A large amount of research has been conducted on play and in recent years the disappearance of play has been questioned (e.g., Brown in Kindergartners get little time to play. Why does it matter? 2016; Ebbeck and Waniganayake in Play in early childhood education: learning in diverse contexts, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2016).…

Human observations can only capture a portion of ongoing classroom social activity, and are not ideal for understanding how children's interactions are spatially structured. Here we demonstrate how social interaction can be investigated by modeling automated continuous measurements of children's location and movement using a commercial system…

This article draws comparisons between young children's material explorations and the national and global politics surrounding the U.S.--Mexico border in order to theorize early childhood art education and art education curricular approaches, practices, and policies. Border theories of fluidity and new materialist notions of becoming are discussed…

Contemplative pedagogy is part of the larger emerging field of Contemplative Studies. Louis Komjathy (2018) has observed three characteristics shared by various aspects of Contemplative Studies: practice commitment, critical subjectivity, and character development. This paper uses these three characteristics to describe and define a…

Intervention research is increasingly conducted in community settings, however it is not clear how well practices are sustained locally or how children progress once external research support is removed. Two school-year cohorts of toddlers with autism (year 1: n = 55, year 2: n = 63) received Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and…

Teacher- and student-generated sketches can spawn meaningful note-taking and instructional processes for enhancing learning and knowledge retention.

While circuitry lessons have traditionally been first introduced in late elementary school, they remain challenging conceptually for undergraduates in physics and engineering courses. Seeking to provide a higher quality and earlier introduction to circuitry learning for young children (ages 3-5), this paper investigates the affordances of…

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between digital game addiction and the motivation for digital game-playing, and to develop suggestions towards the solution of the research problem through the relationship between these two concepts. The study is designed according to the quantitative research method and the relational…

The literature suggests that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) educated in inclusive settings generally do not interact with typically developing classmates during social activities. This study assessed whether an intervention package consisting of interest-based structured play activities involving adult instruction, modeling, and…

As standardized testing becomes more prevalent, the urgency of allocating a designated time for children to play has diminished. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the amount of play children receive and standardized test scores in conjunction with the variable of anxiety. The population used consisted of…

Prop boxes are a collection of materials for sociodramatic play in which children act out authentic roles and scenes of the real world. Teachers collect materials around a topic or theme that connects to students' interests and addresses academic standards across multiple subjects. In this article, the authors suggest that prop boxes can make more…

Early experiences with planning and guiding children's learning can be exciting for preservice teachers in undergraduate teacher training programs. In this article, observations of a preschool play session guide four preservice teachers to design a series of play-centered lessons addressing serious science concepts (Hall 2010). While the concepts…

An important milestone in early childhood education and care is reached in 2021 as "Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia" is reviewed. The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) was groundbreaking. It has been influential in providing national guidelines around pedagogical principles, practice…

Given its importance in children's development and learning, researchers have rigorously studied play, and many teachers have used it as a classroom tool. Music researchers have observed that music regularly accompanies children's play because music is part of their culture, and "playing with music" is the most natural form of expression…

Children's physical activity has long been the primary focus of outdoor playspace design. Other influences are adult views on risk and economic considerations. However, a growing body of research shows young children's perspectives on their outdoor playspaces need to be accounted for. Positioned within a mixed-method comparative case study, this…