howard Chudacoff, NYU Press, 2007.
• The dangerous book for boys. Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden, William Morrow, 2007.
• The daring book for girls. Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, William Morrow, 2007.
• Exuberant animal: the power of health, play and joyful movement. Frank Forencich, AuthorHouse, 2006.
• The genesis of animal play: testing the limits. Gordon Burghardt, The MIT Press, 2005.
• Homo Ludens – A study of the play element in culture. Johan Huizinga, Beacon Press, 1971.
• Last child in the woods: saving our children from nature-deficit disorder. Richard Louv, Algonquin Books, 2008.
• Play = learning: how play motivates and enhances children’s cognitive and social-emotional growth. Dorothy G. Singer, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (eds). Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Play as if your life depends on it: functional exercise and living for Homo sapiens. Frank Forencich, Go Animal, 2003.
• Play. How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. Stuart Brown, with Christopher Vaughan. Avery, New York, 2009.
• Play reconsidered: sociological perspectives on human expression. Thomas S. Henricks, University of Illinois Press, 2006.
• The power of play: learning what comes naturally. David Elkind, Da Capo Press, 2007.

Play: Audio & videos (Most recent first)

• The science of play. Radiolab, WNYC, May 30, 2008.
• Stuart Brown: Play is more than fun. TED talk, May 2008 from the 2008 Serious Play conference.
• Tim Brown: Creativity and play. TED talk, May 2008 from the 2008 Serious Play conference.
• Playgrounds for the elderly. ABC news, March 18, 2008.
• Where do the children play? Documentary, Michigan Television, 2008.
• Gever Tulley: 5 dangerous things for kids. TED talk, March 2007.
• Adventure playgrounds’ a dying breed in the U.S. Kristin Wiederholt, NPR, Day to Day, March 9, 2006.

Play: e-Newsletters (alphabetical order)

• Centerlines (National Center for Bicycling & Walking)
• Green Hour (National Wildlife Federation)
• National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity (NCPPA) News
• NCPPA Activity Advocate
• Parks and Recreation Weekly News Brief (NRPA)
• P.E.4LIFE Newsletter
• Prevention Research Center Notes (University of South Carolina)

Play: Blogs (alphabetical)

• Active Kids Club
• Creative Play Plus
• Free-Range Kids
• The Grass Stain Guru
• Green Hour (NWF)
• KaBOOM! Blog
• Let Kids Play!!
• Peaceful Playgrounds
• Peekabooplay
• PhD in Parenting (see Carnival of Play posts)
• Playborhood
• Play Everything
• Play Outdoors: The Campfire
• Play Parks Central: Play, Pretend, Play
• Playscapes
• Playward
• Your Wild Child

Play: Twitter http://twitter.com/
Hashtags  #play  #playoutdoors  #parks
(These streams are a great way to find play-centric individuals and organizations to follow)

Play: Programs (alphabetical order)

• Boston Schoolyard Initiative
• Green Hour, National Wildlife Federation
• Let’s Just Play, Nickelodeon
• New York City Playgrounds Program, The Trust for Public Land
• National Recess Week, Cartoon Network
• Out2Play
• Project Adventure, Peaceable Playgrounds
• We Can! Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity & Nutrition, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health
• YMCA Healthy Kids Day

Play: Locations

• City Museum (Saint Louis, MO)
• KaBoom! Find a play space in the U.S.
• Playground finder: Australia
• Strong National Museum of Play (Rochester, NY)

Play: Events (alphabetical order)

• Come Out and Play Festival (NYC)
• London Play: Street Play
• World Wide Day of Play, Nickelodeon
• Sunday Streets: San Francisco
• Take a Child Outside Week

Related posts on play

• The definition of play (courtesy of Tiger Woods)
• Nanci Hellmich from USA Today on Retro Play
• Tired of the treadmill? Get out and play instead

Note: I have bookmarked all these resources on the social bookmarking site Del.icio.us at http://delicious.com/ctorgan/

Tagged as: accessibility, adults, advocacy, body, brain, children, community, cycling, design, envionment, exercise, family, Health, Nature, outdoors, parenting, parks, Play, playground, recess, research, resources, Science, Sports, walking