Play is essential to learning and development in the early childhood years. Young children experiment with new skills through play, which supports the development of new competencies and furthers cognitive development. Nontraditional learning spaces such as teaching and learning gardens provide excellent opportunities for children to engage in…

This study investigated how children describe their play activities and associate learning with play. Accordingly, 23 early childhood children from different cities and age groups were included in this phenomenological research study. Incorporating images of children's drawings of their favourite playtime and semi-structured interviews, three main…

Teacher Efficacy (TE) refers to teachers' confidence in their ability to promote student's learning. Research shows that generalist teachers' TE for music education is generally low, with many teachers associating music education with innate musical talents -- a problem exacerbated by music education programmes that focus on singing or playing…

A contributing factor to the loss of play in many early childhood classrooms is a sharp separation between literacy learning as serious, even urgent, academic work and play as optional, socially-beneficial-at-best, fun. To recenter play in the academic curriculum, early childhood educators must not only demonstrate how play benefits the existing…

Autistic children's play provides insights into social, communication, and other skills; however, methods for measuring these observations can be labor-intensive and rely on subjective judgment. This study explored whether children's movement and location during play measured via automated video tracking correlates with clinical features. Movement…

When we give meanings to a physical space, we engage in place-making. With technologies, the place-making activities can be extended to virtual and hybrid spaces. In games, actual or virtual space can gain narrative and meaning transforming into a playce (i.e., a place for play). We suggest that playce-making (i.e., transforming a space into a…

As elementary schools expand to include Prekindergarten (PreK), many elementary school physical education teachers are surprised to find PreK classes on their teaching schedule. Equally, many PreK classroom teachers are recognizing the need for quality movement opportunities for their students and are searching for resources that can help all…

This study explores how brief in-service training influences preschool teachers' awareness of competences relevant for building high-quality teacher-child relationships. A pre- and post-test design was used, with a 5-h training session in-between. Thirty-four in-service preschool teachers completed a video-based task before and after training.…

Playing in natural environments is a popular activity for young children. In previous years, studies have shown benefits of playing in natural environment for children's motor development and attention restoration. In this study, we explored the relation between playing in natural environments and children's language use. A total of N = 18…

Given the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on children's schooling and learning, evidence for interventions implemented by parents is urgently needed. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of a parent-mediated LEGO intervention on the social interactions of four children on the autism spectrum in China. The intervention involved four sets…

Drawing on a mixed-methods cross-cultural study undertaken in five locations in Argentina, Denmark, Hong Kong, England and the United States in 2018, this paper explores how children (aged five and seven) conceive of playfulness. Following a card-sorting task, 387 children selected familiar activities that they felt were most representative of…

In Torfaen, situated in the South-East of Wales during the first lockdown there were seven 'hubs' supported by the Play Service Well-being Playworkers. The Well-being Playworkers have continued to support schools post-lockdown. Interviews were undertaken with nine headteachers from all seven of the 'hubs'. Thematic analysis of the data identified…

This article addresses children living and learning under difficult circumstances by problematising taken-for-granted views of what counts as learning and school readiness that perpetuate deficit views of children who have been impacted by forced migration. Drawing from a larger study focused on exploring how early childhood teachers re-design…

We assessed the efficacy of two spatial learning programs grounded in early years learning pedagogical theory to improve numeracy performance in preschool. Engagement with a play-based spatial program led to better overall spatial reasoning and transferred to better numeracy compared with a business-as-usual control, underscoring the importance of…

Objective: This study was designed to produce a new parent-report measure, the Diagnostic Receptive Expressive Assessment of Mandarin-Infant Toddler Assessment of Communication and Language (DREAM-IT) in order to provide norms for the developmental skills of children aged 0-36 months in four areas: expressive language, receptive language,…