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With the continuous development of multimedia technology and children's drama education as a very important part of preschool education, the combination of the two has attracted the attention of many scholars at home and abroad. Drama education for preschool children is the initial stage of children's learning and the most important part of preschool education system. At the same time, preschool children drama education is the most basic stage of children's intellectual development. The correct and reasonable preschool children drama education plays a great role in promoting their intelligence and development. The drama education for preschool children based on multimedia human-computer interaction technology not only expands new teaching methods for the traditional drama education model but also provides a good platform for teachers to choose teaching resources and injects new vitality into preschool children's music education. This paper proposes the application of multimedia human-computer interaction technology in preschool children's drama education. We analyze the current preschool children's drama education curriculum reform that has limitations. The level of teachers' drama education needs to be improved. Young children lack awareness of drama. Drama education for children lacks strong support from parents and other problems. In order to solve the above problems, we focus on voice interaction technology, image interaction technology, and somatosensory interaction technology in multimedia human-computer interaction technology, which establishes a set of teacher-multimedia-student three-dimensional crossover multidirection learning activity modes. In the multidirection learning mode, students can quickly develop their sense of rhythm. Teachers use image interaction technology to guide students to think about the relationship between content and form, so as to gradually form their own unique style of drama. At the same time, somatosensory interaction technology can cultivate teaching tasks seamlessly connected with the environment, so that students can follow the hologram through hands-on practice. Finally, this paper sets up a questionnaire on the experience of human-computer interaction mode in preschool children's drama education, mainly to conduct a questionnaire survey on front-line drama teachers, aiming at preschool children's drama learning activities and teachers' teaching methods. In numerical experiments, we show teachers' evaluation of the teaching effect of speech synthesis technology integrated into preschool children's drama education and the classroom effect evaluation of speech synthesis technology integrated into preschool children's drama education. The evaluation results show that the application effect of multimedia human-computer interaction technology in preschool children's drama education is good, which can provide better services for preschool children's drama education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engagement in sociodramatic play has been shown to positively impact young children's learning and development. By definition, this type of social play occurs in groups; however, research to date has primarily sought to understand sociodramatic play engagement by focusing on individual factors. Little work has considered the role of the peer group in sociodramatic play engagement. This concurrent correlational study investigated relations between types of peer group membership and the amount of children's sociodramatic play engagement, using hierarchical cluster analyses, chi‐square tests and multiple regression to analyse naturalistic data of preschoolers' free play. Findings suggest that membership in a highly cohesive peer subgroup may be important for sociodramatic play engagement. This study illustrates how social ethological perspectives can be useful for understanding social play in early childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monetary issues abound in the best‐seller graphic novel Diary of a Wimpy Kid, where Heffley, his little brother Manny, and his friend Rowley often try to borrow or use others' money, the failure of which often develops into stealth or abuse of money, not to mention Heffley's mom's failed effort of disciplining him by introducing Mum Bucks. Money plays the role of currency and is one of the regulating and most fundamental principles in the adult society. Those who disregard the commonly accepted way of the use of money are often marginalized or even become criminals. On the contrary, in the children's world, money is often marginalized and destabilized—it is not respected with reference to its proper function in the adult world and it is often abused, counterfeited, or denied, the degree of which often indicates the degree of maturity of the character. This article analyzes different characters' regards and uses of money in Diary of a Wimpy Kid in an attempt to reveal the marginalized or even destabilizing role money plays in the children's world. It argues that the least mature character holds the most careless attitude toward money and this behavior often upsets the more mature character, who to a certain extent has partly internalized the central role of money in the adult world. It is, therefore, not surprising that Heffley's mom's introduction of Mom Bucks fail to work in the end because it symbolizes adults' futile enforcement of the disciplinary power of money in the children's world where it is not recognized as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mechanical transmission of motion, which is observable in gears' turning direction (TD) and turning speed (TS) can be understood as part of the core concept "force and motion". Previous studies have suggested that most children before the age of nine have naïve concepts of gears' TD and TS. However, these studies relied on children's explanation data and might have therefore underestimated young children's potential. Moreover, these studies did not examine whether preschoolers can overcome their naïve concepts through teaching. Recently, educators have proposed guided play as an educational approach that combines children's play with teacher guidance in a purposefully designed environment. We conducted two subsequent studies. In Study 1, we investigated the children's (naïve) concepts of gears' TD and TS with a cross‐sectional approach using a nonverbal test procedure. This study comprised 248 children aged 5–10 years and 73 adults. The results showed that the proportion of children with adequate concepts increased with age. More specifically, 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds differed significantly from 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds, indicating a developmental shift around this age. However, naïve concepts of TS were more persistent with age than naïve concepts of TD. Altogether, the results indicated the potential to foster 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds' concepts of both TD and TS in an intervention. Thus, in Study 2, we developed and tested a guided play intervention to foster 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children's concepts of TD and TS. We conducted a prepost‐intervention design with a guided play group (n = 19) and a free play group (n = 21). The results suggested stronger learning gains in the guided play group (dTD = 0.337, dTS = 0.758) than in the free play group (dTD = 0.224, dTS = 0.158). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's ability to engage in pretend play is important for healthy development. However, relative to cognitive play features, only a handful of studies have examined the influence of affect expression in pretend play on child development. This study evaluated prospective relations of 250 preschoolers' (Mage = 49.05 months, SD = 2.95; 50% female; 46% Latinx) expressions of prosocial and aggressive affect themes in solitary pretend play with their prosocial and aggressive behaviors in laboratory and school settings two years later. Prosocial and aggressive affect themes in preschoolers' pretend play evidenced specific and positive relations with prosocial and aggressive behaviors in the laboratory two years later, but not with teacher‐reported behaviors in school. Multigroup analyses indicated these relations did not vary as a function of child gender, ethnicity‐race, or poverty status. This study illustrates the complexity and behavioral significance of children's affect expression in pretend play. Implications for understanding children's play and social development include the need to consider affective (in addition to cognitive) play features, including specific affect themes in pretend play, as a potential window into children's behavioral strengths and vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of social pretend play may have a positive impact on children's development. This study investigated to what degree this quality is a characteristic of a child versus a function of the play partner or the specific pairing of two children. For this purpose, preschool children's general pretend play quality (actor effect), their general influence on their play partner's pretend play quality (partner effect) and the role of the specific constellation between two children (relationship effect) were examined in a dyadic setting. Potential associations of the effects with children's age, gender, social cognitive and social competencies, as well as the dyadic composition of these variables and their friendship were examined. Children completed two to four dyadic pretend play situations with different peers. They were tested for their language ability, theory of mind and emotion understanding. Educators rated children's social competence (cooperation and sociability) and evaluated their friendship with one another. A social relations model analysis was conducted. The results indicated that children's pretend play quality was determined to the same degree by the child and by the specific pairing of two children. Positive associations were found between children's pretend play quality and age, emotion understanding and sociability on the individual level. Further, the quality of children's social pretend play benefited from having older and more advanced play partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children are sensitive to both social and non‐social aspects of the learning environment. Among social cues, pedagogical communication has been shown to not only play a role in children's learning, but also in their own active transmission of knowledge. Vredenburgh, Kushnir and Casasola, Developmental Science, 2015, 18, 645 showed that 2‐year‐olds are more likely to demonstrate an action to a naive adult after learning it in a pedagogical than in a non‐pedagogical context. This finding was interpreted as evidence that pedagogically transmitted information has a special status as culturally relevant. Here we test the limits of this claim by setting it in contrast with an explanation in which the relevance of information is the outcome of multiple interacting social (e.g., pedagogical demonstration) and non‐social properties (e.g., action complexity). To test these competing hypotheses, we varied both pedagogical cues and action complexity in an information transmission paradigm with 2‐year‐old children. In Experiment 1, children preferentially transmitted simple non‐pedagogically demonstrated actions over pedagogically demonstrated more complex actions. In Experiment 2, when both actions were matched for complexity, we found no evidence of preferential transmission of pedagogically demonstrated actions. We discuss possible reasons for the discrepancy between our results and previous literature showing an effect of pedagogical cues on cultural transmission, and conclude that our results are compatible with the view that pedagogical and other cues interact, but incompatible with the theory of a privileged role for pedagogical cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an Anishnaabe educator and university researcher/former primary teacher make a case for viewing children's dramatic play as multimodal identity texts. Indigenous children in our research study take up an agentic role and construct positive identities in dramatic play, creating narratives that reflect Indigenous cultural practices, as well as some practices of mainstream Canadian society that may be imbued with colonising perspectives. We argue that the Indigenous Cultural classes and follow‐up dramatic play counter the marginalisation of Indigenous knowledge, culture and languages that has occurred with devastating effects on generations of Indigenous families. Our paper is based on video recordings of 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children's dramatic play that were analysed collectively by 12 Indigenous educators in terms of the Indigenous cultural meanings that children created in their play. We conclude with implications for non‐Indigenous teachers, arguing that a case can be made for including child‐led dramatic play in the literacy curriculum when dramatic play narratives are viewed as multimodal identity texts. These texts, which can involve multiple modes including print, draw from children's own cultural and linguistic knowledge and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Although play–fighting is widespread among juvenile mammals, its adaptive significance remains unclear. It has been proposed that play is beneficial for developing skills to improve success in adult contests (motor‐training hypothesis), but the links between juvenile play–fighting and adult aggression are complex and not well understood. In this theoretical study, we investigate the coevolution between juvenile play–fighting and adult aggression using evolutionary computer simulations. We consider a simple life history with two sequential stages: a juvenile phase in which individuals play–fight with other juveniles to develop their fighting skills; and an adult phase in which individuals engage in potentially aggressive contests over access to resources and ultimately mating opportunities, leading to reproductive success. The simulations track genetic evolution in key traits affecting adult contests, such as the level of aggression, as well as juvenile investment in play–fighting, capturing the coevolutionary feedbacks between juvenile and adult decisions. We find that coevolution leads to one of two outcomes: a high‐play, high‐aggression situation with highly aggressive adult contests preceded by a prolonged period of juvenile play–fighting to improve fighting ability, or a low‐play, low‐aggression situation in which adult contests are resolved without fighting and there is minimal investment in play–fighting before individuals mature. Which of these outcomes is favoured depends on the mortality costs and on the type of societal structure: societies with strong reproductive skew, favouring monopolization of resources, show high levels of adult aggression and high investment in juvenile play–fighting, whereas societies with low reproductive skew have both low adult aggression and low levels of play–fighting. A review of empirical evidence, particularly in the primate genus Macaca, highlights some limitations of our model and suggests that other, complementary functional explanations are needed to account for the full range of competitive and cooperative forms of play–fighting. Our study illustrates the power of evolutionary simulations to shed light on the long‐standing puzzle of animal play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What happens if we think of children's play as a form of great art that we turn to and return to for inspiration, for education? If we can see play as art, then what and how can we learn from children's play or from playing with them? What can philosophy, or philosophers, learn from children's play? In this essay Viktor Johansson gives examples of what and when children can teach philosophers through play or, more specifically, how children's play can teach philosophers about the relation between fiction and reality. It begins by exploring the educational relation between fiction and reality in recent revivals of literary humanism. Johansson gives examples from a preschool project of how children use fiction picture books and create new fiction in their play, and how they do so in ways that relate to previous philosophical considerations of literary fiction. To explore this, the essay enters into conversation with the work of Iris Murdoch on the playfulness of art. Through, and in contrast to, Murdoch's work, Johansson establishes that play can be great art through its nonpurposefulness and its use of skill and imagination. Moreover, turning to children's play becomes a method for attending to what Ludwig Wittgenstein calls philosophy's 'natural history,' that is, a historicization of philosophical thinking that enables philosophers to learn from children. Johansson concludes by showing that encounters between fiction and play, and with children playing, can be an educational embroilment, not only between teacher and child, but between teacher, child, the visual, the material, and the philosophical in which all learn from one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Games provide important informal learning activities for young children, and spatial game play (e.g., puzzles and blocks) has been found to relate to the development of spatial skills. This study investigates 4- and 5-year-old children's use of scaled and unscaled maps when solving mazes, asking whether an important aspect of spatial learning-the ability to use scaled representations-is related to children's play with scaled maps. Results show that almost all children used the maps to solve the mazes at least occasionally, and use them consistently across maze difficulty and different types of maps. Map use and more accurate spatial scaling were associated with better maze performance. We suggest that maze activities including scaled maps might provide an opportunity for developing children's spatial scaling through play, and discuss future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short-term longitudinal study assessed the relations between the social context of children's play (playgroup size, playgroup gender composition, and play setting) in the fall and peer victimization in the spring for low-income, minority, preschool girls and boys. Gender differences in these associations, as well as the moderating effect of children's individual problem behavior, were considered. Using a multiple-brief observation procedure, preschoolers' ( N = 255, 49 percent girls) naturally occurring play in each type of social context was recorded throughout the fall semester. Observers also rated children's victimization and problem behaviors in the fall, and teachers rated children's victimization at the end of the school year. Findings suggested that social context variables predicted spring victimization above and beyond fall victimization and individual levels of problem behavior, and that these associations varied for boys and girls. The findings signify the importance of the social context on changes in peer victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to use video modeling to teach children with autism to engage in reciprocal pretend play with typically developing peers. Scripted play scenarios involving various verbalizations and play actions with adults as models were videotaped. Two children with autism were each paired with a typically developing child, and a multiple-probe design across three play sets was used to evaluate the effects of the video modeling procedure. Results indicated that both children with autism and the typically developing peers acquired the sequences of scripted verbalizations and play actions quickly and maintained this performance during follow-up probes. In addition, probes indicated an increase in the mean number of unscripted verbalizations as well as reciprocal verbal interactions and cooperative play. These findings are discussed as they relate to the development of reciprocal pretend-play repertoires in young children with autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the planning that occurred when children participated in classroom playcrafting with either adult or child leadership. In a first-/second-grade classroom in an innovative public school, we videotaped 11 sessions in which children volunteered to develop a play with small groups of classmates and seven sessions in which adult volunteers (parents and a grandparent) developed plays with small groups of children. The plays were crafted in one session of about an hour, and then usually performed for the class. More planning took place during child- than adult-directed sessions (averaging 92 vs. 35 percent of the session's duration). The groups led by children were more frequently involved in planning of themes, planning of details of the themes, and especially in improvisationally mindstorming ideas than were the groups led by adults. In adult-directed sessions, the adults often planned the play before the children joined the activity, and the children spent most of the session in non-playplanning activities such as gluing and coloring puppets or rehearsal of lines designed by the adult in advance. We argue that opportunities to observe and participate in planning—which occurred more frequently in child-directed than adult-directed sessions—are important to the development of planning skills and of co-ordination of plans with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. The paper is a report of a review of the literature on the effects of school-based drama interventions in health promotion for school-aged children and adolescents. Background. Drama, theatre and role-playing methods are commonly used in health promotion programmes, but evidence of their effectiveness is limited. The educational drama approach and social cognitive theory is share the assumption that learning is based on self-reflection and interaction between environment and person. However, educational drama also emphasizes learning through the dialectics between actual and fictional contexts. Data sources. A search was carried out using 10 databases and hand searching for the period January 1990 to October 2006. Methods. A Cochrane systematic review was conducted. Results. Nine studies met the criteria for inclusion. Their topics included health behaviour (five studies), mental health (two) and social health (two). Actor-performed drama or theatre play followed by group activities was the intervention in five studies, and classroom drama in four studies. Four of the studies were randomized controlled trials and five were non-randomized controlled studies. Four reports gave the theory on which the intervention was based, and in eight studies at least some positive effects or changes were reported, mostly concerning knowledge and attitudes related to health behaviour. The diversity of designs and instruments limited comparisons. Conclusion. There is a need for well-designed and theory-based studies that address drama interventions in health promotion for children and families. The challenge is to find or develop a theory, which combines educational, drama and health theories with valid and reliable measurements to examine the effects of the intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a psychoanalytic comparison between two of the masterpieces of Greek tragedy, the "Bacchae," and the "Oedipus at Colonus." Identification of both works of art as plays of psychological conflict; Comments of the author on some text of each play; Potential problems considered in applying psychoanalysis to works of literature.

This article discusses outstanding African-American teachers and mentors, those from the author's formal education whom he regards as the greatest teachers and mentors. At the elementary school level of his education, the author states that he would have to choose Alverta P. Cook because of the master teacher that she was. Cook made learning interesting and easy. She demonstrated an all-out effort to teach each child and attend to individual needs of each child. She used every opportunity to foster learning and to teach guidelines for living. Cook would not allow a single child to shine alone when she could illuminate two or more worthy children within the same light. An example of this was her challenge to award the role of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, in a school play sponsored by our sixth-grade class, to the first boy who memorized Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg. The author states that Richard Hadley was noted as having one of the best high school choruses in the state of Florida. As many African-American teachers did in drafting students into extracurricular activities during the 1950s and 1960s, Hadley simply drafted the author into the high school chorus.

`The quality of play that 26 toddlers engaged in was examined in 4 successive social settings: (a) mother and child; (b) child alone; (c) mother, child, and peer; and (d) child and peer. Observations were carried out in the home environment and involved a familiar peer. The mother-child setting facilitated sustained attention to a play object. Boys engaged in the most creative play when playing with a peer. Girls engaged in the most creative play when with their mothers or playing by themselves. The results are discussed in terms of how the social setting and the sex of the child influence play behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parallel play is often viewed as characteristic of a developmental stage through which children pass as they develop from solitary to social players. Here we examine parallel play, not as the hallmark of a given age but as it occurs sequentially in the stream of children's play behavior. 41 children, ranging from 32 to 42 months, were observed during indoor free play, videotapes were encoded using a Parten-like scheme (Unoccupied, Solitary, Together, Parallel, and Group), and the data were examined using sequential analysis. Transitions into Group play (Parten's Associative and Cooperative) from Parallel play were observed at greater than chance levels, and each of the children was observed to make this transition at least twice. We conclude that the movement from Parallel play to Group play may be more a matter of minutes than months, and that for the 32-42- month-old children observed here Parallel play often functions in the stream of activities as a bridge to Group play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After replicating with American kindergartners Smilansky's finding that disadvantaged youngsters are exceeded in amount and quality of sociodramatic advantaged youngsters, 2 classes of disadvantaged kindergartners were given 40 days instruction and practice in sociodramatic play. Compared with 2 control classes, the experimentals showed significant improvement in posttest group problem-solving behavior, effectiveness in solving group problems requiring maximum cooperation and minimum competition, and role-taking skills. These results support the prediction that acquisition and performance of sociodramatic play improves the problem-solving behavior of culturally disadvantaged children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the script of the play "The Man With the Telescope," by Gloria Gué performed by eight-grade general science students of Memminger High School in Charleston, South Carolina.

Explores a formal world in the comedy "Much Ado about Nothing," by William Shakespeare. Importance of the courteous and the customary in the play; Role of the props of an urban or domestic existence in the world of the play; Difference of the character of men and women.

Discusses the use of plays in teaching Spanish language in a class. Initial step in preparing to read a play; Method for reviewing the previous lesson; Details on the use of a toy theater in enacting little comedies; Recommended drama for colleges and young students.

All children need to spend some time playing outdoors. In Northern European countries, schools are equipped with outdoor facilities where children can play during breaks between lessons. The Italian school system, oriented to a mnemonic learning approach, has attached a poor importance to the role of playing for kindergarten age children, and Italian kindergartens are not so well equipped for children's active play. Furthermore, Italian teachers and parents worried that while playing outdoors, children might catch a cold or hurt themselves, and discourage active play outside. The equipment of kindergartens' open spaces with wooden games, where children can play in the morning or after school, resulted in children's increased time of playing outdoors. These playgrounds are also used during vacation day time by children to play and in the evenings, for theatrical and animation events. Finally, watching over their children when playing, 'forced' parents to talk to each other creating a social network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on different tourist attractions for children in Washington, D.C. The Kennedy Center and the National Theatre offer theatrical productions for children. The wax museum Madame Tussauds Washington D.C. features wax figures of U.S. celebrities, athletes and politicians. Other establishments ideal for children include the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, the Lincoln Memorial and the National Zoological Park.

More often than not, play is assumed to be the activity of children. To date, this has limited academic engagements with play as a significant geographical concern in its own right. This paper challenges the common association of play with children through discussion of three frames of reference - play and the everyday, the politics of play, and how play exceeds representation - that are particularly instructive when developing broader conceptualisations of this phenomenon. In sketching out a broader space for ludic, or playful, geographies I am able to mark the critical and ethical potential of play, discussed here as a form of coming to consciousness and a way to be otherwise, and the cultivation of a mode of ethical generosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]