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Purpose: This study explores interactive poetry therapy as a method for empathetic reading in holistic, emotional literature education. Design: Five experienced teachers participated in a descriptive case study by attending interactive empathetic reading sessions during in-service education. The participants, inspired by an extract from a novel, wrote personal stories and presented them for group discussions. Methodology: The data, consisting of audio recordings of the dialogues and the researchers’ associated notes, were analysed via thematic content analysis. Three main themes, which are presented under the headings: Story level; narrative meanings; Individual level; emotions relating to storytelling moments; and Communal level; issues of welfare and self-care. Findings: The results indicated that the writers’ personal stories and the group dialogues based on them prompted the participants to reflect on their own experiences and emotions, and prompted them to examine ethically challenging issues in the teaching profession. Originality: The study of empathetic reading in teachers’ in-service education provide more understanding of possibilities for teachers to increase their knowledge of the value of stories and narratives.

Increasing linguistic diversity creates a need to construct early learning environments as spaces where children’s whole multilingual repertoires are represented. The purpose of these spaces is to support the crossing of linguistic boundaries during collaborative, play-based activities. In Finland, the language policies of the National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care have been changed to promote multilingualism. This study focuses on data provided by early childhood education and care (ECEC) staff, documenting changing language policies in learning environments through the management of space and practice. The study analyzes what ECEC staff (N = 81 participant groups) report on constructing multilingual learning environments and what type of barriers and enablers are described as present in such environments. Theoretically, the analysis draws on pedagogical translanguaging. The data were collected using the LangPeda tool, and the participant groups’ textual documents were scrutinized via qualitative content analysis. The findings suggested that although most of the groups’ textual documents reflected either pre-planned or spontaneous pedagogical translanguaging, not all the groups were eager to change their monolingual practices. Linguistic hierarchies were found, and the development of children’s linguistic repertoires appeared to be hindered by misconceived understanding of language learning. Enabling pedagogical translanguaging to become part of ECEC institutions’ (spatial) practices requires sufficient resources, materials, and systematic education for ECEC staff.

Kirjoitus tarkastelee varhaiskasvatusikäisten huumoria arkipäivän esimerkkien, aikaisemman tutkimuksen ja kirjoittajien omien kokemusten valossa. Lapsille huumori on toimintaa, joka auttaa heitä selviämään erilaisista tilanteista ja rakentamaan yhteyttä toisiin. Erite- tai pieruhuumori on oma huumorinlajinsa, ja aivan pienetkin lapset nauttivat pieruäänistä, pierutyynyistä ja kainalopieruista. Aikuiset nauttivat lasten huumorista eniten silloin, kun se syntyy aikuisten ehdoilla. Näin myös erite- tai pieruhuumori halutaan toisinaan kieltää, toisinaan sen käyttöön kannustetaan. Aikuisten kieltävä suhtautuminen lasten erite- tai pieruhuumoriin on yllättävää, sillä erite- tai pieruhuumori näkyy vahvasti esimerkiksi aikuisten populaarikulttuurissa ja aikuisten lapsille kirjoittamassa lastenkirjallisuudessa. Tämän kirjoituksen tavoitteena on saada huomaamaan, kuinka viatonta ja tärkeää lasten oma huumori on ja kuinka tärkeää on kannustaa lapsia huumorin käyttöön. Lasten huumori rakentaa aikuisen ja lapsen välille hyvänolon yhteyden, joka on merkityksellinen sekä lapselle että aikuiselle. Aikuisen ei tarvitse olla humoristi löytääkseen tämän yhteyden lapsen kanssa. Riittää, kun antaa lapselle tilaa eikä suhtaudu pieruiluun liian vakavasti.

As the pedagogy of teachers depends partly on their earlier life experiences, investigating the prior reading practices of student teachers is crucial. This study investigated Finnish and English student teachers' (N = 353) own reading, the importance of their own reading to their reading pedagogy, and the relationship of these to teachers' content knowledge of reading pedagogy. The data were collected via an online questionnaire and analysed via quantitative methods. According to the findings, nearly all the student teachers enjoy reading, have a positive attitude towards reading, and consider the teachers' own reading important for the pedagogy they implement. However, even though a large number of the student teachers read during their free time, for many, reading represents a potential free-time activity that is valued, but for which there is no time. In the study, student teachers' reported free-time reading correlated with how many children's books the student teacher could name. In other words, it seems that the more preservice teachers engage in their own reading (time used to reading for pleasure, level of experiences for enjoying reading) the greater their knowledge of children's literature, which is an essential part of the pedagogical content knowledge of literature teaching. Teacher education programmes should find ways to individualise reading instruction for student teachers as it will simultaneously scaffold the individuality of readers in the classrooms of these future teachers.

Natural materials provide children opportunities for artistic engagement, which encourages a dialogue between children and material and provides a platform for children to discuss their perspectives on significant issues like sustainable futures. This article examines the land art characters created by pre-primary education children in the garden of the University of Turku's Rauma campus. The study is part of a STEAM-themed learning process that was conducted in a pre-primary group (children aged six to seven years) during the spring of 2022, based on Freinet's pedagogy. The study uses multimodal content analysis to analyze the children's land art pieces and their character-based storytelling. The results indicate that the children were able to effectively use natural materials to create unique characters by selecting appropriate materials, colors, and shapes to highlight their features. The shapes of natural materials served either as building blocks for the characters or helped them realize the characters they imagined. Further, the garden was found to be a significant location for outdoor learning, as it provided a space for children to engage in activities such as creating land art and exploring nature.

This study aims to examine how designing and making humorous craft products can be connected to storytelling. The study involved 17 preschoolers who were tasked to design a soft toy that would make others laugh. The brainstorming was supported by collaborative and individual activities (e.g., discussions and sketching). The preschoolers told humorous stories inspired by the craft process. Humor and different activities form an inspiring starting point for the design process. Craft making with humor motivates children, gives them story ideas, and makes learning more holistic. Storytelling makes children’s thoughts on their soft toys visible. Girls’ and boys’ views differ on what makes others laugh. Girls prefer to laugh together, whereas boys’ humor is aggressive, unconventional, and may be based on embarrassing others or laughing at others’ expense. Girls emphasize the significance of cheering up others; thus, they are more product oriented than boys.

Using and understanding humor is important for every child. Humor enhances well-being and helps children cope with different situations they face in social interaction. However, children’s humor is not widely researched. In this study, we investigate the humor of Finnish children and evaluate, whether there are gender differences in their individual use of humor. The research design of this study is inspired by Roger Piret (1941). His aim was to understand the development and features of children’s humor by asking them to draw pictures, which would make others laugh. The data of this study is collected during year 2013 in Finnish primary schools. The data consist of 143 drawings made by 72 boys and 71 girls aged 6 to 8 years. The drawings are analyzed trough qualitative content analysis using Piret’s categories of children’s humorous pictures as a framework. The main data were supported by children’s individual narrations based on their drawings and the observations of the researchers. The results of this study indicate that Piret’s research model could still be a valid and child-centered method for contemporary humor research. The study highlights the differences in the humor between boys and girls. For boys humor is about surprising and entertaining others and their drawings are full of action, imaginary characters and aggressive elements. In girls’ drawings humor seems to aim at delighting others and the connection to real life experiences is apparent. However, both genders seem to appreciate and understand each other’s humorous drawings. The results of this study serve as an example of the versatile possibilities of children’s individual drawings and gives both the educators and researchers perspectives to the complexity of the individual sense of humor.

In this study the development of literacy skills is connected to outdoor learning, visual arts, and the thinking skills method. The study represents design research where the teachers and the researchers actively work together pursuing for more child-centered and motivating pedagogical approaches for learning literacy. The teaching experiment described in this article consists of playing with the shapes of alphabets, creating the forms of alphabets, and trying to find those alphabets in the outdoor environment, and empathizing with imaginary characters living in the immediate surroundings of the school. The methods used in the experiment brought child-centeredness and playfulness to learning. The holistic approach encouraged children to be active and supported their achieving a range of learning goals simultaneously and effectively.

In a holistic craft process, the same person designs a visual and technical appearance, produces the design with craft materials and technologies, make necessary changes to the design during its production and finally assesses the process and the finished product. Similarly, in the educational context, students should make craft products starting with the design process. These kinds of designing and hands-on activities nurture students’ creativity and problem-solving skills and offer them an opportunity to test their ideas and see them realised. Testing and further developing pedagogical approaches to holistic craft is important from the perspective of the renewal of the national core curriculum (2016) in Finland, which emphasises holistic approaches and the integration of different content areas. This study presents an experiential learning model of combining literature education, ethic-moral education and craft. Kolb’s model of experiential learning gives a solid and systematic theoretical base for this LCE model (one combining literature, craft and ethic-moral education). The teaching experiment is implemented as a craft process supported with children’s literature and activities based on a story. It seems that children can derive benefit from literature and activities during a craft making process. In addition, referencing literature enables the teacher to combine the craft process with multiple learning targets, fostering both ethical and content skills. We present the LCE model both in the light of an experiential learning model and the pragmatic implementations it gives rise to. According to our experiments, experiential learning can be meaningfully applied to the holistic craft process and craft education. Furthermore, the LCE model helps students to commit to holistic craft by nurturing a personal attachment.