Vygotsky's seminal text on play was originally given as a lecture at the Herzen Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad in 1933, and is consequently a relatively late work. It is thanks to a stenographic record of the lecture that this text, a key influence on psychological research on play, has survived. This was Vygotsky's major work on play and…

The purpose of this study is to gather information about caregivers' views of the value of a digital music toy, its musical features, as well as their comments about children's responses to the toy. Instead of asking parents to provide their opinions about a broad category of interactive music toys, the authors selected one of the many toys…

This study explored Korean and American children's play behaviors during board games in a kindergarten classroom using an ethnographic approach. The Korean participants were 20 children and one teacher of one classroom at attached kindergarten of public elementary school. The American participants were 11 kindergarten children and one teacher from…

This study examined the playfulness of toddlers, ages 18-24 months, participating in a situational context with a non-maternal adult play partner. The goal was to investigate adult interaction styles and outcomes in terms of children's playful dispositions. Play behaviors were observed and coded from videotapes. A qualitative analysis of…

This study examined gender differences in the correlates of different types of nonsocial play behaviors. Seventy-seven kindergarten children (38 males, 39 females) were observed during free play. Behaviors were categorized according to three subtypes of nonsocial play: reticent, solitary-passive, and solitary-active. Additional measures included…

This paper focuses on the use of toys to teach Social Studies to elementary school students. The first section offers a literature review on play and the significance of play in a child's development. The remainder of the paper offers activities related to play in the areas of history, geography and economics. The object of the activities is to…

Focusing on activity preferences at home rather than activity preferences in nursery school, this study examined the relationship between preschoolers' daily activities and spatial abilities. Parents of 52 preschoolers recorded their children's home activities for 7 days. Children were given three measures of spatial ability and one vocabulary…

This study examined how parents' engagement and affect during parent-child interaction related to children's ability to successfully interact with peers. Subjects were 56 families, each with a child between the ages of 4 and 6. Ten-minute interactions were videotaped as parents obtained information about a story previously heard by the child, and…

This study examined social communication behavior during play time among eight kindergarten (5- to 7-year-old) children with profound hearing loss in integrational situations (with normal children ages between 4-6) in Ankara, Turkey. Observations were made of children's preferences for different play centers, types of social play, social…

This paper describes two projects analyzing forms of appearance and the characteristics of symbolic play, that is, spontaneous play free from adult intervention. The paper highlights some characteristics and theoretical orientations and discusses preliminary findings. The theoretical framework includes using evolutive cognitive and…

Neurological research indicates that children's experiences, both inside and outside of school, significantly influence brain development. But little is known about children's out-of-school activities and the influence such activities may have on academic achievement. To better understand this relationship, the extra-school activities of 75…

This study examined the effect of the amount and diversity of information about a child on adults' perceptions of the child's personality traits and sex-typed interests. A sample of 197 college students (ranging in age from 18 to 28 years) were randomly assigned one of three exposure conditions: (1) maximum exposure (subjects observed six boys,…

This study examined high-aggressive and low-aggressive boys' ratings of the effectiveness of aggressive and assertive strategies for solving social problems involving hypothetical peers and actual peers. Subjects were 66 third-grade boys (11 groups of 6 boys each for a total of 22 high-aggressive, 22 low-aggressive, and 22 average aggressive boys)…

A study investigated the styles teachers exhibit while interacting with children in literacy-enriched play settings, whether teachers switch between several different styles, and how different play interaction styles affect children's play behaviors. Subjects, seven 4-year-olds enrolled in a university laboratory preschool class, a lead teacher,…

The recent years in our country we are facing an increasingly great number of immigrant students, mainly from East European countries and the Balkans, particularly in many Greek elementary schools and kindergartens. Aim of the presented study is to sketch the problems that came out from the co-existence of students with different cultural…