This paper focuses on children's perspective on their outdoor play environment. The research took place in settings with designated disadvantaged status--in the backyards of Przedmiescie Olawskie--a small district of a large city of Wroclaw, Poland. The research aimed to reveal dimensions of children's perception and understanding of studied…

Independent locomotion is associated with a range of positive developmental outcomes, but unlike cognitive, linguistic, and social skills, acquiring motor skills requires infants to generate their own input for learning. We tested factors that shape infants' spontaneous locomotion by observing forty 12- to 22-month-olds (19 girls, 21 boys) during…

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions play an important role in many young children's lives. Child-oriented research about the role of the physical ECEC environment in children's play is scarce. The present study aims to develop knowledge about what children consider crucial elements in the physical ECEC environment. Seventy-one…

This study explored preschool teachers' beliefs about the benefits of young children's outdoor play and play in naturalized play environments. Three face-to-face in-depth, semi-structured individual interviews were administered. For data analysis, Charmaz's (2006) constructivist grounded theory was employed using two steps of coding, initial and…

Children's play has shifted within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with increased time within the family home. This study responds to the following research questions: How did COVID-19 restrictions influence children's play within and outside the home? How did parents describe their role in their children's play during the first…

Play Africa, with over 40 innovative exhibits and/or programs since inception, was created as a means to address the inequalities and lack of high-quality experiences that affect the early development of children from birth to age 10 in South Africa. The results from the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) paint a dire…

Fuji Kindergarten in Tachikawa, Japan, is an innovative school design. The building itself, designed by Tezuka Architects, is a key part of the children's education. In this article, the architects describe how the project developed and their inspirations and goals for this unique education facility that places children at the center. The spaces…

Spontaneous singing is widely acknowledged as an important part of young children's everyday musical experience. However, its fleeting and often private nature makes it difficult to study. Research into young children's singing at home frequently relies on data gathered through parental reporting, and studies are often limited to small sample…

Forest School in England is the practice of young children playing outside, rooted in the outdoor kindergartens of Scandinavia and more especially Denmark. Using observation and semi-structured interviews with children and adults in two settings, this case study approach allowed an in-depth look at where, how and what children played in a Forest…

Several aspects of the indoor early childhood education (ECE) environment may be associated with physical activity (PA), including indoor areas. Modifying the indoor physical environment in classrooms could have significant potential to influence PA in young children. However, to our knowledge, PA promotion interventions involving changes to the…

In this conceptual article, we propose a new approach to investigating changeable factors in teaching. Using a constructivist approach as a conceptual framework, we argue for investigating changeable factors recognizing their malleability and suggest studying teaching as a set of natural experiments. Methodologically, we propose an abductive…

Aim: This study gathered views of 10 to 12-years-old pupils about their play experiences before and after transition to secondary school, comparing access to their right to play. Method: A multiple-case study design was used to gather views of six Year 6 primary pupils and six Year 7 secondary pupils living in the same community in the United…

This article focuses on child participation in early childhood education (ECE). The theoretical basis for this study is a relational approach that highlights the significance of spatiality and materiality. Drawing from these theoretical perspectives, child participation is understood as a space that children actively do in various combinations of…

Playwork is a recognised profession in the United Kingdom (UK) and is currently a growing area of interest internationally. However, debates about the nature and purpose of playwork have raged in the playwork field since the profession was invented in the early adventure playgrounds. This study is the first to capture data about what the now…

Direct experience with nature is a primary component of environmental education and especially beneficial for young children. The present study examined the outdoor play preferences of toddlers and investigated the role teachers play in the outdoor space. Toddlers' outdoor play was video recorded by GoPro cameras and coded for preferred play…