Comic

1. Comic • Visualized communication associated with children (lower forms of expression) • Conflict underlying the mytho-heroic narrative (moral panic over children’s leisure and fantasy) • Paving the way for animation (Krazy Kat) • First Cultural Product that kids bought on their own (competition for leisure time-- the hurried child)

2. Meaning Making • Cognitive Structures (Jean Piaget) • Enactive = Play/ Actions/ Gestures • Iconic = Pattern Recognition/ Visual Representation • Symbolic = Spoken Language (system of abstract concepts) • Games, Stories and Literacy (higher level representations) • Language • Play Identity/ Social Skills • Narrative

3. Why BFG?: Reading the politics of children’s literature • Competing Rationales for Books • Dahl/ Tolkeing:Archaeology of the Imagination • Lost in Translation/ Adaptation • Word Play and Conversation • Characters and Interactions • Therapeutic Ethos -- gentling the imagination

4. LeapFrog Pretend and Learn Shop Kamloops vs Leapfrog Shopping Cart: We’ll have lots of fun. Lets go shopping!

5. In Defense of Play • Folk play is • Social and community • Natural and organic • Child-generated narrative • intrinsically rewarding ie structure of feeling associated with intensified feelings and self-challenge

6. Huizinga:The Play Instinct as the source of culture making

7. Children’s Games -control and decontrol-festival, drama and masquarade -contest, chance and mastery-

8. Carnival as theology and the repression of play • Play mocks seriousness and the predictable world • Play breaks work ethos - idle hands and the devils bidding • Play as celebration (bracketing of reality .. Foundation of as if) • Play as spirtual practice of culture making - ritualized theology of ‘chance’ and ‘chaos’

9. The modernization of play Domestication, commodification, commercialization and technification of play cultures

11. Toys as Educational Media: origins of constructivism • inscribed with play values • combining symbols and objects • assembling components

12. Play as Learning- John Locke • preparation of the child for learning ie blocks, construction, letters • sports - skills, strategy, rules and team work - sports play/ phys ed • Practice, dexterity, mastery - bows, guns, Yo-Yo ie Playskools and Fisher Price Pull Toys • Games, Rules ie Dominos, cards, chess • Lego and construction sets

13. The concept of Kinder-garden giving kids spiel raum (liberating natural play)

14. moral crisis of childhood removing kids from the streets • Mean world syndrome - a cultural world contoured of fear and risk/ increasingly protection from harm • Eg the playground movement - mobilize children into safe spaces (1900) • Danish Planning • The street hockey game vs the organized hockey game (soccer leagues 1990)

15. productive leisure: managing energy release and transgression • Idleness is dangerous/ peer culture is dangerous - ie playgrounds to channel into healthy activity - play as control • Sports and the Playing fields of Eton • Children need to let off steam - physical challenge and burning excess energy makes children more pliant - the professionalization of sport • My scouting career! Play as a form of moral oppression vs emancipation

16. The Play Ethos Valuing Children’s Constructive Leisure

17. Play as rehearsal - social skills and role taking • Teams (kick the can, capture the flag) and games (spin the bottle) • Plush- imaginary friends and bonding • Rough and tumble- WWF • Playing house/ dolls house • Baby dolls, toy soldiers • Barbie play

18. Play and the liberated imagination • individual expression: art, music, dance (JAZZ) • Fantasy play- narrative elaboration and creativity • Role play - doctor, d and d • Exploration and problem solving (discovering the world, attitude of wonder ie playing in nature vs playing with transformers)- computers

19. Modernist Play The work of childhood is learning.

20. The development of a toy industry: • Early Toy industry (Gary Cross- Kid’s stuff: Toys and the Changing World of the American Child)- the children’s day movement - 1928 • Toys as Marketed Commodities - ideal toys co. and the Teddy Bear • History of industry: Marketing vs the market • Pre-ww1- dolls and plush: • Early Industrialization- FP, Playskool, Monopoly, Lego, • Post war-1980- Barbie/ Mattel - early ads • Commercialization of Play (global industry) • Contemporary-Hasbro, Mattel, Leapfrog

21. Modernist Concept of “Good Play”

22. Milestone Toys • Learning: cards/ dominos, Puzzles, sand-box, guessing game, Construction • Development: Ball, Blocks, Rings, Riding, • Role Play: Play house, board games, DnD • Fantasy: Puppet, Teddy, Barbie, GI Joe • Function: trains, trucks, cooking • Entertainment: Jack n box, pin ball, video game

23. Playing with Culture The Making of the Toy Industry

34. Games With Rules • sports • checkers • board games • cards • chess • strategy games

35. Manipulating Objects with Functions • Construction Sets • Trains • Cooking Utensils • Domestic Technology • Trucks • Pull Toys • Wagons

36. Practice and Skills • balls • skipping • playground • hopscotch • darts • drawing

38. Play industries

39. Increasing role of marketing in toy industry • Early advertising to kids • Mattel • Tie-ins and spin offs • Character marketing • Synergy Marketing

41. Emerging Postmodern Childhood • family life • television • children’s marketing

42. Family Life: Postwar Trends • babyboom • suburbs • consumer lifestyle • fragmentation of family • growth of leisure

43. Is Play Culture Changing? video

44. Values of Postmodern Play

45. MODERN learning action construction social POSTMODERN fun entertainment consumption individual Revaluing Play as Leisure

46. Postmodern Play The pleasure of play is make believe.

47. Effects of deregulation

48. Identity Play:Fashion, Super Heroes, Family • dolls • costumes • masks

49. Fantasy Worlds:Science Fiction, War, and Fairyland • play sets • immersion • simulation games

50. Fictional Sociality: Identity, Peers and Fantasy Play • role play games • character toys • action figures