Laughter and smiling are frequently experienced in social settings, yet more research is required to delineate their development and dynamics. We investigated toddlers' and parents' shared positive expressions in playful interactions. We observed eighty 30-month-old toddler-parent dyads in two phases of 8 min in length. In each, one person was…

Access to equitable, quality, and inclusive early childhood education (ECE) has positive effects on school readiness, transition, and overall development and learning in all children. This paper seeks to explore barriers and facilitators to the implementation of learning through play (LtP) for preschoolers in Kenya with a view to enhance…

What they didn't tell you about how to increase engagement and decrease unsettled behaviour. Teachers have long been taught to use different strategies: one for behaviour; one for learning. Start with control to get their attention, then move on to the learning. This isn't working. It's time for a change. Jen Foster brings a new approach. One that…

Euro-Western schooling systems often sideline play, or when learning through play is valued, it is rarely recognised as a Maaori way of knowing. In te ao Maaori, however, play is woven through identity, wairua, and whakapapa. Drawing on my puuraakau and the koorero of my tumuaki, Te Haumoana Biddle, this article re-centres play as a…

Caregivers serve an important role in guiding their children's early playful learning experiences, which range widely from free play to direct instruction. How caregivers themselves approach different play types and how to best encourage playful learning among families remains an underexplored area of research. Caregivers of 2-5-year-old children…

The pictorial scale of Perceived Movement Skill Competence assesses perceived motor competence in children. Limited validity and reliability evidence exists from the United States. The study aim was to determine indices of construct validity, concurrent validity, and internal consistency obtained from multiple versions of the Perceived Movement…

This study investigated the development of computational thinking (CT) in young children within the specific context of Hong Kong. The researchers utilized an unplugged digital arts activity to explore the CT knowledge exhibited by children and document their developmental trajectories. A sample of 23 children aged 3 to 6 years participated in an…

The objective of the study was to evaluate the effects of fathers' participation in the Father Support Education Programme on their perception of their role as fathers and the development of play skills in their children. The study sample comprised 40 fathers whose children, aged 5 and 6, were enrolled in independent pre-schools located in the…

This paper investigates affect as part of children's sensemaking in the context of a play-based mixed-reality science learning environment. We build on theories of affect as disciplinary work by investigating the multiple layers of affect that are essential to children's scientific inquiry and to identify pedagogical moves that recognize, value,…

The early years of education are a crucial time to develop a strong foundation of critical mathematical skills. A growing body of research continues to demonstrate that this foundational knowledge can be successfully built through teacher-facilitated, or guided, approaches to play. Despite its benefits, the implementation of guided play is…

This article, a conceptual and theoretical piece, opens a window on "playful learning" as a philosophy of education and a suite of diverse pedagogical approaches, methods, and techniques. The paper criticizes the serious ambience of adult education with its high levels of instrumentalism and performativity. It argues for playful learning…

Objective: Listening to children has been frequently adopted by researchers working within a child's rights paradigm, as an uncontested method that veritably represents children's 'voices'. Whether children can be understood to participate, and their voices represented veritably, when their lives are culturally situated and co-constructed with…

Purpose: Peer network interventions support social interaction among students with autism and their peers and may be able to support reciprocal friendship development. However, little research has attempted to examine the nature of relationships that form within them. This study utilized a convergent parallel mixed methods design to explore how…

Role-playing games (RPGs) are storytelling activities that mediate co-authorship through a variety of in-game, out-of-game, and intertextual relationships. Liminal interactions sometimes occur during RPG play that blur these categories. To understand the purposes and processes of "liminal play," this study analyzed data from a yearlong…

In the Fall of 2018, the author embarked on her dissertation research, focusing on the critical issue of enhancing early childhood programs through the lens of early literacy development facilitated by play. At that time, many districts' early childhood curricula were heavily skewed towards academics, such as English/Language Arts (ELA) and Math,…