Università Roma Tre

The main objective of the course is to provide the student with knowledge and skills related to:

- theories and functions of the game.
The course wants to provide knowledge about the principal theorical researchs of the game and it shows the theories of famous scholars: E. Fink, H. G. Gadamer, J. Huizinga, R. Caillois, G. Bateson, J. Piaget, L. S. Vygotskij, J. S. Bruner, S. Freud, M. Klein, F. Fröebel, J. Dewey, M. Montessori, etc.

- game room, as socio-cultural institution with a specific educational aim based on the game and the toy.
The game room isn’t a place intended for the sole commercial loan of toys, or as a recreation center for children, with characteristics similar to amusement-game bars or of shopping malls, but it is a space reserved for the game, pedagogically valid, structured taking into account the suggestions from psychology to pedagogy, then carried on a scientific basis, in which the true protagonist is the recreational infant condition;

- the animation as a training method.
The course wants to present the animation as an authoritative "method" able to develop, in the subject, communicative relational organizational skills and to answer the question: the teacher should use such tools to make the "play" an effective pedagogical technique of animation and what techniques and methodologies should be used?

- the aspect of group work in educational and organizational field.
In particular, the course aims to introduce the use of methods and techniques of the group, allowing an overview of the main themes of the group dynamics and group work.
This will be considered the basic elements of social psychology related to the formation of working groups, the group work and class groups.

- techniques of the game.
The second part of the course proposes studies and investigations related to different playing techniques used in scholastic and extra-scholastic activities, aiming at building of capacity for strategic use of methodologies and tools to an effective animation

- knowledge of "Toys in the life of the child".
The relationship between the child and the toy is an issue that needs to be reviewed and kept current to avoid losing the relevant and significant implications for psychological and educational level.
Then, this course explores the psychological significance of toys in different ages (from infancy to adolescence) analyzing the evolutionary processes more involved at this level. After a careful psycho-pedagogical and sociological analysis about “commercial” , a significant space is devoted to two other important types: "creative toy" and "the toy of the folk tradition." In particular, we will analyze the pedagogical importance of the construction of toys in the overall development of the child and the recovery of the traditional toy. The course is enriched also by some insights related to classification, "selection criteria" to be taken away from purchasing the toy (also for children in terms of disability) and by appropriate information about its "security "examining the legislation.

After the study of toys that belonged to our grandparents, Ludoteconomia examines the search, recovery and restoration of the popular traditions disappeared.