Say It With Bricks: Building Blocks

Building blocks are practical materials for playing, learning and working at kindergartens, schools, universities and companies. How did building blocks, which were primarily established as toys for children, come to be practical materials used in professional and educational settings? This study explores the historical implications of particular sets of building blocks in the interdisciplinary consolidation and transformation of techniques, materials, discourses and subjects. By mapping the genealogy of building blocks from Fröbel's ?gifts? to their current systematization as interlocked blocks, this study proposes that building blocks should be understood not exclusively as concrete objects, but as the materiality of a combinatorial program, which delineates a modular system characterized by a code of composition, a context-neutrality and a semantic component.

Creative Block Play covers everything you need to encourage a child's development in a variety of domains through block play. This book is full of photos that illustrate block play in real classrooms and stories from teachers who have successfully used block play to encourage children's development in a variety of domains. Rosanne Regan Hansel has been both a teacher and administrator for a variety of early childhood programs and currently serves as Education Program Development Specialist for the Department of Education. Ms. Hansel received her MS Ed in Early Childhood Leadership from Bank Street College of Education.

To sort out who's who and what's what in the world of Barbies and Ninja Turtles, Tinkertoys and teddy bears, is to begin to see what has become of childhood in America. It is this changing world, and what it unveils about Americans values, that Gary Cross explores in this book, a look into the meaning of American toys through this century.

Since its official release in 2011, Minecraft has sold over 48 million copies across all gaming platforms. The premise of Minecraft is simple: destroy, collect, build and interact in a world made entirely of colored cubes. Unlike Lego blocks or other construction toys, Minecraft's digital play space allows for virtually limitless creation without the cost and limitations of physical building materials. Developer Mojang's generous policies toward modification and other uses of their intellectual property also engender enthusiasm and creativity from fans who make music, art and animation inspired by the software. The first essays in this collection cover Minecraft's origins, describing its relationship to other video games and toys and examining the learning models implicit in its design. Later essays describe and theorize the various ways players interact with the software, which simultaneously presents them with structural constraints and limitless possibilities. NOT OFFICIAL MINECRAFT PRODUCT. NOT APPROVED BY OR ASSOCIATED WITH MOJANG.

This book directs critical attention to one of the most ubiquitous and yet under-analyzed games, Minecraft. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork into mobile games in Australian homes, the authors seek to take Minecraft seriously as a cultural practice. The book examines how Minecraft players engage in a form of gameplay that is uniquely intergenerational, creative, and playful, and which moves ambivalently throughout everyday life. At the intersection of digital media, quotidian literacy, and ethnography, the book situates interdisciplinary debates around mundane play through the lens of Minecraft. Ultimately, Exploring Minecraft seeks to coalesce the discussion between formal and informal learning, fostering new forms of digital media creativity and ethnographic innovation around the analysis of games in everyday life.