Young Korean children’s emerging play experiences and educational attempts during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

As the COVID-19 situation is prolonged, many Korean preschools and daycare centers are trying to provide young children with sufficient time and opportunities for play within their limited situations. This article introduces young Korean children’s emerging play experiences and Korean teachers’ educational attempts during the COVID-19 pandemic such as A Package for Play, distance education via Zoom. This shows Korean parents and teachers’ efforts to provide young children with high-quality opportunities for play during the COVID-19 and urges a new perspective to understand children’s emerging play culture and educational ecology.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• play
• young children
• South Korea
• distance education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 One of the websites is ‘i-nury’ website: https://www.i-nuri.go.kr/main/index.do/

2 ‘Untact’ refers to a virtual socialization in a physical distancing by a combination of the prefix ‘un’ and the word ‘contact’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pool Ip Dong

Pool Ip Dong is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Early Childhood Education in Changwon National University, South Korea. Her current research interests are digital play, popular culture, peer culture, and media.