The use of apps in preschool has increased considerably during the last few years. Studies have shown that digital technologies are sometimes used to replace analogue artefacts in educational settings. This calls for studies on how the use of apps transforms preschool activities. This study empirically investigates how preschool children play…

The overarching interest of this study concerns how to outline learning opportunities and support in early childhood education (ECE) without losing its play-based character. More specifically, the study reports an empirical investigation into the evolving activity of a 6.5-year-old child and an adult conversing about the child's drawing of…

With the current expansion of digital tools, the media used for narration is changing, challenging traditional literacies in educational settings. The present study explores what kind of activities emerge when six-year-old children in a preschool class write a digital story, using a word processor and speech-synthesised feedback computer software.…

This empirical study analyses the qualitatively different ways in which teachers approach children's learning in and about nature. The empirical data consists of video observations of children and teachers communicating with one another around natural phenomena found during excursions into a forest. Variation theory is presented as a framework for…

This article concerns children's engagement and participation in a musical dialogue, with the adult taking the role of the more-experienced participant and frames the activity as a musical play activity (in both senses of the word "play"). It presents an analysis of empirical data from a session with two six-year-old children interacting…