Mitä varhaiskasvattajat tekevät päiväkodin lapsiryhmissä?

Targets. The purpose of this Master's Thesis is to clarify how the tasks of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) educators are shared during the first half of the day when their work is focused on a group of children. In this study, it was examined how the activities of the ECEC educators at daycare are related to the activities of the children in, among other things, basic care situations, eating and different play situations. The theoretic basis of the study consists of documents guiding the ECEC education, the child's growth and development, the ECEC pedagogy and the communication skills of the educators. The adults, who are close to the child, must create a safe environment which supports the child's growth and development, and where the child can grow and develop, play and learn with confidence. In the theory section, the child's involvement and small group activities at the daycare were examined, too. Methods. The research material is based on the observation material of daycare collected from the municipalities, which were involved in the Orientation Project (Reunamo, 2014). The material was collected in spring 2010 in Uusimaa and Hämeenlinna. The total of 892 children, aged 1–7 year, from 65 different day care, ECEC or family care groups participated in this study. The observations were systematically made in spring 2010, and they were made by the kindergarten teachers who participated in the study. This study focuses on the ECEC educator, who is closest to the child during the observation period. By observing the activity of the educators we learn about their behaviour in different situations. This study represents a quantitative study of the activities of ECEC educators of daycare. Results and conclusions. This study showed that the educators are the closest to the children of age 1-3 years. As the children grow, the time of interaction with one or more children reduces. The study found that the educators very seldom play an interactive role in the children's games. 36.5% of the educators leave the children to play by themselves or other children inside. The children received most of the attention of the adults in different teaching situations. Indoors, the play activities directed by the educators represented 2% of the daily activities. The main part of the play was directed and selected by the children by themselves, the part of the guided outdoors play was 3%.