Fantasy play is when children explore and travel through time and space, to interpret experiences into stories and to act them out. Children love this kind of play and it is really important for developing skills which will be used later in life. Today, computers are increasingly present in children's lives, and the development of technology over recent decades has changed the way children play. This thesis explores the possibility of young children (aged 3-4) enacting their fantasy play in a virtual environment. Three different games were designed and implemented on a Mitsubishi DiamondTouch (DT) multi-touch interactive tabletop. Three evaluation studies were conducted and the performance of the children's fantasy play was examined. In each study, children were recruited from a local preschool class. The first study was designed to compare fantasy play in physical and virtual settings. Children from the preschool class in a state primary school were invited to play with both a real tree house and its virtual implementation on a Mitsubishi DiamondTouch (DT) multi-touch interactive tabletop. Overall, the children played quietly and alone. The results evinced several problems in the interaction with the tabletop as children struggled to drag the objects displayed on the table surface. Therefore, the study did not provide conclusive evidence of a distinction in fantasy in physical and virtual environments. The second study was concentrated on testing solutions for the interaction difficulties evinced in the first study. A new application named The Magic House was developed and implemented on a Mitsubishi DT multi-touch interactive tabletop and tested twice with the preschool children. The results showed that most of the interaction problems from Study 1 were eliminated; evidence of more fantasy play was captured, and children played more confidently in the second evaluation session. The third study was designed to investigate and to compare children's fantasy play in physical and virtual settings. A new physical setting and the virtual implementation on the Mitsubishi DT multi-touch interactive tabletop of materials named The Farm were designed and examined with a group of preschool children. The results revealed that high occurrence of fantasy play was observed in the virtual setting and several similarities and dissimilarities between the two settings was also highlighted. Overall, this thesis produced knowledge on how the application on the multi-touch interactive tabletop environment was designed and evaluated with preschool children. The thesis results demonstrate that appropriate interaction design of virtual environments could stimulate preschool children's fantasy play and the tabletop can be operated by children as young as three. This thesis also specified requirements for designing and facilitating tabletop environments for preschool children's fantasy play.

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Denna essä avser att uppnå en djupare förståelse om vad barns fria lek och fysiska lek innebär i förskolan och på vilket sätt fysisk lek bidrar till barns lärande och värdegrundsarbete, genom reflektioner med hjälp av mina erfarenheter och vetenskapliga teorier. Fokus riktas mot barnens inomhuslek. Till denna essä används Lev S Vygotskijs teorier om barns lärande och utveckling samt fantasi och kreativitet. William Corsaros teorier om barns kamratkulturer används för att reflektera över barnens finess i hur de anpassar sig efter förskolans regler. Förutom detta används två lekperspektiv för att fördjupa förståelsen av barns fysiska lek.   Förskolan omfattas av den fria leken där den karakteriseras av att den erbjuder barnen fria val att välja lek, lekkamrater och vilket material som ska användas i leken. Enligt min erfarenhet har jag dock upplevt att fri lek inte är så fri som det låter. Därför kommer jag att undersöka pedagogiska aspekter av den fria leken. Fysisk lek utmanar och väcker pedagogiska frågor och farhågor bland pedagoger i förskolan. Mina reflektioner har fått mig inse att friheten i barns lek är komplext och kräver kritisk reflektion av mitt och andra pedagogers förhållningssätt inför frågor som uppstår vid fysisk lek. Detta har lett mig till förståelsen att fysisk lek har en stämpel som frambringar negativa associationer. Dessa negativa associationer inverkar på hur pedagoger bemöter barn i den fysiska leken. Till exempel frambringar ”bråklek” associationer till allvarligt bråk som leder till konsekvensen att pedagogen avbryter leken. Denna insikt har bidragit till att jag undersökt andra benämningar på fysisk lek vilket fått mig att se vad som sker bortom det som är synligt i barns fysiska lek.    Med nyfikenhet och respekt för barns intresse för att leka fysiska lekar har jag insett hur givande fysiska lekar kan vara för barnen. För att fysiska lekar ska bli givande för barnen behöver pedagogerna ge dem rätta förutsättningar i leken. / This essay intends to achieve a deeper understanding of what children's free play and physical play means in the preschool and in what way physical play contributes to children's learning and value-based work, through reflections using my experiences and scientific theories. The focus is on the children's indoor play. Lev S Vygotsky's theories on children's learning and development as well as imagination and creativity are used for this essay. William Corsaro's theories of children's peer cultures are used to reflect on the children's finesse in how they adapt to the preschool's rules. In addition to this, two play perspectives are used to deepen the understanding of children's physical play. The preschool is embraced by the free play in which it is characterized by the fact that it offers children free choices to choose play, playmates and which material to use in the play. In my experience, however, I have experienced that free play is not as free as it sounds. Therefore, I will examine the educational aspects of free play. Physical play challenges and raises pedagogical issues and concerns among educators in preschool. My reflections have made me realize that freedom in children's play is complex and requires critical reflection of my and other pedagogues’ attitudes to issues that arise during physical play. This has led me to the understanding that physical play has a stamp that gives rise to negative associations. These negative associations affect how educators encounter children in the physical play. For example, gives “play fighting”rise to associations with serious fighting leading to the consequence that the educator interrupts the play. This insight has helped me to see into other names of physical play which made me see what happens beyond what is visiblein children's physical play. With curiosity and respect for children's interest in playing physical play, I have realized how rewarding physical play can be for the children. For physical play to be rewarding for the children, the educators need to give them the right conditions in the play.