Playworlds Give Children More Ways to Take Part in Learning

In a classroom of 20 seven-year-olds, ? anna-rainio asks us to picture children who relate to school in sharply different ways: one can concentrate through noise; another seeks physical comfort from a teacher; a third needs to fidget to focus. One child keeps her distance because she has learned not to trust adults. Another draws dragons when the assignment is to make holiday decorations.

Give all of them one activity, Rainio says, and some are likely to be left out. Schools have historically expected children to do the same things and develop at the same pace, she argues, even though that expectation would seem strange elsewhere in life. She believes early learning can be more inclusive through playworlds: adult-child play built around a story or work of art, in which teachers and children enter roles and create adventures together.

The method was developed by Swedish scholar Gunilla Lindqvist and is now studied by research teams around the world. Its central shift is practical: children help shape the activity rather than simply follow instructions. Adults listen to their ideas and join the imaginary world with them.

? anna-rainio describes a fictional composite example, created to protect participants’ privacy. In a kindergarten class, a teacher named Johanna read the first half of the Slavic folktale Baba Yaga. Instead of finishing the story for the children, the class collectively wrote and directed its own resolution to the tale’s conflicts.

Over the year, the children built the story’s setting inside the classroom: Baba Yaga’s tower and trap, caves for magical creatures, trees and a lamppost for the forest. These were not just props around the edges of the activity; they gave the class a place to stage its shared story. One child drew the hut on chicken legs central to the tale. A wardrobe inside the hut became a portal from ordinary classroom life into the playworld. Rainio recounts that Johanna once returned after school to leave the playworld through it, in case she had forgotten to do so earlier.

The shared story, as Rainio tells it, provided a different context for responding to Viola, who was often inattentive and disruptive. As the children discussed how to rescue everyone from Baba Yaga, Viola proposed blowing up the school. The other children negotiated with her: could they blow up some props instead? Viola agreed, saying, “It is a good plan because everyone gets to do their plan!”

The following week, Viola was again inattentive and disruptive. Johanna told her she could not be part of the plan unless she committed to carrying it out: everyone was depending on her to rescue the magical creatures, and her behavior might alert Baba Yaga. Viola agreed. When her moment came, she checked that everyone was safe, threw the bomb at the trap and led the class in a countdown.

Rainio contrasts this with how Viola’s behavior might be treated in a typical classroom. In the playworld, the children negotiated a change to her proposal, and Johanna tied Viola’s participation to a commitment to the group’s plan. Viola then carried out her role.

? anna-rainio draws a broader lesson from Viola’s story: adults should ask themselves “why not?” before rejecting a child’s suggestion. A request may mean changing plans or going in a direction that seems to waste time. Sometimes there is a clear reason to say no, she acknowledges. But when there is not, following a child’s unexpected idea can open a way into the activity.

In another example, a first-grade teacher, Tom, builds a playworld around a children’s book about Ruben, a bird who flies through a child’s window and needs help getting home. The class imagines what Ruben might look like. Then the pandemic interrupts the project. After months of distance learning, the children return to find Ruben—a puppet—on the classroom windowsill.

Tom plays the bird. The children sing to Ruben, feed it, build a nest and teach it math. At the same time, Rainio says, some children in the class were “on the edge of disengagement.” Alma struggled to sit still, follow orders or do school tasks; Luca was so disruptive that teachers had made arrangements for him to leave school early.

Rainio describes the children’s growing relationships with Ruben as giving them ways to take part. The puppet emails Alma privately to say it feels lonely at night. Alma asks whether it needs a friend and offers her own soft toy, Sunny. Ruben says yes. In activities that are difficult for Alma, the bird sits in her lap, and Rainio says Alma becomes calmer and more attentive.

On a field trip, Tom puts Luca in charge of Ruben. Luca, who often could not join such trips because of his behavior, is able to go. Rainio points to a drawing Luca makes on the classroom whiteboard: a black-and-white image of a bird inside a circle or balloon, held by a small figure. She reads it as Ruben lifting Luca, perhaps making him feel happier or lighter. Rainio sees the drawing as the child’s way of expressing what development and imagination can make possible when adults take them seriously.

? anna-rainio argues that adult-child joint play can begin changing schools from within. She says its value needs greater recognition in early learning, and that teachers who play need to be supported and trusted by their school systems. With that support, she argues, playworlds can help children find roles and relationships in which they have a place.