PLAYING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: FROM LEGAL DOCUMENTS TO THE TEACHER'S PERFORMANCE

This article deals with the importance of playing in Early Childhood Education, analyzing how teachers work with playing in their classes. This is a qualitative field research and descriptive analysis. The investigation was carried out in a Municipal Center for Early Childhood Education in the Southwest of Parana with data collection from questionnaires applied to teachers, followed by observations. The research showed that the teachers' practice shows contradictions with the theory explained by them, so it is understood that, despite being much discussed about playing, it is still necessary to guarantee means for quality playing to happen in practice, guaranteeing the integral development of children.