In this research, the playfulness of 4- and 5-years-old 181 children, 100 boys and 81 girls, attending a kindergarten in Turkey, was examined. The research was designed according to relational-correlational survey/research model, one of the quantitative research methods; the data were collected using Personal Information Form and Children's…

Children's food preferences are strongly associated with their consumption patterns. Children tend to choose foods with which they are familiar. It is proposed that the earlier and broader the experience with food, the healthier the child's or adult´s diet. In a focus group we developed a toolkit consisting of a training course for kindergarten…

Street children are often constructed as fragile individuals who lose their innocent childhood since they have to work and do not have the opportunity to play like most of their peers. Using Bourdieu's concept of field, capital and habitus, this article seeks to go beyond the existing notion of play by exploring how street children in Bandung,…

The mobility of peoples and their settlement in our country has created a new dynamic in dealing with population groups with particular linguistic, cultural and social characteristics. At the same time, it brought to the fore the case of the Roma, who have been active in Greece for decades without being fully integrated into the social and…

This practical guide for educational leaders explores how you can transform your school or district into a vibrant center of learning and socio-ecological responsibility with only three manageable actions: taking students outside, bringing nature inside, and cultivating a mindset of awareness, responsibility, and empathy. This book is rich in…

Recent findings from the Kids Activity and Learning Study complement North Carolina's multidimensional approach to promoting school readiness by emphasizing the integrated nature of motor and cognitive development in early childhood. Children whose motor skills improved the most over the course of an academic year also tended to demonstrate the…

The chapter is a reflective discussion of an educator who has made efforts to incorporate heritage language practice in child play in the real-world everyday setting of early childhood education. This combination between heritage language and child play has hardly been explored before in the relevant discourse. As children in Australia possess…

This study builds on and extends our understanding of literacy through exploring children's encounters with a digital narrative game. The research analyses different stances or orientations that children take as they progress through the game and how they draw on schematic understandings about narratives and digital gaming to support their…

Research suggests that bullying does occur in kindergarten. The extent of bullying in Norway and other Scandinavian countries is estimated to be about 12%. The purpose of this study is to investigate children's understanding and experiences of bullying. We use a qualitative approach and have conducted individual interviews and focus group…

Leisure time, conceptually defined as recreation or free time, is a term to define the time period set aside by individuals in order to have fun after the work, rest, play around and do as they wish and meet special needs. The purpose of this study is to determine free time motivations approaches of teacher candidates by considering some…

Strangers, Gods, and monsters are all names for the experience of alterity and otherness within and amongst us. We need monsters in our lives. In this paper we use philosophy as a method to explore language, developmental and cultural instabilities, and terrifying (and discursive) monstrosity located within children's literature and childhood…

While the World Federation of Occupational Therapy (WFOT) recommends that occupational therapists (OTs) competently respond to changing environments and new clinical practice and research demands (WFOT, 2012), there are many challenges for therapists to engage in professional development in countries where resources and specialized expertise are…

As one typical form of play, play center activities are commonly used in early childhood education programs in China. This study used the Activities Sub-scale of the Chinese Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (CECERS) to measure the quality of the play center activities in K2 (4-5 years old) classroom, which based on a stratified random…

The present study investigated the structural relationships between Korean preschool teachers' work environments, self-efficacy, and children's peer play interactions; it also examined the mediating influence of teacher-child interactions on these relationships. This study performed SEM analysis on 1193 teachers' survey responses from the 2014…

Research demonstrates children's attention, working memory, and behavior improve following a recess or activity break. Longer periods of inactivity are associated with higher levels of inattention; children who are less active have higher rates of disciplinary infractions. Thus, providing physical activity breaks may positively impact student…