ABSTRACT
Adults are rarely involved in the organization and supervision of children’s playground games unless it is to announce their end (Polgar, 1976). Easily overlooked are the manifestation in play of children’s underlying cognitive skills and the importance of games as social contexts for cultural learning. It is the primary purpose of this chapter to look at playground games in order to describe the rule-governed nature of a group of first-grade children’s spontaneously organized playground games. Specifically, the analysis focuses upon hopscotch, kissers and chasers, and tag to examine the set of turn-taking and game maintenance skills which underlie these activities. In addition, as milieu for socialization, games provide settings for cultural learning. Therefore, a secondary purpose is to examine the contents of this cultural learning. A literature review of selected research on children’s play follows immediately. This review explores two dimensions of children’s games: the cognitive competence that supports children’s ability to engage in playground games and the nature of the sociocultural environment that surrounds game-playing activity.
