Interactive play in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides crucial opportunities for young children to develop a range of skills which are important for social development. Play Bank provides structured opportunities based on ‘Resilient Peer Treatment’ (Fantuzzo et al. 1996; 2005) for children to engage in peer-mediated play sessions, and has been found to increase the play interaction of shy and withdrawn preschool children in an initial small-scale study by the current author. This research seeks to extend the evidence base for Play Bank in UK schools by examining perceptions of change in young children’s peer interaction and social competence, as well as school staff’s views of the facilitators and barriers to carrying out the intervention. One primary school was identified within the researcher’s current Local Authority and five target children were identified on the basis of teacher observations and EYFS profile scores. The views of 18 peers, two teaching staff and five parents were sought. A multiple embedded case study design was employed, using mixed methods of data collection at three time intervals. The quantitative methods comprised teacher and parent measures of children’s play-based social competence, whole class sociometric nominations and structured observations of children’s free play. Qualitative data were gathered in a semi structured group interview with the two teaching staff. Quantitative data were summarised using descriptive statistics and qualitative data were transcribed and a thematic analysis applied. The findings indicated that children who participated in Play Bank sessions displayed increased peer interaction and play-based social competence over the course of time. The study extends understanding regarding implementation issues for Play Bank and provides further evidence for the effects of Play Bank on young children’s peer interaction and social competence.

Harvesting children’s kinetic energy to power the electronics can bring interactive play to novel places and create unique context for play. This project presents design, crafting and testing of a child-powered interactive carousel designed for everyday outdoor play.  Through a Research through Design approach and craft thinking, a digital play artefact was realized through exploring material qualities and affordances, to crafting a real-world object, to immersing interactive elements in the final prototype. The situated play led understanding of the experiential qualities of the digital artefact in the emergence of a children-object-space relationship. The hybrid craft making and digital fabrication emphasized the process of making through negotiating and renegotiating with materials and digital abilities until the integration of the two. The unique composition of human power technology and outdoor play design opened up new conversations to exploit human motions and self-initiated engagement in designing embodied play. / Att använda barns rörelseenergi för att driva elektronik, kan öppna upp för interaktiv lek på nya platser och skapa unika sammanhang för lek. Detta projekt presenterar design, tillverkning och testning av en barndriven interaktiv karusell designad för vardagslek utomhus.  Genom en Research through Design metod och hantverkstänkande, realiserades en digital lekartefakt genom att utforska materiella kvalitéer och affordance, för att skapa ett verkligt objekt, till att fördjupa interaktiva element i den slutliga prototypen. Den situerade leken ledde förståelsen av de upplevelsemässiga egenskaperna hos den digitala artefakten i uppkomsten av ett barn-objekt-plats förhållande. Hybridhantverkstillverkning och digital tillverkning betonade tillverkningsprocessen genom att förhandla och omförhandla mellan material och digitala förmågor fram till integrationen av de två. Den unika sammansättningen av mänsklig kraftteknologi och utomhuslekdesign öppnade upp för nya samtal för att utnyttja mänsklig rörelse och självinitierat engagemang i designen av förkroppsligad lek.

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This thesis will illustrate how pretend play can be used in the home for educational purposes. The major emphasis of the work will be emergent literacy, however, application principles can be applied in all subject areas. Parents who desire to expand their child's literacy skills while exposing the child to an arts enriched home environment need ideas and tools developed with supportive research to strengthen and focus their efforts. These tools will greatly expand parental resources by offering several principles as a guide for adapting existing classroom materials for home use. The following Seven Components form the core foundation for adapting pretend play materials to aid the home learning environment curricula: (1) Child as Active Participant (Vygotsky; Piaget). (2) Parent as Role Model for Dramatic Play and Literacy, serves as Facilitator, and Co-player (Haight and Miller; Vygotsky). (3) Physical environment could be anywhere: car, office, or bedroom. (4) Resource material: should be able to use common found objects in home, with limited preparations or expense. (5) Play Content needed to provide elements of literacy: cognitive learning, symbol representation, oral language, self-expression, listening and comprehension (Goodman). (6) Promote creative and fun learning experience with a relaxed, informal atmosphere. (7) Play should be process and discovery oriented, and not for performance (Brown and Pleydell; Tuge). This thesis will also examine the preliminary results of a study for parents and children who applied a curriculum developed with the core components and explored the participants' interest level in such activities. Recommendations for further research will also be made.