Abstract
This study explores how one and two year old peers (henceforth toddlers) participate in joint play activities in a natural group-care setting. We focus on joint play activity between three toddler peers during one full day-care day in a Finnish toddler classroom. Questions guiding the analysis concern the sequential understanding of how play emerges within peer interaction and how toddler peers are able to build sustained co-participation in their joint play during the day. The analysis showed that joint play was fragmented and organized in short segments of dyadic or triadic interaction. Re-establishments of joint play and accumulation of significant play signals during the day were important practices for toddlers to constitute social organization and sustained co-participation in their multi-party peer play. The results strengthen our understanding of very young children as both more and less competent play companions in their peer groups and guide adults’ practice in relation to peer play in toddler classrooms.
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- 1.
This particular toddler classroom is a municipal group-care setting for 13 children under the age of three with one kindergarten teacher, two nursery nurses and one personal assistant for a child with special needs. The day-care center is located in an outer suburb of Helsinki, Finland.
- 2.
All the names are pseudonyms.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank first of all Venla, Niilo and Ella for their playful moments that inspired this work. We are also thankful to all the parents and ECE practitioners for their cooperation. For comments and discussions we are most grateful to Marjatta Kalliala and Nina Sajaniemi.
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Pursi, A., Lipponen, L. (2020). Creating and Maintaining Play Connection in a Toddler Peer Group. In: Ridgway, A., Quiñones, G., Li, L. (eds) Peer Play and Relationships in Early Childhood. International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development, vol 30. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42331-5_7
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