The social development of last decades brings about rapid changes, affecting also medicine and nursing. It also contributed to a positive shift, so a hospitalization of a child does not necessarily mean breaking bonds with its parents, siblings, and the broader family. Yet, a nurse remains an irreplaceable link in the process of child's treatment. It is a nurse who spends most of the time with the child during a hospitalization. A nurse has therefore a great potential of influencing child's adaptation to the hospitalization either in a positive or a negative way. Regardless of health or illness, a child retains a need of play activities. A play is an important healing component, it improves emotional condition, facilitates an adaptation to a changed health situation and enables saturation for activities the disease makes difficult or impossible. This diploma thesis aimed to analyze how spare time and play activities are ensured in small hospitals, regarding personnel, time and material. The author also set the task of finding out what importance the nurses give to their own role in the educational process. The research was conducted in two ways. The qualitative part contains interviews with children of primary school age who answered questions about what they wanted and what children hospitalized in small hospitals generally miss. Hypotheses were subsequently formed according to results of this part. These hypotheses were then tested by a quantitative research. The research group for the quantitative research were nurses working in pediatric departments of hospitals in the regions of Plzen, Karlovy Vary and Central Bohemia. The research shows that many pediatric departments of small and medium-sized hospitals have to deal with nurses' time troubles and with an insufficient staffing in order to fill meaningfully and effectively the child patients' spare time. The results of this research will be used as a platform for improvement of hospitalized children's conditions in one particular department.

Observations of young children are conducted in an educational setting by practitioners to plan and assess activities based on the individual development and needs of the child. Challenges include: recording, how to be an observer rather than a participant, and connecting developmental theory to observable behaviour.Several projects have simulated children in their learning environments, aimed mainly at pre-service teachers, but these have neither been for young children where the activity is play-based nor where the adult is supportive of the child's interests. Some simulations have used 3D graphics to represent a child via a role-playing adult but there have been few attempts to use autonomous characters.A novel real-time interactive 3D graphical simulation—Observation—was developed, providing a physical sandbox for users to: add autonomous characters (representing children), add objects, and customise the play-based environment. The definitions of the characters were informed by the findings from early childhood research. The simulation was evaluated using two complementary serious game frameworks and its utility was evaluated by professionals within the field of early childhood education comprising university students and educators, and local education authority advisors. An explorative, mixed methods approach was taken, triangulating across: a pilot study and a main study; different research instruments (simulation activity plus questionnaire, focus groups, interviews); and a range of participants. The simulation has utility because: it is an interesting way to explore the behaviours of young children, the theoretical understanding behind children's play can be deepened, and observational skills can be developed. The simulation has wide appeal because the perceived utility of the simulation is not influenced by: professional experience, number of real-life observations of young children, or time spent playing video games. Age is considered to be the most important omission from the abstract character in the simulation.