When Small Children Play: How adults dramatise and children create meaning

A description of the way in which children’s play develops is often based on children’s physical environment. Another standard assumption is that small children progress from playing with objects to taking part in role-play. This study focuses on the cultural aspect of play and its aim is to investigate how small children create meaning in their play in dialogue with adults. The study is an educational experiment in which the pedagogic process is staged, followed and analysed. The theme ‘Deep in the Nooks and Crannies’ was tested in two classes for toddlers at a preschool in Karlstad. The inspiration came from several well-known Swedish children’s books. The result shows that the cultural context has a positive in uence on children’s quest for meaningful action. A child’s imagination is not captured by an object itself, but by the story which gives the object and the actions their meaning. When adults play roles and dramatise a chain of events, they open a door to a play world which the children can enter.