Children's game library as a Unique Extracurricular Educational Establishment in the USSR (the middle of the 20th century)

Abstract

The article reveals the history of emergence and work of children's game libraries in the USSR in the middle of the 20th century. The first children's game libraries, which were educational establishments where children could come and play different games, using various game and sport equipment free of charge, appeared in the 1930th and became wide spread in the USSR in the 1930th - 1950th. Children's game libraries had different tasks of their work (organizing children's cultural leisure time, increasing the educational and political levels of children's games and entertainments which were conducted in schools, summer camps and extracurricular educational establishments). They also had different directions of their work, namely: organizational, methodic, educational, experimental, instructive and consultative directions. It has been shown in the article that children’s game libraries had great results of their work (they involved a lot of children and adults in their activities; the network of children's game libraries began to grow; a lot of new toys and games were created and produced by them). However, children's game libraries faced certain difficulties in their work, namely: absence of own premises of children’s game libraries, lack of enough support for their activities by some educational institutions and teaching staff, lack of the required amount of toys and games, insufficient instructive and publishing activities of children’s game libraries.