Embeddables: designing physical-digital manipulatives for young children

Introducing digital literacy to young children develops foundational skills in problem-solving and supports their cognitive development, including critical thinking. However, physical manipulatives for digital literacy are not always designed for early-year environments or specifically for young children. Physical manipulatives can offer developmentally appropriate tools to introduce foundational digital literacy through dynamic system knowledge before children become developmentally ready for more formalised coding activities. This paper presents an initial study in a preschool environment with children (ages 3-5 years) using novel physical manipulatives, Embeddables (Fig. 1), in child-led free and guided play activities in a preschool. From our initial analysis of the types of activities the children engaged in, we identify how, firstly, children used the proximal relations to undertake experimental understanding of the devices, which secondly led to using the proximal relationships in their social play, further supported by the scale and feedback of the toys.