On average, over 45% of the population in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, and Malawi is under 14 years old, making access to quality education imperative to improve the socioeconomic circumstances for this generation and those to come. However, children in rural areas are confronted with daily challenges, such as extreme poverty, violence (including sexual…

Nature-based play and learning is of increasing interest to primary schools. However, few studies have investigated primary school staffs' views. Therefore, this study aimed to survey school staff about the barriers and benefits of nature-based play and learning. The online cross-sectional survey was completed by 50 respondents each representing a…

Stay-Play-Talk (SPT) is a peer-mediated intervention used to increase social interactions between preschoolers with developmental disabilities and typically developing (TD) peers. This intervention has been found to be successful in increasing play and reciprocal conversation amongst children with and without disabilities. The following describes…

In early childhood, young children frequently engage in object-oriented play. According to cultural-historical activity theory, object-oriented play provides children with opportunities to learn about the characteristics and cultural applications of objects and materials. These characteristics are referred to as rules or affordances of objects and…

This study attempts to provide an in-depth understanding of the influence of collaborative digital gameplay on students' behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement in mathematics. This mixed-method study used pre- (N = 45) and post-test (N = 43) engagement surveys and photo-elicitation interviews (N = 6) to investigate how a six-day…

Sociodramatic play is considered a critical context within which child leaders and followers may naturally emerge, while their cognitive abilities (e.g., theory of mind) and social competence are developed and applied. This study investigated child leadership and followership during sociodramatic play among 20 racial/ethnic minority 3- and…

How can we use Friedrich Froebel's play theory in order to analyze ECEC, Early Childhood Education and Care? Wolfgang Klafki builds his theory of categorical "Bildung" on Froebel's play theory, which presupposes the interaction between child, adult and content, as in the didactic triangle. Froebel's play theory was lost in the hands of…

In this update of a bestselling classic, you will learn how to develop children's capacity and will to read. Each sequential chapter is practical, eye-opening, and exactly what you need to engage young learners, plan lessons, partner with parents, and align your PreK-3 classrooms to the science of learning and the science of reading. Gain the…

This study examines the quantity and quality of child-directed speech across household activities in a socioeconomically diverse sample of Argentinian Spanish-speaking children, an understudied population. Thirty children (mean: 14.3 months) and their families were audio-recorded for four hours. The middle two hours were transcribed and analysed…

The aim of the article is to analyse aesthetic encounters in Danish early childhood and care (ECEC) centres and create knowledge of and a language for aesthetics as sensitive encounters and vibrant matters between humans and the world. The article thus challenges traditional assumptions about and understandings of aesthetics as simply impression,…

The urgent need to address the mental health needs of students in the United States has recently gained significant attention in the aftermath of the Coronavirus pandemic and recent school shootings. Alarmingly, studies show that only one-third of the children suffering from mental health behaviors will receive mental health services, and 80% of…

Colonisation in Australia has had long-term, pervasive, detrimental impacts on Indigenous Australians. When measured by national benchmarks, Indigenous children in Australia are currently at increased risk of developmental difficulties in comparison to their non-Indigenous peers. Community-led initiatives, such as playgroups, can provide safe and…

The "Children's Engagement Behaviour Framework" was developed to describe young children's engagement with science exhibits and how their behaviour is related to learning about the exhibits. The "Framework" was synthesised from frameworks in research literature related to family learning and the nature of play. It describes…

Different approaches to implementing 'learning through play' exist in many countries due to different understandings of the concept of play. In Indonesia, teachers implement play in a structured way following certain play developmental stages, where the focus is on children's academic outcomes, rather than the development of concepts as part of…

This article explores how making data playable, i.e. developing exploratory co-creation techniques that use elements of play and games to interpret small to mid-sized datasets beyond the current focus on visual evidence, can help a) promote creative data literacy in higher education, and b) expand existing definitions of data literacy. The article…