The aim of our graduate work is to study the importance of image and shape?s in children's development and learning and also the preschool teacher?s views on image and shapes. Our research aims to explore the value of image and shapes creation and how it is expressed among children and in classroom activities. We are also interested in finding out how it differs from adults' views and what materials teachers use to promote the image and shapes creation in the curriculum. In our own experience, image and shapes activities are often structured differently in different curriculum activities.

Preschool is a place that is continually undergoing change at a rapid pace and developing the skills of our educators is essential for their ability to keep up with these changes. Guidance conversations can be used as a vital tool for the educators competence development.The purpose of this essay is to investigate how educators, special educators and preschool principals think and reason about the use of guidance conversations in preschool.A qualitative method has been used in the shape of interviews with educators, special educators and preschool principals working within different districts of a medium sized city in the south of Sweden.These interviews revealed that the use of guidance conversations is often controlled by specific needs and is used when a problem arises amongst the children. There are many expectations on the special educators role in these conversations, one of which is the role of conversation leader with the purpose of guiding the conversation amongst involved parties and give them the tools they need to resolve problems by themselves instead of delivering packaged solutions..

In Sweden today, more women are still going on parental leave than men. The number of men and women going on parental leave is more equalized than ever before. At the same time the inequalities are still big and more women than men choose to work part time up till the child is eight years old.The aim of the study is through a gender perspective, to investigate the preschool teacher?s thoughts about the daily meetings with parents and the contact during induction. The study is based on the theoretical concepts: gender, norms and gender equality as well as three questions.

The study is based on Lev Vygotskijs and John Dewey's learning theory. Such is ?the zone for immediate development? and ?learning by doing?.Purpose: The study's purpose was to examine how four teachers´ work with bilingual children's language development in a preschool and in a preschool class. These questions will be answered in my study: 1). which view of bilingualism have been the educators? 2).

The purpose of this study is to increase an understanding of what prevents the mandatory reporting law, based on the preschool staff's approach to mandatory reporting law about child abuse and neglect to social services, and how these barriers affect their decision to report. The study will also understand what preschool staff experience facilitates the mandatory reporting process and what can be done to improve the process even more. The questions of the study were based on the purpose of the study and have been formulated in two questions:What prevents the mandatory reporting law requirements for preschool staff and how can these barriers be removed? What facilitates for preschool staff to be confident in the decision to report child abuse and neglect, to social services?The study used qualitative semi-structured interviews with five people working at the preschool, including two preschool teachers and three childcare workers. An interview guide was designed as a help to answer the questions about what the barriers are and what it is that makes it easier for the preschool staff, regarding the decision to report cases of child abuse and neglect to social services.The results, based on the five interviews , shows preschool staff's thoughts of the knowledge on the mandatory reporting law, the mandatory reporting process, their perspective of the mandatory reporting law and the uncertainty surrounding the mandatory reporting law.The study's analysis consists of the results that have been analyzed using the theory of social representations, in which the analysis shows an understanding of how the preschool staff act and think about the mandatory reporting law requirements based on their everyday knowledge.

The purpose of this study is to, from the preschool teachers? point of view, deepen the knowledge about influential factors regarding a mandatory report from preschools to the Child Protective Agency (CPA) when suspecting child maltreatment and feeling uneasiness regarding the child. The purpose is also to furthermore investigate collaboration between preschools and the CPA in Hagfors municipality. The study has the following questions: How do preschools teachers handle their suspicions and uneasiness about a child being maltreated? Which factors can be influential on whether or not the suspicions are reported to the CPA? Which experiences do preschool teachers have of collaboration with the CPA?The study is based on qualitative methods in the formof individual interviews.

My purpose with this study was to research how a few teachers work with the children in preschool class to achieve a group that the children feel safe and comfortable with. Every human being has got the need to feel safe and with this study I want to illustrate the importance about working to achieve safety for children in preschool class, and environment that is new to them. In order to try to get answers to my research questions I have interviewed five preschool class teachers. The results showed that the teachers work in a way that makes the children feel safe by helping them establish the daily routines and common rules for the preschool class. They also let the children in the preschool class get to know each other and other children in the school by play and shared activities.

The purpose of this study is to increase an understanding of what prevents the mandatory reporting law, based on the preschool staff's approach to mandatory reporting law about child abuse and neglect to social services, and how these barriers affect their decision to report. The study will also understand what preschool staff experience facilitates the mandatory reporting process and what can be done to improve the process even more. The questions of the study were based on the purpose of the study and have been formulated in two questions:What prevents the mandatory reporting law requirements for preschool staff and how can these barriers be removed? What facilitates for preschool staff to be confident in the decision to report child abuse and neglect, to social services?The study used qualitative semi-structured interviews with five people working at the preschool, including two preschool teachers and three childcare workers. An interview guide was designed as a help to answer the questions about what the barriers are and what it is that makes it easier for the preschool staff, regarding the decision to report cases of child abuse and neglect to social services.The results, based on the five interviews , shows preschool staff's thoughts of the knowledge on the mandatory reporting law, the mandatory reporting process, their perspective of the mandatory reporting law and the uncertainty surrounding the mandatory reporting law.The study's analysis consists of the results that have been analyzed using the theory of social representations, in which the analysis shows an understanding of how the preschool staff act and think about the mandatory reporting law requirements based on their everyday knowledge.

AbstractThe Swedish society has always been monolingual, but has for the past decades transformed into a multicultural and multilingual society. The aim of this study is to investigate if and in that case how preschool teachers work with language development in bilingual and multicultural preschools. The concept of linguistic and cultural diversity includes several different components, not least the social interactions that are of great importance to every individual's development, learning and participation in the world. By understanding the importance of language, language development and the role of mother tongue in second language acquisition, we look into various researches done concerning the effects of the preschool teachers? opinions, methods used to language developmental primarily for children who are multilingual and how the physical environment is shaped to promote language in multicultural and multilingual preschools.The method used in this study is semi-structured interviews with preschool teacher working in multicultural or bilingual preschool settings.

The topic of this paper is puppets as an educational tool in preschool. The purpose of this paper is to examine the puppets potential as a tool for creating pleasurable learning in preschool. The method of collecting material for the essay has been qualitative research interviews with four informants. The prerequties for writing this essay has been good. There has been some literature on puppets and basis for my investigation, there have been informants with experience of puppets.

In this essay, I examine teachers' different approaches, responsibilities and child perspective on preschool. I discuss how important it is that we educators in preschool work together as a team about childcare and learning. Our attitudes affect the children.In the essay, I show examples of different attitude and approach to learning and the significance of the educational awareness that characterize the work of the nursery. We have different approaches and standards that are influenced by our cultural, social and ethnic backgrounds. It plays a major role in how we interpret and understand various situations in preschool.I also discuss preschool teacher's responsibility and teamwork, and how it affects children.

The purpose of my essay is to highlight the various dilemmas that can occur in the preschool during the moments of guided reflection but also the opportunities it can provide. I am using my own practical experience from situations where care for the children can be questioned and needs to be considered in comparison to the further development of the preschool teachers and with them the entire organization. In my research, I have chosen to highlight the importance of guided reflection, the importance of reliable and secure relationships for children and how these can be eradicated, and finally the importance of ethics for the preschool-teacher?s actions in a given situation.Key questions in my text are; What role does the reflection have in the work at the preschool? How are children affected while this is happening? How important is close and secure relationships for young children and how can they be affected? How can one find a balance between care and learning?By writing my essay I reflect on myself and my own actions. This leads me to a greater selfawareness and greater understanding of my own feelings and my role in the dilemmas I face in my profession.The conclusion of my work is that the preschool organization is not given and it can be constructed in many different ways.

The aim with my work is to get a deeper knowledge about the preschool's views of environmental work. I also want to examine how the preschool teachers along with the children work with the project Green Flag in the preschool. I have used structured interview with two teachers in a preschool that works with Green Flag. Green Flag is an environment certification and is an evidence on that one works daily with a document aimed environmental work along with the children. I have found out that each year they work with different themes within Green Flag.

This study aims to examine preschool teachers' thoughts about the child libraries functions. The purpose is to highlight preschool children's early read and writing skills, before they even can read and write, which is a theory called emergent literacy.This is made by conducting five qualitative interviews, with the intention to investigate how the preschool teachers think about the cooperation and the function of the child library, partly for their own work with the children and partly for their organization. By using a tablechart which shows each preschool teachers mostly common thoughts in the interview and by using a model based upon Harrysson and Joelsson (2006) model, which shows the functions of the public library in the society. The results of the study are presented in the four categories of the model which are; to borrow, to learn, to ask and to find, to reside. These are functions that the preschool teachers see with the library, for their work with the childrens' early literacy.

The purpose of this study is to highlight some aspects of the increased usage of tablets in preschool environments by answering the questions: what does the tablet become in the preschool environment, how much freedom does the children have over its usage.To answer these questions a series of observations were made at two different preschools. The observations were then complemented by interviews with teachers at the same preschools.This qualitative study focuses on some of the didactic questions regarding the tablets, based on a theoretical framework that is within the design-oriented perspective; which addresses the children's? autonomy, the institutional framework and affordance.Our conclusion is that the tablet?s introduction in the preschool has helped the teachers in numerous parts of their documentation, but we can also see that the children's opportunities to make choices regarding the tablet are more limited than with any other resource on the preschool. In our results we also see that when the children get access to the tablet they receive a learning experience, which among other things, strengthens their language skills and their social interaction with each other..