The game featured in Early Childhood Education, (Paperback)

The study in question aimed to investigate how play was organised and developed in a group of children in a school context, identifying which aspects of everyday life the children reflected in their play, which appeared as the appropriation of values, knowledge, social rules and forms of behaviour. The research guidelines were derived from the interpretations of Vygotsky, Elkonin and Leontiev on the imaginary in play, as well as from other research on the subject in Brazil, such as Moraes (1980), Bomtempo (1984), Oliveira (1994), Almeida (1995), Kishimoto (1996), Gonçalves (1998), Góes (2000), among others. The analyses were based on video recordings and cursive notes of episodes of role-playing games developed by a group of children aged 5 to 6 years. The findings indicate that the protagonised game activities were characterised in different ways: some games developed through the announcement of a specific theme, others through verbal expressions of interest in playing a specific role, and still others through the setting up of a scenario that consequently directed the theme of the game.