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1 Introduction: Children’s Games

Understanding how young children organise their social worlds requires studying the activities in which children engage without adult involvement. Children’s games and activities present opportunities to prepare for and practise everyday social life (Butler, 2008; Corsaro & Tomlinson, 1980; Danby, 2009; Goodwin, 1990; Sacks, 1995; Sawyer, 1997). Games provide children with opportunities to learn the fundamental organisation of their peer culture. In this way, play becomes a context for engaging with matters from the real world, and children’s games and spontaneous activities can be understood as social life in action.

Children use games to explore and test relationships and expectations of the context in which they are interacting. In other words, playing games is how children participate in and learn about cultural matters associated with interaction in their social worlds. Sacks’ (1995) attention to children’s games rested on his interest in showing how the techniques for membership of the games were accomplished. Throughout the course of a game, however, locally produced rules are negotiated and frame the production of the local culture in action (Baker, 2000; Cobb-Moore, Danby, & Farrell, 2009). A ‘category set of game events’ is produced, and rules are produced in order to follow these game events (Sacks, 1995, Vol. I, p. 493). Rules can be used to observe and also produce infringements. Those with authority within the game can announce rules, whereas, for others, an announcement of a rule may be challenged and invoked, treated as a game violation (Sacks, 1995, Vol. I). The nature of the game attests to the collectivity of the process and, at the same time, the individual contributions of the participants.

Children’s games can be observed to be a series of alternating actions. Sacks noted that ‘the simplest of children’s games have two parts’ (1995, Vol. 1, p. 496). When there are two players and an alternating action, there is one action per player (Sacks, 1995, Vol. 1). He provides the example of two children kicking a ball to each other, with one kicking and the other catching, and then the actions are swapped and repeated – the players expect this to happen. Significant in these types of children’s games is this notion of ‘expectable next event’ (Sacks, 1995, Vol. 1, p. 497). Children draw upon this notion in the organisation of their social interactions.

There is another type of game that young children play that relies less on already formulated expectable events and is a type of spontaneous activity known as fantasy or pretend play. Sawyer (1997) describes pretend play as a form of spontaneous activity that requires improvisational performance, where there is typically no script, including no script for how to successfully initiate entry into a shared activity or how to bring to a close the activity at hand. A well-known example of this type of spontaneous activity is when children initiate fantasy play that incorporates everyday activities such as playing families (Björk-Willén, 2012; Cobb-Moore, 2012; Sheldon, 1996). Often thought of as a ‘simulation of adult activity among members of children’s culture’ (Speier, 1973, p. 155), this assumption suggests that children are incompetent or ‘unsocialised’ if their performance of adult life does not match adult expectations. When considered from a talk and interaction approach, the activity of children playing families, for example, is seen not as an imitation of adult life, but considered an ‘interactional and cultural activity in their own right’ (Speier, 1973, p. 157). At other times, children’s spontaneous activities use cultural and material resources in ways not possibly anticipated by adults, often involving a combination of pretence and ‘reality analysis’ (Hester & Francis, 1997).

Children organise their social worlds as members of the locally assembled and practised culture. Studying how children establish spontaneous activities, the nature of their local conditions and rules and how players negotiate and observe these can give outsiders, including adults, information about children’s activities as social occasions and the ways that participants organise them (Cromdal, 2009; Danby, 2002; Speier, 1973). The practices of children’s games are dominant in the production of children’s culture and are ‘occasion[s] for sociability in children’s culture’ (Speier, 1973, p. 155). Often, children incorporate objects into their activities, an additional dimension to be negotiated and accounted by the participants.

2 Objects in Children’s Pretence Activities

Examining children’s actions when using objects, and noting how objects are drawn upon and used in sustained spontaneous activity, can show how objects are used as resources in spontaneous activity. This kind of inquiry has implications for understanding young children’s construction of their local social structures and relationships (Kidwell & Zimmerman, 2007). For example, children use physical objects in spontaneous activity to organise and accomplish collaborative activity using board games (Whalen, 1995) and wooden blocks to exclude members from the shared activity (Cobb-Moore, Danby, & Farrell, 2010). Alongside the uses of objects, there may be moments where the talk lapses when the focus is on the activity at hand. Participants’ actions take into account their assessment of the object, such as whether it is usable within a pretend or reality frame.

Researchers with interests in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis have studied the social life of objects (Bruni, 2005; Goodwin, 2000; Heath & Hindmarsh, 2000; Law & Singleton, 2005; Suchman, 2005). Objects are ‘constituted always through specific sites and associated practices’ (Suchman, 2000, p. 381); that is, the meaning of objects is dependent upon how they are used in social contexts – ‘objects are not neutral or innocent but fraught with significance for the relations they materialise’ (Suchman, 2000, p. 379). Talk and conversation are also social objects (Sacks, 1995, Vol. 1). The focus of the single case presented here shows how the meaning and use of objects is jointly constructed by two children within their local social context.

3 The Study

The data presented in this chapter are drawn from a larger Australian Research Council project that explored how young children engaged in web searching and other uses of digital technologies in home and classroom settings. This episode discussed here was selected from 29 h of video recordings of preschool-aged children engaging in everyday digital technologies at home (also see Danby et al., 2013). In the study, 14 families was invited to video-record their children’s use of digital technologies over 1 week, and each family gave their consent. Observing practices in the home setting was made possible by each family choosing what to video-record and when to video-record their family practices, often practices that are not easily accessible to researchers. The single case discussed in this paper is an episode involving two brothers: Jai is aged 4 years and playing a phonics game on the computer, and Jed is aged 3 years, and he is standing beside his brother with a toy truck in his hand. Their mother video-recorded their activity, but she was not present during the episode. Multimodal analysis (Mondada, 2008) explores how the elder brother (Jai) initiates his younger brother (Jed) into a dramatic play activity (vocalised gun sounds) that incorporates the computer speakers and Jed’s prior vocalised actions with the toy truck. The video recording made visible the spontaneous activity underway, making it ‘public’ in nature (Mehan, 1993; Sacks, 1995, Vol. 1) so that others can observe the very features and actions that enabled them to make sense of and build their interactions.

A single extended sequence can show the ‘complex systems of action’ (Psathas, 1992, p. 99), such as how participants enter and exit out of the shared talk, how they initiate topics and the interplay between their talk and actions. Such close analysis provides for noticing details that may be significant in the ‘ongoing production of singular sentences in the talk and interaction’ (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998, p. 120). A single case analysis shows the context of the interaction and can show the complexities of social interaction (Whalen, 1995). The multimodal focus is on body orientation and use of physical space and objects and the children’s actions in situ.

Analysis informed by ethnomethodological understandings and conversation analysis methods offers fine-grained analysis of children’s interactions, including digital technologies, an emerging area of activity for young children (Danby et al., 2013; Davidson, 2009; Plowman, Stephen, & McPake, 2010). Analysis affords insights into interactional practices associated with objects used for technology (Hutchby, 2001).

3.1 The Interplay of People, Objects and Play

The episode begins with Jai engaged in playing a phonics game called Reading Eggs (http://readingeggs.com.au) on the desktop computer. The game consists of images of three planets on the screen, each with a different word located above them. One of the words is presented as the ‘target’ word located in the centre of the screen above the planets. The purpose of the game is to click on the image of a space ship to shoot down a planet with the word that matches the word on the screen. When this happens, there is an explosion sound similar to the sound of a gunshot or rocket launch.

Extract 1 (Begins at 11:44 minutes into the video recording)
figure a

27

Com

shot/rocket sound

28

Jed

((looks at screen, moving toy truck back and forth

29

 

on top of desk))

30

Jai

hey Jeda,=

31

 

=((turns to Jed))

32

 

((right hand still on mouse))

33

Jed

yeh_

34

 

((looks at Jai))

35

Jai

((touches Jed’s right arm lightly with his left hand

36

 

before lifting it and gesturing towards the toy truck,

37

 

right hand still on mouse))

38

 

just- (1.0)

39

Jed

((looks towards toy truck, one hand still on it))

40

 

((looks back at Jai))

41

Jai

[grab on this hole, ]

42

 

[((lifts left hand towards speaker on desk,

43

 

cups hand over speaker))]

44

Jed

((looks at the speaker and Jai’s hand))

45

Jai

((turns back and looks at the screen))

46

 

I’ll shoot (0.3)

47

 

I’ll shoot a [gun for you](.)

48

Jed

         [hand over speaker, right hand on truck))]

49

Jai

 ((brief look at speaker; moves hand in front, then away))

50

 

so:o_ ((looks back at screen))

51

Jai

you can get (one) for your fire truck

52

 

so you can shoot someone.

53

 

((moving the mouse with his right hand while looking

54

 

at the screen. Clicks with the mouse))

55

 

 ((screen shows rocket shooting toward planet. Planet

56

 

is hit by rocket))

57

Com

shot/rocket sound

When Jed arrives with a toy truck and stands beside Jai, he quietly moves his truck back and forth across the desk. Jai first appears to acknowledge Jed’s presence with a summons using an address term, his nickname, to which Jed minimally responds. After gaining his attention, using gesture, pointing to the truck, Jai begins with an imperative (line 41), ‘built as a telling, rather than asking’ (Curl & Drew, 2008, p. 423). The ‘hole’ refers to the computer’s speakers from whence the sound is coming. Unlike other children’s activity where the children explicitly name the activity as being one of pretend, such as the fairy game (Butler, 2008) and the teacher-student game (Theobald and Danby (in press) 2016), games that show children explicitly identifying the activity as within a pretend frame, this explicit identification does not occur here. As Jai proffers the imperative, he reinforces it with an action that displays what he means, as he cups his hand over the speaker. This action works to demonstrate what Jai intends for Jed to do. Jed’s gaze follows Jai’s actions.

At this point, Jai has not given any indication where this activity is going. There has been no explicit identification of the game. Jai offers another clue; as he looks at his screen, he voices what he’s going to do next, which is to shoot a gun for Jed (lines 46–47). He makes an elongated ‘so:o’ at the same time that he aligns the mouse ready to click on the image on the screen, which works to indicate that something is to come (line 50). Jai then finishes by pointing out how his actions of shooting a gun for Jed, using the speaker sounds, is to attach the gun/sound to the truck (line 51), and he suggests to Jed what it can then be used for, ‘to shoot someone’ (line 52). Just as he finishes his explanation, he clicks on the mouse (lines 53–54), and the computer speakers make the whooshing sound (line 57). This moment was finely timed, as the ‘gun’ was launched immediately following Jai’s explanation of the game.

In this extract, Jai initiated an activity, directing Jed what to do to get the gun (the whooshing sound) and what could be done with the gun in relation to attaching it to the toy truck and using it to shoot people. There is a reality/pretence frame here where the activity of the game (the rocket sound shooting down words) now becomes the pretend frame of making a gun (from shooting sounds) to shooting someone (line 52). While the object of the truck is visibly and physically present, the gun is only present through sound and is not actually a physical object. If we return to Sacks’ (1995, Vol. 1) example of two players with a ball, one kicking and the other catching, we can see that Jai has thrown the metaphoric ball and now it is up to Jed to catch it. If so, he now has the opportunity to be a player in the game that Jai initiated and played the first move. Extract 2 continues almost immediately.

Extract 2 (Begins at 12:00)

71

Jai

 you’ve got you’ve got a gun now.

72

 

 ((turns back to look at screen, thumb in mouth

73

 

 and right hand on mouse))

74

Jed

 °ok° ((moves his hand from speaker; puts it on truck

75

 

 moves truck slightly))

76

Jai

 ((takes thumb from mouth, looking at screen))

77

 

 you can get (your o wn)[guns.

78

 

        [((turns slightly to Jed))]

79

Jed

 ((moves right hand towards the speaker))

80

 

 °she::w°

81

 

((moves the hand back to the truck,

82

 

as though lifting something from speaker into truck))

83

Jai

((watches Jed)) no (0.3)

84

 

((looks at screen)) when I click on it.

85

 

((turns back to screen briefly, uses mouse and clicks))

86

 

((screen – rocket launches and hits planets))

87

Com

shot/rocket sound

88

Jed

((moving truck away from speaker along the desk

89

 

back towards himself))

90

Jai

 look u: p! ((turns and points towards the speaker,

91

 

 holds his hand over the speaker hole,

92

 

 pulls hand away as though carrying something

93

 

 turns his hand up, still cupped

94

 

 holds hand out towards Jed and the truck))

95

Jai

 here’s another gun.

96

 

 ((passes something from hand to Jed’s hand, as if

97

 

 transferring sound from speaker to Jed’s hand))

98

Jed

 ((moves truck with L. hand; R hand near Jai’s hand))

99

 

 s-thanks

Extract 2 shows Jai informing his younger brother about the structure of the game he has devised and directing him how to play the game. Jai begins with a formulation (line 71) of the state-of-play at the moment, led by his description of the event and his actions. After Jed’s minimal receipt and acknowledgement, Jai provides an upshot: ‘you can get (your own) guns’ (line 77). The shift here is from Jai leading the activity to Jed now being held accountable and also competent to participate in undertaking the actions himself. Jed’s imitation of the whooshing sound of the gun (line 80) indicates his involvement. In line 83, Jai issues Jed with a rebuke, as Jed attempts to lift an invisible something from the speaker to the truck and provides his justification in line 84 that Jed has to wait for Jai to click on the screen (which is what makes the sound to be used for the gun).

Jai does not leave Jed to initiate the gun sounds by himself, as he walks him through the steps involved. Jai undertakes this form of scaffolding, from the more expert player to the less expert, from the leader to the follower, in a series of steps:

  1. 1.

    You can get your own guns (line 77).

  2. 2.

    When I click on it (line 84).

  3. 3.

    Look up (line 90).

  4. 4.

    Here’s another gun (line 95).

Jai requires attention from Jed to listen to what he is saying and doing, to listen to the computer sound and to act at the appropriate times. This requires Jai to finely coordinate the game that he is playing with the instructions he’s giving Jed, and for Jed to finely coordinate the sound from the speaker to his action of shifting the sound (the invisible gun) to the toy truck. Following Jai’s directives and guidance as shown in Extract 1, Jed takes up the role of follower, invoking the membership categorisation of leader-follower (Butler, 2008), and he displays his appreciation with an act of thanks (line 99).

Jai’s actions had rendered noticeable that the gun sound could be a pretend gun, but to Jed it may not have been noticeable and visible, as he does not take up this activity. Despite Jai continuing to make rocket sounds while playing the game, Jed initiates a new activity of tipping the ‘rubbish’ out of his toy truck, although there is no actual physical rubbish. This activity is not included here as there is no shared talk between the two boys, although Jed does account for his actions (‘I just need to tip the rubbish out’) while Jai continues with the computer game. At this point, however, it is worth noting that when he does talk, Jed is not constrained to the follower role and that he now extends the frame of the game to a new topic.

Extract 3 (Begins at 12:32)

122

Com

shot sound

123

Jed

((pushes the toy truck onto the top corner

124

 

of keyboard, moves it forward over keyboard))

125

Jai

((turns slightly and looks down for a moment

126

 

at the truck on the keyboard. He removes his left hand

127

 

from his mouth and pushes the truck back slightly))

129

 

can you no-

130

Jed

((looks briefly at Jai))

131

 

  schhhhh_ ((starts to lift the tray of the toy truck))

132

Jai

((looks back to the screen and uses mouse,

133

 

clicks, puts L. thumb back in mouth))

134

Com

((screen rocket is launched and flies towards planets))

135

Jed

((turns truck around on the keyboard))

136

Jai

((moves left arm away slightly from Jed

137

 

and truck and rubs it across his face))

138

Com

shot sound ((screen rocket collides with planet;

139

 

explodes))

140

Jed

 ((moves truck off keyboard)) I’m just (gunna move) off.

141

Jai

((looks towards truck))

142

Jed

((turns truck around again on keyboard,

143

 

moves it off the keyboard))

Extract 3 begins with Jed initiating a new activity that involves running his toy truck over the keyboard, initiating further talk between the two boys. Once again, they are engaged in shared talk and interaction. In line 129, Jai initiates a corrective (Antaki & Kent, 2012; Curl & Drew, 2008) that works to suggest that this class of action is illegal (Sacks, 1995) and shifts his gaze to Jed. Jed looks briefly at Jai and vocalises a noise that suggests he is emptying his rubbish at the same time he lifts the tray up on the truck. Jai continues with his activity on the computer and does not respond to Jed’s continuing action of shifting the truck around on the keyboard. Finally, Jed, in line 140, indicates his intention to move the truck off the keyboard, and Jai briefly glances down before Jed removes the truck.

Jed’s attempt to reengage with Jai in a new activity of pretence is not taken up by Jai, who continues to orient to the computer game. Jed’s actions suggest a continued display of wanting to engage with Jai in a shared activity. There is, however, no uptake of the sound/gun activity but, rather, Jed’s substitution of an activity of emptying pretend rubbish from the toy truck.

Extract 4 (Begins at 12:43)

145

Jed

 I’m going ho:me.

146

Jai

 ((looks slightly at truck, R. hand on mouse))

147

Jed

 ((moves truck backward, until sitting beside speakers))

148

 

 psssh here I comes.

149

Jai

 ((turns and looks back at screen,

150

 

 clicks with right hand on mouse))

151

 

((screen rocket is launched and flies toward planet))

152

Jed

((moves truck slightly and lifts hand off truck))

153

 

((places hand back on truck))

154

Com

shot sound as rocket hits planet and explodes

155

Jed

((looks towards screen))

156

Jai

((thumb in mouth, right hand on mouse,

157

 

looks at screen, clicks mouse))

158

 

((screen rocket is launched and flies toward planet))

159

Com

shot sound as rocket hits planet and explodes

160

Jai

((thumb in mouth, right hand on mouse,

161

 

looks at screen and clicks mouse))

162

 

((screen rocket is launched and flies toward planet))

163

Com

shot sound as rocket hits planet and explodes

164

Jed

((pushes truck back slightly, while looking at screen))

165

Jai

((thumb in mouth, right hand on mouse,

166

 

looks at screen and clicks mouse))

167

 

((screen rocket is launched and flies toward planet))

168

Com

shot sound as rocket hits planet and explodes

169

Jai

((still watching screen, pushes truck towards speakers))

170

Jai

((thumb in mouth, right hand on mouse,

171

 

looks at screen, and clicks mouse))

172

 

((screen rocket is launched and flies toward planet))

173

Com

shot sound as rocket hits planet and explodes

174

Jai

((still watching screen, thumb in mouth, right hand on

175

 

mouse, clicks mouse))

176

 

((screen rocket is launched and flies toward planet))

177

Com

shot sound as rocket hits planet and explodes

178

Jed

((left hand, moves truck forward, towards himself))

179

 

I’m going a:way

Extract 4 begins with Jed driving his truck up to the speakers, announcing his arrival (line 148). He continues by moving the truck slightly and moving his hand on and off the truck. Jed looks towards the computer screen twice, each time after the rocket is launched (lines 155, 164). Despite a brief glance at this action, Jai continues to play the computer game and does not initiate talk with Jed, nor does he engage in any actions to include Jed. Finally, in line 179, Jed announces that he’s going away, but he continues to stay and watch.

Jed has primed the toy truck to be close to the speaker. His gaze suggests his orientation to the screen, but he does not actually initiate any actions that make possible the loading of the sound onto the truck. His rubbish dumping displays knowledge of pretence, but he did not engage in the gun game. These actions suggest that he was ready to engage in the game, but, as Jai did not become involved again, Jed did not pursue this activity. For Jed, the gun object could be observed within the social world when Jai was initiating that activity, but not alone. As Bruni (2005) points out, objects ‘always stand in relation to a social world, so that ‘observing … means looking at the relations of which it is part, the contexts in which it is located, [and] the practices that construct it socially’ (p. 362). In other words, objects are held together through social engagement and practices (Suchman, 2000). For Jed, he engaged in the gun activity using the strategies devised by Jai. When invited by Jai to do this without his involvement, Jed did not continue this activity. A changed relationship and context, the self-withdrawal of the player and initiator of the game, meant the local conditions had changed, resulting in the practice stopping.

3.2 Discussion

Within the episode examined here, this interaction sequentially shows the integration of spontaneous activity and fantasy play, to reframe the computer speaker as a resource/machine for ‘making guns’ to attach to the toy truck; there was no actual gun or object used as a gun. Both participants accomplished the collaborative activity with the elder brother pointing and demonstrating what to do and the younger brother imitating and elaborating on these suggested actions. The younger boy’s actions demonstrate his acceptance and uptake of his elder brother’s idea for the game. When the younger brother attempted to put his truck on the keyboard, this was shown to belong to a class of actions that are illegal (Sacks, 1995). Both boys strategically used the arenas of ‘pretend’ and ‘real’; such actions do not suggest that they could not separate fantasy from reality, but rather they were able to interact and make sense of what each was doing in frames of reality and of pretence. The episode shows how objects are not incidental to the character of the game or activity, but their purposes can be assessed and remade in a multitude of ways to accomplish social interaction.

The social organisation of children’s spontaneous activities typically has been described as play or games, viewed from perspectives that investigated why children engage in the activities of play and the purposes of play (Fleer, 2013; Garvey, 1990). As a consequence, the focus has not been on how the interaction was accomplished as a mutually constructed event, and thus what has not been attended to are ‘the details of what children actually do and say…, or to the nature of the organization of social action in play, including its “complexity”’ (Whalen, 1995, p. 317). Within this approach, even less attention has been given to children’s use of objects in these activities, particularly their use of technology resources within the social organisation of activities.

The analysis discussed in this paper documents empirically what has been accomplished through interaction within the activity. As Sacks (1995) points out, ‘children’s games are describables, and in deeply interesting ways’ (Vol. 1, pp. 497–498). Such describables include how children ‘display their ongoing engagement with the game as well as their competences in recognizing, reproducing and creatively reshaping the available linguistic resources in their own activities’ (Piirainen-Marsh & Tainio, 2009, p. 167). These complexities are evident in how this game was played. Before Jed arrived, Jai’s computer game consisted of:

  1. 1.

    Locating the target word on the screen.

  2. 2.

    Using the mouse to click on the rocket that will ‘hit’ the planet that has the word that matches the target word on the screen. When this happens, a whooshing sound is heard on the computer speakers.

  3. 3.

    Being alert to the new target word that will appear.

After Jed’s arrival with a toy truck, Jai initiated a new activity that consisted of:

  1. 1.

    Locating the target word on the screen.

  2. 2.

    Using the mouse to click on the rocket that will “hit” the planet that has the word that matches the target word on the screen. When this happens, a whooshing sound is heard on the computer speakers.

  3. 3.

    Explaining the steps of the game as he grabs the actual sound.

  4. 4.

    Handing over the imaginary sound to his brother to attach as an imaginary gun to the toy truck.

  5. 5.

    Being alert to the new target word that will appear.

These additional activities required focused attention on the computer screen, talking through the steps, accurate manipulation and fine-tuning by clicking on the mouse with one hand and also grabbing the sound from the speaker with his other.

Objects, including the sound itself as well as the speakers, mouse and the toy truck, became strategic and contingent resources to undertake the game. The boys used the pretend and real objects of the computer game and speakers within complex content-specific practices. Actual sounds, designed for one purpose (playing a phonics game), had been overtaken by the boy’s own social agenda, that of making toy guns from that sound. The pretend objects located within this physical space could be noticed as such only within this particular play activity that the boys had collaboratively constructed. The boys’ interactions made possible the use of existing physical objects with pretend objects, all constructed within a network of action, practices and shared meaning-making.

4 Conclusion

Investigating children’s engagement in spontaneous activities highlights how relational encounters are shaped. As Shotter points out, these encounters are ‘so momentary and fleeting, so intricate and elaborate, so spontaneous and immediate, that we find it difficult to attend to them’ (1996, p. 404). Close observation afforded through repeated viewing of video-recorded children’s activities offers insights that are not otherwise possible.

We saw how the children acted spontaneously with each other to create their own shared local meanings out of the sounds and activity at hand. Yet, it is possible that future encounters may be implicated from the relational encounters of this one. A mutually shared and displayed understanding of what the play objects are is a necessary relevant condition for the game (Theobald, 2013). This investigation of young children’s engagement in spontaneous activities involving objects provides an understanding of how children use talk and embodied action to orient their actions to take into account the observed qualities of objects. In this instance, the boys formulated their actions in situationally relevant ways that involved fantasy and incorporated them into the ongoing interaction.

Examining the moments sequentially shows the integration of spontaneous activity and fantasy play, to reframe the computer speaker as a resource/machine for ‘making guns’ to attach to the toy truck; there was no actual gun or object used as a gun. Both participants accomplished the collaborative activity with the elder brother pointing and demonstrating what to do and the younger brother imitating and elaborating on these suggested actions. Evidence of the serious nature of children’s pretend worlds shows how children take advantage of their pretend role of authority to construct their social orders. Real and pretend arenas of action show depth and insight of children’s talk in their pretend play and provide exciting possibilities for the study of children’s activities and social worlds.