Milda Bredikyte

Vytautas Magnus University · Education Academy

The early childhood curriculum is an integral part of the educational process, and many countries are looking at how to ensure its quality. With the decentralization of educational content in Lithuania, each Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institution develops its own curriculum. In this case, the role of the head teacher at school and th...

Self-regulated behavior is a prerequisite for learning and success in life. Considerable research confirms that mature forms of play support the development of self-regulation in the early years. This study explores the relationship between (3–6-year-olds) children’s pretend play and self-regulation skills. Teachers filled out a child’s play and se...

This chapter examines the complicated relationship between children’s play, learning and development in early childhood from the perspective of cultural-historical theory. Recent widespread practices that aim to integrate play and learning into school instruction are often superficial, and do not propose a unified systemic approach. Cultural-histor...

This study is a part of a more significant Narrative Play and Learning (NEPL) project in daycare centres in Vilnius, Lithuania, lasting for three years. The role of the adult in the narrative playworld is crucial, as their actions determine the nature and continuity of the play activities and the children's motivation, engagement, and opportunities...

Playing is an activity that affects significantly the psychological development and learning in preschool age. Opinions among researchers and practitioners are divided about adults’ role in children’s play. Despite being a children’s activity, high-level, complex social play hardly appears without adult mediation. According to the narrative play an...

Cultural-historical and activity theory has proposed many important theoretical ideas for the educational sciences, which inspired the creation of diff erent pedagogical approaches and models around the world. It is worth noticing that many important theoretical concepts of the cultural-historical and activity theory have become universally accepte...

We shortly introduce some main ideas of a project of scientific research collective “School” (Shkola) led by academic V.V. Davydov. The collective elaborated a new project — “Concept of preschool education” [9] that would better meet the developmental and educational needs of young children and create the basis for learning activity at school. The...

Mothers’ attitudes toward their children’s peer play is analyzed in the chapter. Research data was collected in the families that have two or more children of various ages and where children’s play is valued. Six interviews with mothers were carried out. The mothers were asked about the value of children’s peer play. Analysis of the data highlighte...

Introduction The concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) is perhaps the bestknown innovation in Vygotsky's work. He adopted the term from others, but gave it a new life in his theoretical framework. This the oretical elaboration allows different interpretations and uses of the term. A large variety of interpretations have stimulated attem...

Książka przedstawia zabawę narracyjną jako strategię sprzyjającą projektowaniu sytuacji edukacyjnych, które stymulują rozwój dziecka. Publikacja wyjaśnia to, czym jest zabawa narracyjna oraz podejmuje teoretyczne i praktyczne aspekty budowania środowiska przy korzystaniu z tej strategii. Stanowi ona inspirację dla tworzenia przez nauczycieli warunk...

Narrative Play method as a way to encourage children's play is already known. The guidlines is a practical guide how to implement Narrative play in the environments for children - kindergartens, care centers and schools. There is also information about Narrative play pedagogy, it's theoretical and practical roots. These guidelines were written in c...

Unstructured free play is considered critical for the successful development of preschool children and smooth transit from preschool to school years. Kindergarten groups have all possibilities to provide the opportunities for children to develop elaborated, imaginative play, as children of similar ages spend a lot of time together. However, there i...

The phenomenon of play is constantly raising many questions for researchers and practitioners. Why is play important, what kind of play should be promoted in kindergarten classrooms, should it be supported and how? This article provides a short analysis on the concept of play and introduces an investigation aimed at analyzing the dynamics of the de...

The aim of this research is to explore teacher’s understanding of the concept and the phenomenon of play. There is no previous research exploring ECEC teachers’ concept of play in Lithuania. Cultural-historical approach is the main framework of this study. 136 ECEC teachers from the three biggest Lithuanian cities participated in research. The teac...

In this article, we present an innovative approach to adult participation in children's play development. Our theoretical background is based on Vygotsky's play concept, but we claim that adult play guidance is important and carries out different functions from one to seven years of age. We propose that an adult's minimal role in moving the boundar...

Classic (non-classic) cultural-historical theory has relatively few theoretical studies on children’s play and several basic assumptions are not applied to child play. One of these assumptions is cultural mediation and especially the mechanism of mediation: the relation between ideal and real forms of action. In this article a case of adult-child j...

Such theoretical concepts of culturallhistorical theory as psychological tools, creative developmental acts and cultural development is introduced. The concepts are used in the analysis of empirical study of specifically designed playypromoting environment — playworld [15]. The environment has been constructt ed having in mind Vygotky's idea of gen...