Labrinca

The LABRINCA (Toy Library of Colégio de Aplicação) is a university and school toy library (“brinquedoteca” in Portuguese) which is a room with a variety of games and toys.

It is the result of an interdisciplinary project developed by Colégio Aplicação (Experimental School). The project is a partnership with several undergraduate courses at UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina). Education, Physical Education, Psychology, Library Sciences and Architecture are the undergraduate courses that participate in the project.

LABRINCA has been a playing space inserted in the university and school environment since 2003. Its goal is to provide the elementary school girls and boys with access to a variety of games, toys and costumes — which are unusual at their homes — through the expression and experimentation of the children’s play cultures. Furthermore, the toys library is a nurturing environment concerning that the right to play is part of the children’s rights in the school environment.

LABRINCA’s structure enables undergraduate students and professors of several courses at UFSC to develop pre-service programs and researches, providing a greater integration of the contents about children and playing in different disciplines.

 

General Purpose

The Colégio de Aplicação admits students through a raffle. Thus, children and teenagers from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds attend the school; as well as they live in diverse districts and neighboring cities around Florianópolis. Considering the heterogeneity, the project primarily intends to provide elementary school students with access to a variety of games, toys and costumes, through the expression and experimentation of the children playing culture. Bearing in mind the extraordinary interchange that heterogeneity and diversity provide, the search for an exchange of playing repertoires among children and teenagers is another goal.

 

Specific Objectives:

Concerning the school audience, LABRINCA aims at:

1. Valuing children’s culture an provide the access to a variety of toys and games in a playful environment;
2. Providing the creation and exploration of diverse playful material and theme corners (toy house, toy market, toy private practice, etc.) in order to allow the imaginary of the children, to promote re-readings and approaches to the real, the stimulation of the total expression, languages development and the personality framing:
3. Providing the children with interaction with their peers, parents, guardians and teachers;
4. Enabling children to develop their autonomy, creativity, cooperation as well as responsibility through reorganization of the room after the activities.

 

Main Objectives

LABRINCA, as an interdisciplinary project, aims at:

1. Developing the experience of organizing, cataloging and indexing toys and games;
2. Creating a bibliographic collection on games, toys and plays;
3. Establishing a privileged place for the observation and research development on learning and children interaction with different games;
4. Developing prototypes of toys and games (electronic) with varied materials;
5. Designing objects, furniture and recreational spaces in educational environments;
6. Promoting and organizing courses and workshops on recreational activities for the community.

 

Goals

Through the development research and extension activities, we intend:

1. A greater integration of childhood content and playing culture in the different undergraduate and graduate disciplines in various courses at UFSC, consequently an increased production and dissemination of scientific knowledge on the subject;
2. The implementation of practical activities as a methodological resource for training students and professors, allowing greater interaction between theory and practice;
3. The expansion of services to the community by students, professors and researchers from UFSC;
4. The development of research and theoretical studies to provide methodological and theoretic evidences about the organization and functioning of “brinquedotecas.”

 

Facilities 

The LABRINCA is divided into three areas:

Area 1 – Games

a)      Didatic and social games.

b)      Motor games

Area 2 – Imagination

a)      Costumes / Circus

b)      Toys that reproduce the technical world (toy houses, miniatures, toy car, dolls, etc)

Area 3 – Electronic Games

a)      Electronic games

b)      Games and toys related to the electronic games

 

Hours

LABRINCA is regularly open in the morning (from 8:00 to 12:00) and in the afternoon (from 1:00 to 6:00).

Colégio de Aplicação’s students attendance is in the regular class daily routines or alternating with the opposite period activities.

Every group of students remains for a period of a class or two classes of 45 minutes. To know the schedule table click here.

 

Daily group rituals

Every visiting group is invited to sit on the rug for an initial talk. At this moment, the “Roda dos Combinados” (Making a Deal Circle) takes place. Common rules about the usage of the Brinquedoteca are constructed, set and reminded collectively. These rules are tools to keep a good companionship inside LABRINCA and to establish limits that enhance respect to the other and the space.

Around 10 minutes before remaining time is over, children are called to tidy the room and take part in the “Roda das Experiências” (Experiences Circle) where children tell about what and who they played with, as well as their impressions about the experiences.

 

External Individual or Groups Visitors

In the hours that the Colégio de Aplicação’s groups are not visiting the space during their regular schedule, LABRINCA is available to host students and groups from other periods in the school and from different schools, as well as individual visitors from the community.

 

Scholars’ roles and tasks:

Scholars that work in the LABRINCA are  undergraduate students from Education, Library Science, Psychology, Pedagogy, Physics and Design, among others; so as to implement practical activities as a methodological device for the teachers and students training, a greater interaction between theory and practice and interdisciplinary activities.

The scholars organize the room and welcome the children, teenagers and groups in the “brinquedoteca.” They welcome the groups in the “Roda dos Combinados”, and while children play, mediate to help solve conflicts, assisting shier students with the games and stimulating the exploration of games and toys. At the end of the time booked for the groups, the scholars help and instruct children to put the toys and games away, and evaluate the meeting with the children in the “Roda das Experiências”

Furthermore, they take part actively and directly in the research and extensions activities.

 

Organization

Organization System of Games and Plays

There are five shelves in the game’s corner containing diverse toys and games. In the intent to ease the visual identification, to children or adults, the toys are organized following a classification of International Council of Children’s Play (ICCP).

The classification is made by grouping the toys on “families”, aiming to keep toys organized in a functional way. Second Michelet (1998) this classification must be generic and simple, classifying the toys according to the children use, characterizing their play.

Departing from the seven classification proposed by ICCP, Raquel Zumbano, from the Foundation Abrinc, make the adaptation to the brazilian reality and divided it into colors.

Following this model, LabrinCA’s crew do the same, fixing color sticks in the toys, games and shelves, thus, the toys and games are classified this way:

– Red: Toys for first age kids and to sensitive and motor activities; toys like activity boards with color pieces, in diverse shapes, toys to push and pull, balls, cubes in woof, shapes to pile, beads to craft a ribbon, toys to hammer, song boxes.

– Dark Blue: Toys to physical activities; balls, shuttlecocks, ropes, bowl, game of rings, pieces to shot.

– Yellow: Toys to intellectual activities; puzzles, construction sets, didactic tools like paper, crayons, books, pedagogic games

– Green: Toys that represents the technic world; like vehicles, dolls, miniature apparels, transformable objects, robots.

– Pink: Toys to emotional development; shag toys, babies, dolls ant its accessories (clothes, bijou), tableware, beauty accessories (make up, bags).

– Light Blue: Toys to creativity activities: stamps, musical instruments (piano, drums, etc.), mosaics, foldings, and marionettes.

– Grey: Toys to social relationship: card games, games of strategy, course and interpretation, among others.

Beyond this family categories formulated by ICCP, was proposed a new class denominated as “Fantasy”, which includes different outfits: carnival, super-hero, clown, animals, animated characters, masks, dresses, hats, wigs, bijous, among others, allocated in the beauty’s corner.

Even this category is close to the “light blue” family, it was created because of the collection size and children’s demand and also due the fact that it doesn’t appear in any ICCP classification.