Anji Play Materials
Anji Play Website - Under Tab “Materials and Environments”
Quotes from Website:
Minimally-structured, open-ended materials of all sizes, drawn from life used in Anji Play programs include both highly-designed and found objects whose size and variety invite children to engage in large-scale construction, design, combination, recombination, revision, imagination, and self-expression.
Over 150 specifically designed materials including Anji blocks, planks, ladders, barrels, mats, carts, climbing cubes, storage systems, and thousands of other materials adapted, developed, sourced, identified, and designed by Anji educators and community members, engage the child’s entire body and mind in the process of problem-solving.
The materials and physical environments of Anji Play allow for the greatest degree of possibility and complexity in play through minimal structure, open-endedness, and sturdiness.
“The classroom should be the outdoors in miniature. The outdoors should be the classroom magnified.” — Ms. Cheng Xueqin
Water, sand, mud, trees, bamboo, ditches, tunnels, and hills are among the environmental features that engage children in endless exploration, discovery, risk-taking, problem solving, and knowledge creation.
Human and physical environments in Anji Play programs are safe, accessible, consistent, honest, open, predictable, and are characterized by clearly articulated, simple and reasonable expectations, and expresses trust for each person and the group.
The design and consideration of Anji Play materials always returns to the following principles:
Open-ended
Minimally-structured
Drawn from life
Proximate to nature
Moveable
Large
Inter-relatable
Sturdy
Masterable by the child
The design and consideration of Anji Play physical environments always returns to the following principles:
Open and freely accessible by the child
Areas defined by activity, not theme or subject
Natural
Varied
Masterable by the child
Express trust in the child
Thoughts:
The question of materials is becoming really interesting to me! The emphasis on large, structural materials that are very open-ended is a theme between Anji Play, Cas Holman’s designs, the Imagination Playgrounds and Adventure Playgrounds. This track of thinking is what really interests me. I want to consider the question of objects as they intersects with playgrounds and natural (or built “natural”) environments.
So thinking about they touch points, Imagination Playgrounds, Adventure Playgrounds, Cas Holman’s Designs and Anji Play in urban spaces. How to they interact with a natural environment? Are they supporting or ignoring that environment?
For my thesis I really do want to design! Think about scale, usability, intrigue. Something that was interesting to me in the reading Designing for Children’s Outdoor Play was the observation that the smaller objects that we “child scale” rather than those built for multiple children, gave the children the chance to use the items independently and allowed for more imaginative play. Probing this- and thinking about intimacy that objects, scale and environments can encourage or provide is something I plan to focus on.
Adventure Playground
Anji Play
Imagination Playground
Rigamajig Cas Holman
Photos from the Anji Play website:
