From children's own perspective, play and learning are not always separate in practices during early years. The purpose of this article is, first, to scrutinise the background and character of early years education in terms of play and learning. Second, to elaborate the findings of several years of research about children's learning in preschool related to the curriculum of early years education and, finally, to propose a sustainable pedagogy for the future, which does not separate play from learning but draws upon the similarities in character in order to promote creativity in future generations. Introducing the notions of act and object of learning and play (by "act" we mean "how" children play and learn and with the "object" we mean "what" children play and learn) we will chisel out an alternative early childhood education approach, here called developmental pedagogy, based on recent research in the field of play and learning, but also related to earlier approaches to early education. (Contains 1 figure.)