Peer-reviewed article
Playfulness in early childhood education
Renata Dias de Freitas, Ângelo Ricardo Balduíno ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how teachers in Porto Nacional, Brazil use play and playful activities in early childhood education for four to six-year-old children. Twenty-three teachers across three municipal schools were surveyed about their use of play-based learning. Teachers valued play as an important pedagogical tool for child development and recognized their role as mediators in these activities. However, the study found that insufficient classroom and outdoor spaces limited the quality and frequency of play-based learning in practice.
Key points
- Teachers recognize play and playfulness as valued and necessary activities for early childhood education
- Teachers see themselves as mediators in facilitating play-based learning
- Play activities are implemented but constrained by inadequate physical spaces in schools
- Teachers work with games despite practical limitations
- Ludic pedagogical practices are considered unsatisfactory due to infrastructure constraints
Limitations
The study is descriptive and does not measure child outcomes or learning gains from play-based activities. It does not compare outcomes between schools with adequate versus inadequate play spaces.
Abstract
The present work had as a line of research "The ludic in early childhood education" as a general objective to show the work of teachers in early childhood education regarding playfulness, such as playing and developing and the activities developed in municipal schools in Porto Nacional - TO , in the morning period of the pre-school that serves students aged between four and six years old. Twenty-three teachers collaborated for the field research in three schools. This research had a qualitative approach, with a descriptive and explanatory nature. In the first moment, there were collections of data obtained based on the application of the questionnaire, and the second part was to tabulate the data, generate the graphs and obtain the results and discussion. It is concluded that the tasks developed in the classroom regarding the ludic is valued by the pedagogues, they are specific methods, activities developed in the educational space are necessary for the student's reality and for the pedagogue who is as a mediator. The analysis of the results indicates that the teachers, in turn, work with the games, but the lack of adequate spaces makes the ludic pedagogical practices unsatisfactory.