This paper presents results from a praxis development research study carried out by a drama pedagogue and researcher with preschool teachers at a four-department preschool in a big city in Sweden.

As a background for the study, there is the schoolification of preschools and children lacking play knowledge. In the latest Swedish curriculum for preschool (2018), the notion of teaching is used for the first time. However, play is also emphasized as essential.

Based on this, the preschool teachers wanted to develop their playability with the help of drama tools and role-taking inspired by Lindqvist's 'play worlds', to support and challenge the inside the play.

Monthly planning meetings where preschool teachers and drama pedagogue/researcher explored and developed play worlds. In line with Dunn, knowledge of drama vocabulary can strengthen the adults' ability to become co-players without taking over and using the play for specific learning. Participatory observation and reflective logs constitute the data material.

The specific preschool had the opportunity to set aside a large hall where the four departments had at least one play session (1-3 hours) each week. Having a room where a specific setting can be built, left and developed based on the wishes of children and adults was important and became an engine for the entire project. However, the engine did not entirely work when role-taking and the use of tension were not understood or not really mastered. The paper explores how the preschool teachers managed to move on, gradually made some of the drama tools their own, and got emotionally engaged inside the fiction. Still, they also dismissed some in creating play worlds.

Dunn, J. (2017) Do you know how to play? A beginner’s Guide to the vocabularies of dramatic play. In O’Connor, P. & C. Rozas Gómez, Playing with Possibilities, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Lindqvist, G. (1995) The aesthetics of play – a didactic study of play and culture in preschools. Uppsala: Uppsala Studies in Education

Vygotsky, L. (1925/1971). The Psychology of Art. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.