ABSTRACT
Children and young people’s lives are place-based, as they play, learn and socialise in places, often near their homes. As toddlers, they have a sense of the layout and activities that occur in their homes and communities, both inside and outside. As Green notes, play in familiar places, under beds or in constructed indoor dens, ensures imaginative meanings for places. Like their parents and grandparents before them, children also interact, play and learn in their community. They are part of what makes a place distinct, as Massey notes ‘space is never closed, never fixed, as space is always in the process of becoming as relations unfold’. Making connections with and through place is time well-spent. This process of slowing, even for a short time, provides space for curiosity, thought and reflection as learning experiences.
