At present there is little evidence documenting children's possession-based behaviours during play within preschool settings. This ethnographic study observed the same group of 12 children over a four-month period during sustained bouts of indoor and outdoor play. An event sampling approach was employed in order to identify episodes of…

Touch screen tablets are now widely available and due to the increasing use of these technologies in homes and early years centres, it is important to consider parent and teacher views about their use. This paper reports on an interview study which explored the perspectives of four parents of children aged 20-36 months and their two teachers in…

This paper is part of a wider research project, exploring the possibilities to protect and extend Froebelian principles in practice and analyses interview data from thirty-three early years practitioners to investigate their understanding and enactment of learning through play in relation to the theories of Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852). Analysis…

This paper explores the views and attitudes of a small group of teachers concerning the early years outdoor teaching and learning environment. Further their responses are compared to an online survey of teachers examining their attitudes to the early years outdoor environment. This extends the current knowledge as to the drivers for teachers'…

This paper builds on previous research which outlined the development of a framework of scientific enquiry within a play-based curriculum for early childhood. For this paper, in order to help to mediate children's observation and exploration as part of their play, we propose that practitioners need to have well-developed skills to ask open-ended…

Children are born to play and are born as intuitive scientists and use numeracy and literacy in their play. Playing is an essential apprenticeship for developing scientific (STEM) literacy. Observing children spontaneously playing reveals that they are experiencing STEM in action. They are observing phenomena, asking questions, solving problems,…

This paper reports on UK primary school teachers' and children's app developers' views about the potential of using personalized digital resources to promote young children's reading and play with 'smart toys'. Many existing digital resources are 'personalised', that is, the content of a story or game is tailored to an individual child, and the…

This paper draws on observational studies of three young children in order to demonstrate firstly, their intrinsic motivation to explore systematically through repeated patterns of action or 'schemas'; secondly, how those repeated actions appear and are explored in their emerging language demonstrating their increasing construction of and…

Well-being is a significant concept in research, policy and practice in education, but consensus about what it is is challenging. In addition, the well-being of children under eight is under-researched. Using online surveys, this paper looks at the perspectives of 155 parent/carers and 285 practitioners in England on young children's well-being.…

This paper presents a longitudinal mixed methods study tracking 11 children (aged 5-7 on entry), defined as disadvantaged in multiple ways, i.e. social, behavioural and economic. They attended weekly Forest School and outdoor learning sessions over three years. The study investigates the project's impact on the children in terms of their academic…

This article reports on a study conducted to investigate the development of abstract thinking in preschool children (ages from three years to four years old) in a nursery school in England. Adopting a social influence approach, the researcher engaged in "close listening" to document children's ideas expressed in various representations…

Since the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in England in 2008, assessment of children has taken a formal and standardized measurable approach. Such an approach goes against most findings of play-oriented research. Thus, the project reported here employed participatory action research with practitioners in order to identify…

This article draws on current literature leading to the development of a holistic framework to support practitioners in observation and assessment of childrens evolving inquiry skills. Evidence from the 2011 Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) in England identifies a decline of year five student achievement in science. A…

This study examined play memories from adults who grew up in a wide range of international contexts. Surveys and semi-structured interviews asking adults to recollect play memories were completed with 135 adults (100 Females, 35 Males) who grew up in 21 countries. Play memories were analysed to identify adults' favourite types of childhood play,…

This paper discusses a cross-cultural and collaborative project, in preschools in England and South Korea. The aim of the project is to investigate the pedagogy of outdoor play and learning in two different cultural contexts, from the perspectives of the practitioners. Although there has been a growing academic interest in the use of outdoor…