Teaching the properties of geometric shapes in traditional ways does not help children to understand them, nor does it enable them to visualize them. It may need methods that correspond to the characteristics and tendencies of children and more interesting methods based on fun learning. Designing 3D geometric shapes with children through pop-up…

The use of the game in the educational process depends on the attitude of the teachers towards the game. Attitudes are important as a guide in understanding the behavior of individuals. The purpose of this research is to describe the attitudes of teacher candidates towards playing games containing physical activity. In the research, the scanning…

There is a renewed scientific interest in the role of childhood in human evolution, pointing to the explorative phase of a human's life history that shapes how children learn and develop. This study presents a synthesis from evolutionary sciences that considers biases in childhood learning through activities in play, exploration, and social…

The author draws on Lev S. Vygotsky's conception of play and Gunilla Lindqvist's methodology concerning the aesthetics of play to discuss play practice in early childhood classrooms. Based on the study of an educational experiment at a primary school, she discusses how children in a school setting simultaneously engage in developed forms of…

Engagement in play is vital for children to learn 21st-century skills, especially problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, focused attention, and collaboration (Hillman et al., 2014; Singer, 2015; Yogman et al., 2018). These require developing executive functioning skills crucial for school readiness and success. Play fosters brain…

This study examined the interrelationships among playfulness, prosocial skills, and school readiness of Hong Kong kindergarten children across time. Participants were 106 local children (55.6% boys, mean age = 60.0 months) and their parents and teachers. At time 1, parents reported their child's age, gender, and playfulness. Six months later at…

The prevalence of autism is on the rise and this population of students is not academically thriving, thus leading to strained resources and more intervention services across the lifespan. The educational problem is that teachers report being ill-equipped to address the diverse academic needs of their students with autism. The purpose of this…

Many scholars have argued that mathematics classrooms often offer narrow conceptions of mathematical excellence, recognizing only some kinds of thinking and some kinds of people as valuable, and conflating mathematical aptitude with overall intelligence. Play offers the potential to disrupt such classroom mathematical practices, by offering new…

During a five-week research study, a kindergarten class of 14 five- and six-year-old children learned to sing and play soprano ukuleles. The study had a dual purpose: to teach the children foundational music skills, and to teach them to read lyrics at the emergent reader level. Csikszentmihalyi (2009) cites one of the pitfalls of traditional music…

A body of research that investigates the social, cognitive and emotional effects of digital technologies on the development of children reports that digital technologies are limiting activities that connect children with people. On the other hand, there is a great amount of research on the positive role of digital play. However, digital games per…

This research project explores the interconnections between three constructs: joy, play, and learning. The research specifically focuses on children's ideas and experiences of joy, play, and learning at a public Montessori School in the United States of America and in the context of engaging with selected math games. The games used are…

Play allows children to experience joy in the moment of learning. Parrott and Cohen (2020) highlight the benefit of unstructured play to children's overall learning in their case study. Outdoor play typically has no restrictions or end goal in mind. The possibilities of outdoor learning experiences are endless for children as they experiment with…

We first experience the joy and necessity of belonging to a world beyond the family as we take roles in one another's imaginative play. Together we are inventing new communities, in which matters of friendships, fairness, and fantasy are accessible to all.

Videogames and videogame literacies are an important and growing aspect of education, yet videogaming remains poorly understood and even viewed with suspicion by many who are charged with promoting them. In the case of libraries, such views can lead to insufficient funding and policies that reduce the presence of youth programing that includes…

Play is often included in autism diagnostic assessments. These tend to focus on 'deficits' and non-autistic interpretation of observable behaviours. In contrast, a neurodiversity-affirmative assessment approach involves centring autistic perspectives and focusing on strengths, differences and needs. Accordingly, this study was designed to focus on…