Is it permissible to play?

By Cleomar Gomes and Andresa Damaceno

The book portrays aspects of playfulness in the first year of primary school classrooms, seeking evidence of restrictions on play in order to prioritise aspects of content derived from reading, writing and arithmetic. To this end, the research was conducted using ethnographic methods, with four months spent investigating two schools in the city of Sinop, Mato Grosso. We used participant observation, photography and interviews with five parents, two teachers and ten pupils enrolled in the first year of primary school. The perception we obtained from the data analysis is that, through the eyes of children, play is a time for invention and discovery, with particularities and temporal issues that occur according to how the participants define them. Unfortunately, teachers of six-year-old children acknowledge the importance of play, but confess that in the classroom, where students spend four hours a day, playtime, as we might call it, has a set time for when it can happen, during physical education and at another time that the teachers decree: if there is time left over.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 6209512623
• ISBN13: 9786209512629
• Release Date: January 2026
• Publisher: Our Knowledge Publishing
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"