This article, a conceptual and theoretical piece, opens a window on "playful learning" as a philosophy of education and a suite of diverse pedagogical approaches, methods, and techniques. The paper criticizes the serious ambience of adult education with its high levels of instrumentalism and performativity. It argues for playful learning…

Much of historical and contemporary music education research is influenced by a Cartesian ontology of opposition. This reinforces the classic function of music and music education: the exercise of possession, ownership and control. To confront these ideas, our article reimagines music education research through posthumanism and new materialism. In…

Play is an essential component of childhood, but parents and educators sometimes view it as an optional add-on, which gets in the way of learning. This view persists in spite of evidence that play is helpful and sometimes critical to learning in multiple domains, perhaps because precise mechanisms whereby play occasions learning are not well…

The author believes that in mathematics education, with ourselves AND with students or learners, people need to embrace failure as a beautiful thing -- an incredibly wonderful opportunity to learn more about the math or the tool or the people. The five characteristics of provocative objects can help to understand how to design such lovely failure,…

This article takes a discrepancy between experienced pedagogical and childish life orientations as a point of entry and speculates about loosening play from its organised position as form and instead looking at play as processes. Accordingly, the speculative focus of the article is on how different orientations might come into existence within an…

Learning progressions have become increasingly prevalent in mathematics education as they offer a fine-grain map of possible learning pathways a child may take within a particular domain. However, there is an opportunity to build upon this research in ways that consider learning from multiple perspectives. Many current forms of learning…

Using play to meet specific learning goals in pre-k can be challenging. In this article, we discuss why play is an essential activity for pre-k learning. We share some research on the importance of supporting unconstrained, trifecta skills like oral language in the context of child-centered, playful activities. We explain the importance of teacher…

In "Learning Without Lessons," David F. Lancy fills a rather large gap in the field of child development and education. Drawing on focused, empirical studies in cultural psychology, ethnographic accounts of childhood, and insights from archaeological studies, Lancy offers the first attempt to review the principles and practices for…

The early childhood learning trajectories provide a translation of evidence on how children develop, incorporated into a clear, engaging resource for early childhood teachers and educators. This report summarises the evidence base that informed their development. It aims to deepen understanding of the domains of learning and development that the…

Play is widely acknowledged as being critical for children's development, yet opportunities for play are becoming more scarce for many children.

Building from the concept of verbing mathematics as a culturally consistent and enabling mathematics education practice for Mi'kmaw learners, the authors present an elementary multiplication lesson affectionately named "Sets of, Rows of, Jumps of". Through examination of this specific set of tasks emerging notions of structuring, play,…

Baroody, Lai & Mix [2006. The development of young childrens number and operation sense and its implications for early childhood education. In B. Spodek, & O. N. Saracho (Eds.), "Handbook of research on the education of young children" (2nd Ed., pp. 187-221). NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.] differentiate between four different learning…

Based on a unique approach to creativity presented in a revolutionary new book, "Deep Creativity," the authors introduce important, often-ignored processes and aspects of processes that are important to both learning and creativity. They focus on the qualities of "thoughtfulness," which is complete receptivity to all possible…

The Learning Through Play at School Research Study Ukraine was a four-year longitudinal intervention study funded by the LEGO Foundation and implemented by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the Ukrainian Educational Research Association (UERA). The study was implemented between 2019 and 2024, during COVID-19 and the…

How can we use Friedrich Froebel's play theory in order to analyze ECEC, Early Childhood Education and Care? Wolfgang Klafki builds his theory of categorical "Bildung" on Froebel's play theory, which presupposes the interaction between child, adult and content, as in the didactic triangle. Froebel's play theory was lost in the hands of…