Increasingly concerns are expressed about the formalisation of early childhood education and the loss of opportunities for children's play in a range of European and European heritage countries. This paper takes up this challenge by discussing, from a cultural-historical perspective, the relations between play and learning in pre-school settings.…

The concept of open functions was introduced to capture an intended feature of van Eyck's seminal play sculptures -- they do not suggest a specific action. In a recent study, Van der Schaaf, A. L., S. R. Caljouw, and R. Withagen. (2020. "Are Children Attracted to Play Elements with an Open Function?" "Ecological Psychology" 32:…

Drawing connections between anti-Black racism, surveillance, and the criminalization of Black bodies, and using an autoethnographic approach, the author discusses the effect of racism on Black play. She analyzes her personal encounters and the public accounts of others to illustrate how white supremacy uses scrutiny and its attendant actions by…

The author discusses the impact of Black Twitter, a section of Twitter dominated by members of the African diaspora, on marginalized communities when it offers alternatives to the rules and expectations of mainstream social media, especially in relation to such online games as UNO. She touts the value of what she calls the "petty" for…

We examine a teacher's read-aloud activity with her preschool students in India. Three vignettes show how this "leading" activity helps young children take part in socio-dramatic play, fostering their cultural-historical development. Collaborating as teacher and researcher, we consider students' use of words, instances of object…

Computational thinking (CT) is considered an essential literacy skill for all children to develop, yet conceptual, practical, and empirical work with preschool-age children is scarce. A particular gap in the research is how CT instruction should be enacted (e.g., free play, guided play, levels of scaffolding, degree of child-initiated activities,…

Preschool teachers have a responsibility to create a sense of belonging for all children and families in their classroom community. Utilizing a funds of identity approach, this study examines how one preschool teacher uncovered the resources emergent bilingual children brought with them from home into school. She used this knowledge to…

The present case study is inspired by preliminary observations of a young adolescent's use of private speech within pretend play to develop disciplinary knowledge in the home domain. Using audio-recordings of the learner's pretend play as a starting point, followed by informal conversations with her, the parent-as-researcher investigates the…

Object play yields enormous benefits for infant development. However, little is known about natural play at home where most object interactions occur. We conducted frame-by-frame video analyses of spontaneous activity in two 2-h home visits with 13-month-old crawling infants and 13-, 18-, and 23-month-old walking infants (N = 40; 21 boys; 75%…

Background and aims: Although adjustment of the environment is recommended as a support strategy in evidence-based interventions for children with autism, the impact of doing so (and the how and why) is not well understood. One essential environmental factor to consider when providing supports for preschool-aged autistic children is the play…

Background and aims: Play-based interventions are used ubiquitously with children with social, communication, and language needs but the impact of these interventions on the mental health of this group of children is unknown. Despite their pre-existing challenges, the mental health of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and autism…

This study examined preschool teachers' fidelity in implementing a vocabulary intervention. The purpose of the study is to inform the scaling up of vocabulary interventions, identifying strategies that are both feasible for teachers and effective for vocabulary learning. We analyzed data from a vocabulary intervention in which teachers (n = 10)…

Expectations for increased conceptual outcomes in the early childhood education sector have foregrounded a need for more evidenced-based practice in support of children's play. One such avenue for researching models of play practices that support cognitive outcomes is to study the implementation of Playworlds. Grounded in cultural-historical…

The associations of children's play behaviour to their emotional regulation, executive functioning were examined in this study. Teachers rated children's play behaviour, emotional regulation and executive functioning. The study sample comprised 127 (Mage in months = 60.685, SD = 9.563; 64 girls) Turkish children who continued formal education in…

The teaching of fundamental movement skills (FMS) such as catching, throwing, running, jumping and rolling is widely accepted as the cornerstone of physical education in the primary school. However, there is limited debate about the use of different pedagogical approaches when teaching FMS. In this article, advice is offered for teachers vis-à-vis…