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…

Emotional intelligence plays a great role in human adaptation to social environments. The individual level of emotional skills depends on one's genes, family environment, and socialisation, as well as personal experience and education. The purpose of the present study was to examine the educational influence of mental simulation in developing the…

This paper explores teacher-reported prevalence of rough-and-tumble play (R&T) in preschool and investigates how their restriction to such play varies in different play environments (indoor and outdoor). An electronic questionnaire exploring preschool teachers' beliefs and practices regarding children's dramatic play themes was conducted by…

This study aims to investigate the effects of a training programme in creativity on developing creative abilities among 9-10-year-old children with visual impairment in Jordan. The study sample consisted of 41 students from fourth and fifth grades, who were randomly selected and divided into two experimental groups and two control groups. To…

Censorship of children's voices takes many forms: restricting access to texts, constraining the space in which they are viewed, failing to validate children's responses, interpreting their ideas within limiting perspectives on children's thinking. This paper considers the educator's role in discussion with children, drawing out the connections…

This study explored the effects of a child's gender and school setting on preschoolers' language abilities (receptive vocabulary), creativity, and social play. The participants were primarily European-American children who spoke English as a primary language (nine children were bilingual), and were from middle income socioeconomic backgrounds.…

Historically underpinning principles of the English curriculum framework for children from birth to five years explicitly acknowledged a spiritual dimension to children's uniqueness and well-being. Yet spirituality receives scant reference in the discourse of creative learning and teaching. This paper considers the relationship of spirituality to…

This small scale research project examines opportunities for creative thinking and imagination through den making in a rural private day nursery with its own woodland area on the borders of England and Wales in the UK. The research is underpinned by sociocultural theory and is an ethnographic study of non-participant observations of children aged…

Using a qualitative lens, this study investigated the role of digital media in the life of a five-year-old girl. The study focused on determining what this five-year-old knew about technology, what digital tools was she currently using and how important were these tools in her everyday life. Data collection included semi-structured interviews…

Although previous research has explored the effects of various environmental influences on young children's play, the influence of toys has rarely been examined. This paucity of toy studies is due to a lack of a scientifically constructed observation system to evaluate the impact of play materials across developmental domains. The purpose of this…

In a significant book, Cameron suggested that we study metaphor as "prosaics" (i.e. as a feature of mundane talk). In this article, by means of a few brief examples, we point to instances of such talk in the setting of preschool. We also discuss some opportunities for learning that such talk could offer children, and what the…

Socio-dramatic play (SDP) creates a zone of proximal development in which optimum cognitive development occurs. To participate successfully in this kind of play children and their partners must create shared meaning, or what is referred to in the socio-cultural literature as intersubjectivity. Based on intersubjectivity and SDP, this study…

Previously we found in preschool that child-directed pretend play in small playing groups importantly improves cognitive competence in mixed-age environment and that the effect is based on close coupling between affective and cognitive domain. To foster affective and cognitive intertwining, it is reasonable to select the most favored pretend plays…

This paper examines music in the home of a Chinese family in Singapore with specific attention to the children (aged five and seven) of the household: an exploration of what constitutes the lived 'musical' memory of a family enmeshed in the technology and media of a globalised world. The study is part of a larger ethnographic study on the musical…

This study investigated the humorous activity of two infants, 18 and 21 months old, in their infant group childcare setting. This was a qualitative study that followed two infants for four months. Through participant and non-participant observations, journal writing and interviews, data were collected on children's involvement in humorous…