In some Western contexts, the pedagogical practices of teachers are to intentionally involve in play-based learning through sustained shared conversations to extend children's thinking (Meade, A., Williamson, J., Stuart, M., Smorti, S., Robinson, L., & Carroll-Lind, J. (2013). Adult-child sustained shared thinking: Who, how and when? Early…

This paper presents the findings of a study conducted with preschool teachers trialling an intervention in which executive function activities are embedded in teachers' daily practices and imaginary play is used to build meaningful problem situations that children solve using executive functions. The participants were 227 preschool children (53%…

Grounded in Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, this paper examines how often teachers are involved in children's imaginative play and discusses their beliefs about their role in supporting children's imaginative play. To investigate this problem, video (65 hours of digital observations) and interview data (two hours and 30 minutes) of 60…

Although there is a long tradition of play pedagogy in early childhood education, teachers have mostly taken a passive role in children's play. There are relatively few studies of the pedagogical roles adults take from inside of children's imaginary play. This paper seeks to fill this gap through presenting the findings of a study where the play…

Vygotsky (1986) draws attention to the interrelationship between thought and language and other aspects of mind. Although not widely acknowledged, Vygotsky (1999) also drew attention to the search for the relations between cognition and emotions. This paper discusses the findings of a study which examined imaginary scientific situations within the…