Emotion-Supportive Play Materials in Early Childhood Education - Developing the Multicultural Indoor Emotion Support Tool (MIEST)
Jayasinghe, Dona; Warnakula, Pubudu (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025121436075
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025121436075
Tiivistelmä
This thesis is focused on how emotionally the indoor play materials can support the children in multicultural early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings in Finland.
Even though emotional growth is one of the major goals of the curriculum, the existing national guidelines do not offer concrete frameworks to educators for checking if the materials available are emotionally supportive for the equitable participation of all children. In the face of this void, the development work has created and piloted the Multicultural Indoor Emotion Support Tool (MIEST), which is a hands-on assessment tool aimed at helping educators recognize the material-related areas of inequity and thus, carry out targeted interventions.
By means of a practice-based developmental development work approach, the development work was conducted in a Finnish ECEC group of children aged three to five years. The tool was utilized in six emotionally significant indoor situations, and interventions were planned in the form of seven Emotion Play Baskets.
The study outcomes show that the regular assessment of materials may be a way of emotional equity promotion. For instance, the involvement of non-Finnish-speaking children in the resolution of peer conflicts went up from 0% to 87.5%, and the participation of shy and newly arrived children in circle time increased from 20% to 70%.
The development work closely corresponds with the National Core Curriculum for ECEC (VASU 2022, 16–23) that focuses on different modes of expression and emotional wellbeing. The study also complies with national recommendations from FINEEC (2022) and KARVI (2025) that advocate for enhanced pedagogical documentation and continuous evaluation of learning environments. Moreover, the initiative mirrors social pedagogy’s fundamental ideas, illustrating the teacher’s role as a planner, designer, and evaluator of emotionally supportive environments.
The study makes available a practical, development-based work instrument that can be a significant contribution to the educators’ work in emotional support, inclusion promotion, and creating a link between policy and practice in multicultural ECEC settings, which has been a longstanding gap.
The complete development portfolio is available at: [ https://eu.bulbapp.com/u/emotion-supportive-play-materials-in-early-childhood-education~e0?sharedLink=833cbce8-4e80-4bac-8141-c0c9b626ab9a ]
Even though emotional growth is one of the major goals of the curriculum, the existing national guidelines do not offer concrete frameworks to educators for checking if the materials available are emotionally supportive for the equitable participation of all children. In the face of this void, the development work has created and piloted the Multicultural Indoor Emotion Support Tool (MIEST), which is a hands-on assessment tool aimed at helping educators recognize the material-related areas of inequity and thus, carry out targeted interventions.
By means of a practice-based developmental development work approach, the development work was conducted in a Finnish ECEC group of children aged three to five years. The tool was utilized in six emotionally significant indoor situations, and interventions were planned in the form of seven Emotion Play Baskets.
The study outcomes show that the regular assessment of materials may be a way of emotional equity promotion. For instance, the involvement of non-Finnish-speaking children in the resolution of peer conflicts went up from 0% to 87.5%, and the participation of shy and newly arrived children in circle time increased from 20% to 70%.
The development work closely corresponds with the National Core Curriculum for ECEC (VASU 2022, 16–23) that focuses on different modes of expression and emotional wellbeing. The study also complies with national recommendations from FINEEC (2022) and KARVI (2025) that advocate for enhanced pedagogical documentation and continuous evaluation of learning environments. Moreover, the initiative mirrors social pedagogy’s fundamental ideas, illustrating the teacher’s role as a planner, designer, and evaluator of emotionally supportive environments.
The study makes available a practical, development-based work instrument that can be a significant contribution to the educators’ work in emotional support, inclusion promotion, and creating a link between policy and practice in multicultural ECEC settings, which has been a longstanding gap.
The complete development portfolio is available at: [ https://eu.bulbapp.com/u/emotion-supportive-play-materials-in-early-childhood-education~e0?sharedLink=833cbce8-4e80-4bac-8141-c0c9b626ab9a ]