Playing with Social Roles in Online Sessions for Preschoolers

Abstract

Educational isolation, as a consequence of the global pandemic, has become an obstacle for guiding activity of pre-school age for a period of over one year. Online education did not include collective playing activity; actually, simultaneous modality of sessions was not at all applied in many public and private pre-school institutions in Latin America. The goal of the article is to show a unique experience of organizing collective sessions of playing with social roles by a preschool institution in Mexico. The results show the necessity of modification of some of the elements of the structure of playing activity, such as the means and the orientation of the activity. A broad variety of means at concrete, perceptive and verbal level were used for online playing. The part of orientation of action was separated from the part of realization of playing to guarantee the process of collective playing. The favorable and negative aspects of organization of online playing activity with social roles are discussed. The conclusions claim for the necessity of profound analysis of online modality of education for psychological development together with urgent re-conceptualization of the content of pre-school period as a period of affective communication and preparation for studying at school.