How an educational experiment creates motivating conditions for children to role-play a child-initiated PlayWorld

Government guidelines are demanding greater educational outcomes and intentional teaching in Australian preschools. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study of how children incorporate concepts into child-initiated play. A cohort of 18 children (aged 3.0–5.8, mean age of 4.8) were digitally observed over seven weeks (153.3 hours' digital video observations). It was found that rather than formalising preschooling to increase cognitive outcomes, the leading activity of the preschool child to play can be preserved when children experience a PlayWorld where curriculum concepts act in service of the children’s play.