What is Educational Play

This chapter concerns the use of concrete objects and tools connected with mathematics. Currently, over a hundred items have already been provided by the author, and others are in preparation. The topics are part of what is called “education and recreational use of games and simulations,” and so the objects also come in a technological version. Part of the materials were used in an educational experience with the aim of stimulating students to identify objects and situations that speak to us of mathematics and to teach them how to retrieve and organize information, promoting non-traditional learning of the discipline. The most interesting aspect is the use of a very artisanal approach, starting from objects that students can, in part, found in everyday life.