The authors contend that, although recent research--especially concerning the role of teachers--shows play to be critical for early childhood education, most kindergartens in the United States limit play because of accountability worries. And this is especially true for those kindergartens serving Black and Brown children. To support the development of rich play-based teaching, the authors developed an educational observation tool called the Educationally Productive Play Protocol (EP3), which they describe in relation to a pilot study in thirty preschool classrooms and which offers evidence that teachers who viewed themselves as facilitators of play had higher ratings than their management-oriented peers.