This study explores humour's role in a holistic craft process when 7-8-year-olds design personalised soft toys. Humour enhances learning environments by fostering joy, belonging and a positive atmosphere, acting as a motivational tool in experiential and arts-based learning. The study aims to answer the following questions: (1) What are the…

Robot toys can be used to promote STEM subjects, particularly coding and mathematics. The lesson described in this article illustrates how a robot toy was used with a number line to explore equality and missing addends in Year 1. The lesson progression models how activities can be sequenced to build on developing understandings while supporting…

How can teachers take a traditional field trip and turn it into a component of a rich learning unit? The author found success in connecting a science, technology, and design class to the experiences students engaged in during a recent trip to a zoo. While students were focused on creating an enrichment toy for animals, the true enrichment was in…

Mathematics educators and researchers have advocated for the use of manipulatives to teach mathematics for decades. The purpose of this article is to provide illustrative uses of a readily available manipulative rather than a complete list. From an Australian perspective, Pop-it fidget toys can be used across the mathematics curriculum. This paper…

Block building activities help develop students' spatial reasoning, but few studies focus on the development of block building skills beyond preschool. We worked with four kindergarten, four first grade, and four second grade students to learn more about their Lego block building. We compared students' accuracy, building strategies, and spatial…

The aim of this study was to determine the play perceptions of children in early childhood. The study group consisted of four children (two preschoolers and two first graders) aged between 72 and 86 months. The study, designed in line with qualitative research approach, employed the phenomenological design. The data in the study were collected by…

This qualitative study examined 287 Turkish children's school experiences and sought to connect such experiences to their overall feelings about school. A semi-structured interview protocol derived from Ladd, Kochenderfer, and Coleman's [1996. "Friendship Quality as a Predictor of Children's Early School Adjustment." "Child…

One of the most common challenges expressed by classroom teachers in mathematics teaching and in the literature is the concretisation of abstract concepts in teaching basic subjects. Lego MoreToMath is a training set focusing on the mathematical lesson gains of elementary school first and second grade students. The aim of this study is to enable…

The effects of prior encodings of manipulatives (red and blue plastic chips) on children's ability to use them as representations of quantity were tested. First graders (N = 73) were assigned to four conditions in which the encoding of plastic chips was experimentally manipulated. All children then participated in an addition activity that relied…

An embodied approach to reading comprehension suggests that emerging readers must learn to map words and phrases onto their remembered experiences, but this is made difficult by the necessity of focusing attention on decoding. Having children manipulate toys to correspond to what they are reading overcomes this problem, but introduces its own…

The authors examined an activity-based listening strategy with first- and third-grade children in mixed-grade dyads. On the basis of theories of cognitive development and previous research, the authors predicted the following: (a) children in an activity-based strategy would recall more story events compared with those in a repetition strategy and…

In this article, the author tells how her students researched every aspect of their own beloved stuffed animals, which led to an interview with a labor leader. When students learned that children in other countries played a role in manufacturing their stuffed animals, sometimes in unhealthy conditions, they decided to take action as citizens. As…

This qualitative study examines perspectives of parents of children with autism related to engagement in the home environment. Increased engagement decreases the likelihood of less productive behaviors. Investigation of engagement in the home setting may provide insights into the development of interventions. Collaboration between parents and…