Skogen som lekplats - Naturens material och miljöer som resurser i lek. Nordic studies in education, 29(2), S. 221-234.

The goal of this article is to analyse how children in itinerant kindergartens in woodland etc. use nature’s resources such as materials and environments in their social fantasy play.

Previous research has shown that children’s play can be analysed at two levels: at a staging level and at a playing a part level. Änggård finds that children playing in nature with materials from nature spend much more time on negotiating about staging their play than they do in other play. The children's games are based on cultural knowledge, e.g. sagas and everyday life routines. The many possibilities of interpretation imply that children in nature kindergarten spend a large proportion of the game on negotiating a common understanding of equipment. Negotiations, and the ability to express themselves imaginatively, require social knowledge and linguistic competences which involve knowledge of the concepts that are naturally linked to the items produced or created. Moreover, the researcher finds that these children involve elements from the consumer society in their play and confer characteristics from the consumer society on the elements in their play. The researcher concludes that there is no basic difference between manufactured toys and natural materials. However, natural materials offer several possibilities of interpretation, which provide better conditions for the imagination to flourish.

This study is an ethnographic field study, where the author has conducted observations for almost a year, partly using video, and has interviewed children, social pedagogues and parents.

Änggård, E. (2009). Skogen som lekplats - Naturens material och miljöer som resurser i lek. Nordic studies in education, 29(2), S. 221-234.