Resources on Play
Resources produced by Playful Places in collaboration with Affiliate Museums
The Rules for a Playful Museum book project, 2015 and
The More Playful Museums programme at Manchester Museum, 2014-2016
Articles & Useful Links
The Manchester Museum Playful project in Arts Professional, Play Wales Magazine, and in the International Journal of Play
Fantastic resources on play, and information about Play Sufficiency Legislation at Play Wales.
A guide to risk benefit Playful risk_benefit_example
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child General Comment.
The European network for Child Friendly Cities.
Article on climate change, activism and play – applicable for all of us with external spaces on our sites, by Playing Out
Inspiration, stories and training resources
Useful discussion resources which you can use to start conversations with your team about play and being playful:
Museum and Play position statements
Babak quiz on perceptions of play
Staff assessment time capsule tool
Stories and examples of playful happenings on gallery – which can support confidence in your own ideas, and give you new ideas to try out:
A Magnificently Playful Day
Dens and Skeletons. Animal play day
Dinosaur Egg and Visitor team thoughts on the Playful Museum
Observations of Children in the Museum
The Missing Dinosaur and other stories
The Museum Olympics
The Revolving Baby
Tweets and soundbites about play
Stories from the Visitor Team
Tools and tricks for managing and evaluating playful activity:
Evaluation experiment with children around play Play Tracker Evaluation- Graph
A suggestion for how to manage the playful activities and ideas for all gallery staff Playful Museum card system
Playful ideas for museums – from the MA Conference 2012
Images and films
Please view our playful museum image gallery on flickr at