Sport coaches continue to coach without reference to a conceptualisation of coaching. Indeed, coaching research has been caught in a chasm between process and practice conceptualisations, further widening the application of theory to practice. And coaches are often the protagonists in both of these accounts. Yet, as we will see, this is…

As a young teacher, Jane Katch was mentored by Vivian Paley. Katch watched how Paley turned puzzling issues into exciting explorations. Later in her own class, Katch became intrigued by the violent imaginative games that a group of boys were playing. Following Paley's example, Katch immersed herself in trying to examine the play rather than to…

Although the benefits of early science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics (STEAM) education are understood, science is seldom found in early childhood education. One major impediment is teachers' perceived lack of their own competence with scientific skills. Many early childhood teachers feel that they do not know science sufficiently to…

In an attempt to resolve some of the lingering tensions involved in understanding play as learning in practice, a group of Irish student teachers in the final years of their degree programme participated in an intervention known as 'PLAI' (Playful Learning Across Ireland). This paper reports on the impact of such an intervention on student…

Play is critical for children's learning, but there is significant disagreement over whether and how parents should guide children's play. The objective of the current study was to examine how parent-child interaction affected children's engagement and problem-solving behaviors when challenged with similar tasks. Parents and 4- to 7-year-old…

Small-group interventions are often used in schools to support the development of children's social skills. One such intervention, Lego®-Based Therapy (LBT), is increasingly popular internationally in schools. Although LBT has an emerging evidence-base, there is limited research exploring effective LBT implementation. An in-depth, exploratory…

Emotional expressions are abundant in children's lives. What role do they play in children's causal inference and exploration? This study investigates whether preschool-aged children use others' emotional expressions to infer the presence of unknown causal functions and guide their exploration accordingly. Children (age: 3.0-4.9; N = 112, the…

This article focuses on children's perspectives of belonging to a place, in this case a Finnish preprimary school setting. This study explores "place-belonging" in photographs originally taken by the children in their preprimary school activities. "Photo-telling" was applied as a methodology to link narrative and visual…

The current study aimed to investigate whether board games could be used to improve creative potential. Games have proven to be effective learning tools, and some studies have indicated positive links between creativity and other types of games, namely video games and role-playing games. However, less is known regarding board games' potential…

Early educators' perceptions of play and learning influence whether they adopt responsive roles to facilitate learning in play. While studies have investigated perceptions of play as pedagogical practice and its perceived relevance for learning, few have also interrogated educator learning perceptions, and hence compared these perceptions. This…

This study explores how infant and toddlers become caring individuals, an aspect that has received little attention among young children's interactions in educational settings. Research findings demonstrate how acts of caring support, embellish and expand infants' and toddlers' interactions. The meanings of these acts are explored based on…

This article explores how gastrostomy feeding tubes can impact the early childhood education and care (ECEC) experiences of children. It presents findings from a small-scale study, which utilised the perspectives of early years educators and parents. The findings indicate that feeding tubes have both an opportunistic and restrictive impact within…

The purpose of this study was to conduct a content analysis of the syllabi of play therapy courses offered by school counseling programs that hold accreditation from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. We collected and analyzed 27 course syllabi to (a) identify trends in the content of these courses and…

Background and aims: Play is used by practitioners from across disciplinary backgrounds as a natural and enjoyable context for providing intervention and support in early childhood. In the case of autism interventions, many therapies are based on the association between social play and the development of social skills, language development, and…

We report on a playful introduction of optimization in a high school. The final event of this experience has been an orienteering competition, in which the decision-making component plays a central role. This type of event has been very involving, and it boosted the interest of the students toward operations research. After summarizing the…