Children's well-being in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is associated with their participation in both planning and assessing ECEC activities. The aim of the study presented here was therefore to explore children's experiences of participating in different physical environments and activities in ECEC institutions. Quantitative data were…

In this "Reflection on Practice" paper we reflect on an early childhood Work Integrated Learning course redesign that explored new ways of developing and applying playfulness theory to higher education instructional approaches. Our experience was that the higher education students required more support to deepen their understanding of…

The acquisition of vocabulary and narrative comprehension are key abilities for children's literacy development and to potentiate cognitive and academic skills from early ages. The aim with this study was to analyse the effects of a 6-week integrated active-lessons programme based on playful games, vocabulary, and narrative comprehension.…

Current policy and curriculum guides for early education centres in the United Arab Emirates advocate for play-based practices similar to those in the West. However, best practice reforms must reflect a sociocultural perspective and suit the context of application. The main objectives of this research were to provide insight into Emirati maternal…

Underpinning drama education in New Zealand is the desire to improve the lives of individuals, communities and societies by catalysing embodied learning in and through the art form of theatre. Learning in drama is intended to foster well-being, social cohesion and active citizenship. Put another way, drama education in New Zealand has always been…

It is vital to foster children's ability to cooperate with others, communicate effectively, and exercise self-control. These competencies represent a set of transferrable skills required in many aspects of daily life and along any career path. In Hong Kong, a play-based training programme was launched to support parents to target these areas of…

Background: School connectedness (SC) is associated with improved health and academic outcomes. The purposes of this study were to explore factors contributing to students' perceptions of SC and if participation in structured recreation at school was associated with SC. Methods: We used concurrent mixed-methods including cross-sectional…

Since the 2000s, early co-constructive mathematical learning in kindergarten has focused on political discussions and (mathematical-didactic) research. This is because kindergarten is the first place for subject-specific learning, next to socialization in the family. Research on this first institutional learning in the kindergarten often focuses…

Narrative is an important part of how humans make sense of the world and express their thoughts and feelings. For children, stories are the predominant way in which they organize and express ideas and imagination. Hence, stories have a significant role in children's various play activities, especially pretend-play. At around the third to fifth…

Research on children's risky play and young children's risk taking is a relatively new research area that has drawn the attention of many researchers in the last decades. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, no earlier studies have measured the prevalence of risky play when children can freely choose what to play, with whom, and where. Most research on…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contributions of children's social competence, aggression, and anxiety to their play behaviours with peers. A total of 149 preschoolers aged 36-73 months (M = 54.6 months, SD = 0.99; 50.3% girls) and their 46 teachers in Turkey recruited for the current study. Teachers reported on children's social…

This article examines how performance-oriented arts practice with members of socially marginalised communities can be harnessed as a mode of grassroots civic participation, one that can transgress the expected norms of public communication that render some stories and speakers legitimate, and some not. The article will offer an analysis of a…

Research concerning play and technology is largely aimed at expanding the knowledge of what technological play may be and, to a lesser extent, examines what happens to children's play when it encounters digital tools. In order to explore some of the complexity in play, this article elaborates on how Latour's concepts of 'translation' and…

This article is a personal memoir of how Vivian Gussin Paley deepened a veteran teacher's understanding of how young children learn through play. With careful observation of children at fantasy play, intentional listening, and dictation, Paley enhanced and sharpened appreciation of how children relate to their surroundings and build skills for…

Playful learning has become a common practice in Denmark, across primary and secondary education, however, the phrase playful learning might sound like a paradox, because learning and play suggest opposite values. In playful learning, play is approached as a learning resource, able to foster understanding and critical thinking. In the Occupational…