Play

**Not just seriousness but also PLAY.**
Ample evidence points to the enormous health and professional benefits of laughter, lightheartedness, games, and humor. There is a time to be serious, of course. But too much sobriety can be bad for your career and worse for your general well-being. In the Conceptual Age, in work and in life, we all need to play. [Daniel H. Pink, //A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future// (Penguin Books, 2006), 66.]




 * Check out the Invention at Play web site** supported by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. Learn how play - the ordinary and everyday "work of childhood" - connects to the creative impulse of both historic and contemporary inventors. **Choose one of the following activities** from the ** Invention at Play web site** to delve more into the connection between play and innovation:
 * Invention Playhouse - Explore the four kinds of play that result in innovation. What do teachers do to maintain their sense of play? How does what they do relate to one or more of these kinds of play?
 * Inventors' Stories - Compare the values and experiences of two inventors - what do they have in common? How does that connect to Pink's //A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future//?
 * Does Play Matter? - What were your favorite toys as a child? What parallels can you draw between those toys and ways in which innovation has emerged in your adult life?

Need some ideas? Check out these resources:
 * ~ ==== ** What does PLAY look like in our schools? How do we build it into the curriculum? ** ==== ||
 * 1. Recess ||
 * 2. Spirit Days ||
 * 3. PE ||
 * 4. Math/Science Hands on ||
 * 5. Puppet shows ||
 * Katie Salen, Founder of the Institute of Play
 * Laughter Clubs
 * No Work and No Play [//The New Yorker//]
 * Play at Ideo
 * Serious Play


 * ~ What techniques, strategies, or activities might we use with students to help them encourage PLAY to support innovation? ||
 * 1. Games, such as puzzles ||
 * 2. Create a risk taking environment ||
 * 3. Let them see adults at play (FISH Philosophy) ||
 * 4. Real-world fun and games embedded into curriculum: carnival games for money unit ||
 * 5. Problem-solving with actual materials rather than pencil/paper ||
 * 6. ||