The authors contend that, although recent research--especially concerning the role of teachers--shows play to be critical for early childhood education, most kindergartens in the United States limit play because of accountability worries. And this is especially true for those kindergartens serving Black and Brown children. To support the…

The paper compares the value of ingenious handmade toys and ingenious machine-made assembled toys. The methods used are focus group discussions with 39 teachers and 115 students, respectively, and workshops with 131 students in four case schools in Kurukshetra, Haryana state, India. The results show that play value in terms of stories, movement,…

In this study, we compared how sustainability, children's agency, and play are addressed in preschool curricula in Sweden and Turkey. Content analysis was used to analyse, interpret, and compare the content. The findings indicated that sustainability is explicitly integrated into the Swedish curriculum but only partly mentioned in the Turkish…

Math learning in early childhood is critical for later success, as it is predictive of mathematical and academic achievement through adolescence. Therefore, developing engaging and effective methods for early math instruction are important. Math games are a common method for teaching math in a way that is motivating and engaging for young children…

This study aimed to evaluate Promoting Reciprocal Relationships with Flexibility, Coaching, and Teaching (PRRFCT Match), a parent-mediated naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention package. An expansion from an earlier pilot study (see Kunze et al., 2021), PRRFCT Match incorporates virtual coaching between a novice coach and parent to…

This study adopts a sociological perspective in investigating peer friendships, influenced by the new sociology of childhood and sociologists like Corsaro. Ten toddlers participated to the study which was conducted in two Greek day-care settings, using an adaptation of the Mosaic Approach. Children's interactions with their peers were investigated…

This report presents the National Foundation for Educational Research's (NFER) learning study in collaboration with Three Stones International (TSI) which examined the sustainability of Learning through Play with Technology (LtPT) in Rwandan primary schools. LtPT is an approach in Right to Play's Plug-in-Play (PIP) project. The project supports…

Serious games combine education and entertainment to create engaging and effective learning experiences, potentially contributing to science literacy and environmental awareness. This research aims to investigate the effectiveness of a particular serious game, H2OeduK, in educating children aged 10 to 11 years on the urban water cycle.…

While active play in childcare settings is important for children's development and wellbeing, children with disabilities are frequently excluded from these experiences. This could be a consequence of the pre-service training provided to early childhood educators (ECEs). As such, this study investigated the quantity and content of inclusive active…

Play-based teaching and learning approaches are recognised as enabling teachers to interact with children and support learning in a relaxed environment to promote children's holistic development. Recent studies increasingly emphasise that teachers' engagement can promote children's opportunities to learn through play. This article presents results…

This action research study explored crucial components of play-based learning through a researcher created survey and through an analysis of six elementary and six secondary teacher participant responses. The study also investigated maker education through analysis of a portion of survey results from fourteen university students through a study…

Play of younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (siblings; n = 44), very preterm children (preterms; n = 44), and children at typical likelihood for ASD (n = 36) was observed at 24 months. Children with ASD and atypical development engaged less in spontaneous (pre-)symbolic play than typically developing children. Total…

Infants' prelinguistic vocalizations reliably organize vocal turn-taking with social partners, creating opportunities for learning to produce the sound patterns of the ambient language. This social feedback loop supporting early vocal learning is well-documented, but its developmental origins have yet to be addressed. When do infants learn that…

Predominantly, childhood provides a window of opportunity for the promotion and development of social maturation and fundamental movement skills. The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of active play on the motor proficiency and social maturity of children. Thirty participants (age range: seven to nine years old) were randomly assigned…

Approaches to discourse analysis in educational research tend to operate within the boundaries of particular video-based research traditions. We examine four of these traditions that are especially relevant to the learning sciences--conversation analysis, discursive psychology, interaction analysis, and video-cued ethnography--and instead of…