Robotics has emerged as a popular interdisciplinary pedagogical approach in the field of education to teach children STEM concepts. By providing playful learning experiences, the use of robots engages children in an active learning process, making it an effective tool to promote their targeted knowledge, skills, and disposition towards STEM,…

The use of natural and non-natural play materials in early childhood education is a critical facilitator to children's learning and development. Different materials vary in their affordances for sophisticated play, imagination, and creativity, which contribute to children's complex thinking; with the current focus on technology, it has been…

In children's early years, they frequently pretend, create and take on roles while engaging in the dramatic play area where symbols, language and culture are spontaneously developed and applied. Although abundant research has been conducted on sociodramatic play incorporating digital tools and using props, previous research has given less…

While previous research has highlighted the significance of pedagogical approaches such as story, embodiment, and play for young children's science learning, limited attention has been given to how these three approaches can be integrated into a learning environment to support science learning for young children. Accordingly, this study designed a…

In the field of educational robotics, it is important to understand the processes trough which child-robot interactions are established during play activities. In terms of socio-material characteristics, robots can vary widely, from more mechanical robots to more anthropomorphic ones. Research has shown that the degree of anthropomorphization of…

The early childhood stage is a time of basic foundation in which children are engaged in pretend play and creative activities. The objective of this study was to explore the role of pretend play on the creativity development of preschool children. Data were collected from four purposefully selected preschool children (two male and two female)…

This study on technology education in preschool aims to explore how technology activities in preschool are enacted and what knowledge, related to the five dimensions of the nature of technology, is made possible for the children to learn when intersubjectivity is established in the interaction between the participants. The empirical data encompass…

Photographs constitute an important visual language in contemporary Swedish preschool, as they are legible to young children themselves. This article aims to examine which notions of the child are represented in preschool photographs, and how these notions correlate to notions of the child expressed in the Swedish preschool curriculum. The…

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of block play on the creativity of children. The present study adopted a quasi-experimental research design, with pre- and post-test control groups. The study group consisted of a total of 52 children, enrolled at preschool education institutions in Ankara province in Turkey. The children…

The Merdeka Belajar curriculum is the current curriculum developed by the Indonesian Ministry of Education, which should be implemented thoroughly in 2024. Project-based learning is identically engaged with this curriculum, which offers many advantages to enrich the quality of education. This method has been promoted and implemented in several…

The authors draw on posthumanism to expand Reggio Emilia's pedagogical documentation techniques through a diffractive montage. Analysis of a phenomenon involving 4- and 5-year-old children singing a lullaby in a school in Seville (Spain), considers how this diffractive montage leads to a reconfiguration of the pioneering work of Reggio Emilia. The…

Pretend play is often hypothesized in a global sense to be an effective context for young children's learning, but there is much still to learn about whether all types of information can be learned equally and whether all types of pretend play are equally beneficial. The present study tests whether preschoolers can learn a simple, novel causal…

The complexity of gear concepts, often misunderstood by young children, highlights the need for educational frameworks beyond simple play. To examine the effects of using the prediction, observation, and explanation (POE) model in building block activities, a true experimental design was implemented. A total of 49 preschoolers were randomly…

This phenomenological study aimed to develop a framework integrating play into preschool curriculum based on educators' lived experiences using play-based methods. Fifteen educators from 12 centers were interviewed using theoretical sampling. Data analysis revealed nine pathways linking play types, educator roles, and learning objectives. Results…

While overt social atypicalities remain a key component of the autistic phenotype, recent reframing of autistic social motivation suggests that these atypicalities do not overlap with their actual level of social engagement. Our study aimed to investigate autistic preschoolers' visual attention toward social situations with unequal interactive…