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Many children grow up in multilingual communities characterised by linguistic heterogeneity and semiotic and cultural complexity. Translanguaging theory has provided a perspective attuned to communication and education in multilingual settings. However, translanguaging pedagogies have not yet had a broad uptake in early educational settings. The recent interest in embodiment within translanguaging studies and the study of touch combinedly provide a potential perspective for early childhood education. This study examines the role of touch in a multilingual preschool featuring 2-year-olds. The results point to two key functions for touch. One is that touch creates a shared experiential ground where languages can be learned. The other function is that touch allows children to sensorially explore and learn multicultural experiences from the diverse cultural and linguistic systems available. Based on the results, the role of touch in early childhood translanguaging is discussed as a way forward for translanguaging pedagogies for creating both equitable and diverse educational opportunities for children in multicultural and multilingual communities.

This paper examines how children explore the concept of spinning during a preschool project. It takes a cultural-historical approach, and analyzes how artifacts can be used in development of abstract concepts. In line with the pedagogical goals teachers employ these in learning activities during the project in line with their pedagogical goals. Children encounter the activities with different linguistic and perceptual means; there is, however, across the project a shift towards learning activities that promote verbal explanations. The interrelation of verbal and perceptual means, suggest ways in how children dynamically develop abstract concepts out of perceptual knowledge in activities with appropriate artifacts and teacher scaffolding.

We are rapidly moving into an era where AI and robots are part of everyday interactions in society and education, and there are immense discussions today about current and future technologies. Still, children are often not included in this discussion, while there is much to learn from current uses and children's understandings of AI and robotics. The study is based on a seven-month ethnographical work that details the implementation of a robot in two preschool groups of children aged 1–2 and 3–5 (n = 38). The study descriptively combines a framework for children's play analysis with explorative qualitative child interviews (n = 6) with the 3-5-year-olds to examine how children play with the robot and their thinking about a future with robots and AI. The results show how children's play with robots spans all of Hughes's (2011) sixteen play types and integrates robots into play in ways specific to child-robot interaction. The interviews indicate that children have well-formed knowledge about the current uses of robots and AI and elaborate imaginaries about a future with them, including critical boundaries toward robots and AI agents. The evidence shows emerging ways children relate to these. The potential of including children's actions and voices in the ongoing societal and educational debates on AI is discussed.