Playfaces - Children's experiences of play in a Finnish preschool

In Western early childhood education, play has become an instrument for learning future competencies and contradicting the notion of play as being child led, spontaneous and motivated in itself (Rogers, 2011). This study examined the children’s experiences of play in a Finnish preschool, from the children’s perspectives. This study was especially interested in how children define play; tell the difference between play and not play as well as where, what and when play is preceded in preschool. Preschool play was revealed more as an attitude, rather than a certain kind of activity. In the end it is just the child who defines what is play or isn’t (Hakkarainen, 2006). Play had a prominent position in preschool, but there was a difference between the amount of child initiated and the adult led play, the implementation and manifestation. The research was conducted in a Swedish speaking preschool in the Helsinki metropolitan area, with a research sample of 11 participants. A variety of methods were used to gather the children’s perspectives; observation, photographs, focus group discussion, play maps, interviews and child led walk. The analysis consisted of classifying the data from the various methods, transcribing and translating it to English