European Early Childhood Education Research Journal

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Humour: A different kind of play Eleni Loizou a a University of Cyprus,

Online Publication Date: 01 January 2005 To cite this Article: Loizou, Eleni (2005) 'Humour: A different kind of play', European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 13:2, 97 - 109 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/13502930585209701 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13502930585209701

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European Early Childhood Education Research Journal Vol. 13, No. 2 2005

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Humour: A Different Kind of Play ELENI LOIZOU University of Cyprus

SUMMARY: This study investigates" young children's humourous activity as a form of play and considers the implications on their cognitive development and learning. The study was conducted in an infant room o f a university based group child care center and multiple qualitative data collection methods" were used. The findings o f this study suggest that during humourous events children are involved in play activity such as: a) play with materials; b) play with language," c) pretend play; d) physical play, and theseJorms of play are then turned into humourous events due to the creativity that children exert during such activities. Also, children were involved in routines that they then turned into plaxful humourous events. This article asserts that there are different socio-cognitive attributes, such as social interaction, creative thinking and metacognitive experience to be considered when investigating the relationship of play, creativity and humour.

R[TSUME. Cette ~tude porte sur l'humour des jeunes enJants en tant que Jbrme de jeu et ses implications sur le d~veloppement cognitif et les apprentissages. L "Otude a OtOconduite dans un service d 'accueil dejeunes enfants d'une universitY, h l 'aide de m~thodes qualitatives de recueil de donn~es. Les r~sultats de cette Otude sugg~rent que lors d'Opisodes humoristiques, les enfants sont impliqu~s dans des jeux : avec des objets, avec le langage, symboliques ou physiques, et que ces formes dejeux sont tran~formOs en OvOnements humoristiques grace h la cr~ativit~ que les enfants d~ploient Iors de ces activit~s. Les enfants sont ~galement impliquOs dans des routines qu 'ils transforment en activit~s ludiques humoristiques. Cet article propose qu 'un ensemble d'attributs sociocognitifs tels que l "interaction sociale, la pens~e crOative et l "experience m~tacognitive, est h prendre en considOration lorsqu 'on ~tudie les relations entrejeu, crOativit~ et humour.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG." Die vorliegende Studie untersucht, wie achtzig Kindergartenkinder bildhafi umgesetzten Humor erklgiren. Die Kinder wurden gefragt, ob sie eine spezifische Bildvorlage J'~r lustig hielten. Anschliessend wurden sie gebeten, Griinde fiir ihre Antworten zu geben. Zugrundegelegt wurde dieser Studie das Verstdndnis von Humor als Inkongruenz, daher wurden die Daten naeh den Stufen der Humorentwieklung von McGhee und den Kategorien des bildhafien Humors von Braun iiberpriift. Die Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass Kindergartenkinder dazu J~ihig sind, in einem htstigen Bild die Haupt- und/oder Nebeninkongruenzen zu erkennen und dariiber zu argumentieren. Beziiglich dieser Variablen liessen sich keine Geschlechtsunterschiede feststellen. Diese Ergebnisse erweitern die entwicklungsorientierten Ansgitze von McGhee undBrown undjeahren eine neue Kategorie der Beschreibung von Kinderreaktionen auf bildhaft umgesetzten Humor ein - die Kategorie der multiplen begrifflichen visueIlen Inkongruenzen (the Multiple Conceptual Visual Incongruities category). In dieser Studie wird weiterhin behauptet, dass der Gebrauch von Bildvorlagen mit mehrfachen Inkongruenzen ein ausgezeichnetes Mittel fiir die Erforschung der begriffliehen Fgihigkeiten von Kindern darstellt.


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RESUMEN: Este estudio investiga actividades humor&tic'as infantiles como una forma dejuego y considera las implicaciones de ~stas en el aprendizaje y desarrollo cognitivo de los nihos. El estudio fue llevado a cabo en un centro infantil universitario, basado en euidado por grupos, utilizando mhltiples m~todos de recolecci6n de data cualitativa. Los resultados de este estudio sugieren que durante eventos humoristicos, los nihos est6n involucrados en actividades dejuego tales como: a) juegos con materiales, b) juegos con el lenguaje, c) juegos fantasiosos, y d) juegos fisicos', y estas formas dejuego se convierten luego en eventos humoristicos debido a la creatividad que los nihos demuestran durante dichas actividades. Adem6s los nihos participaban en rutinas diarias que luego convertlan en eventos de juego humoristico. Este artk'ulo afirma que existen diferentes atributos cognitivos, tales eomo interacci6n social, pensamiento creativo y experiencia meta cognitiva que deben ser considerados al investigar la relaci6n entre eljuego, la creatividad y el humor.

Keywords: Humour; Incongruity; Play; Creativity; Playfulness.

Literature review This study considers the way children develop and learn from a socio-cognitive perspective, where social and cognitive aspects of development are important elements in sustaining and enhancing children's growth and learning. Social cognition in this study is seen as a way in which the social and cognitive aspects of development interact together, one leading the other at times in a spiral bringing children to a more advanced space. Research supports the belief that children are active constructors of their knowledge and that at the same time social contexts influence and are influenced by the child's construction of meaning (Vygotsky, 1962.). The construction of knowledge and development are viewed as a social event through interaction and negotiation with others. From the social-constructivist point of view, knowledge is sustained by social processes; children construct knowledge among themselves through their daily interactions and the course of their social life (Burr, 1995). Children's development and learning, and more specifically children's humour, is better understood within the context of their daily interactions. When children interact with each other and their caregivers, when they produce social realities, their behaviors are consequential. "Interaction is consequential since meaning is attributed to it" (Lutfiyya, 1987, p.l 1). Social contexts are extremely important to the creation of knowledge. More specifically, Vygotsky talks about artifacts, those characteristics of the environment which have been created by the activities of previous generations and are encountered in interacting with others. Children learn to use these cultural artifacts and interact with the society and the culture in a way that helps them construct knowledge and expand their experiences (Wells, 1997). From another perspective, it is accepted that there is some kind of mental work that takes place during the production and appreciation of humourous events. "...every joke or cartoon can presumably be said to require some minimal level of cognitive development for comprehension of the humour depicted, given familiarity with the stimulus elements involved" (McGhee, 1983, p. 114). It is necessary for children to be aware of the context of one idea and how that context changes, in order to be able to enjoy the funniness of the situation. Moreover, it is argued that in order for children to consider something as funny, or understand an incongruity, they have to be able to find a resolution to the specific incongruity and problem solve it. In other words, the incongruity creates a "problem" in the mind of children and when they are capable of solving that problem, thus using cognitive mental processes, they can enjoy the humour created in the situation. Kuchner ( 1991 ) in her attempt to talk about the humour of young children, emphasises different perspectives in the literature. "'Humour occurs when there is a restructuring of a pattern of elements, [it] requires the same type of cognitive insight as does creative problem-solving" (p. 1). These complex but interrelated perspectives look at infants as social beings with the ability to communicate, socialise and construct knowledge within a social and playful environment.


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Humour is a blend of imagination, creativity, and play. Tower and Singer (1980) state how imaginative play and positive emotionality in early childhood lend themselves to humour development. Children develop the ability to put information into schemata in a qualitative way (e.g. lifting a seashell to the doll's mouth, pretending to give her some tea), thus what is known from past experience is used in a symbolic way. "Play [is] a means by which children's development and learning are initiated and through which development is achieved and learning is mastered" (Bergen, 1998, p.7). Recent research demonstrates that play helps young children to learn and understand themselves and their world; to affect their environment and shape their world; and to master important skills and concepts (physical, social and intellectual); (Caruso, 1988; Kane & Furth, 1993; Packer, 1994; Stevenson, 1989, Strandell, 1997). Carton and Allen (2003) suggest that "'play is a socialising experience that allows young children to develop positive, caring attitudes towards others and to build effective skills for interacting with others" (p. 213). Moreover, Vygotsky situates play in a sociocultural context suggesting the importance of adult and peer scaffolding in the overall development and learning of children. Play provides children with the opportunity to function on an outer edge of their zone of proximal development and to go beyond what is prescribed (Vygotsky, 1978, Holzan, 1997a) "'It is now widely assumed that play and exploration have a central role in the adaptability, learning, cognitive development, socio-emotional development, and early education of the young child" (Caruso, 1988, p. 63). Humour is closely related to play. McGhee and Goldstein (1983) view humour as a form of playful activity, that exists between two people who have already formed a relationship and know each other, and that is socially regulated. Also, McGhee (1984) proposes that humour is a category of play and it "is considered a form of intellectual play; that is, play with ideas" (McGhee, 1984, p. 219). Thus humour shares many of the properties of"make- believe play" and it "results from the playful production of fantasy incongruities" (McGhee, 1984, p. 221). There is evidence that children who have imaginative play skills in the pre-school years will develop a sense of humour along with flexibility and creativity in the later years (Dansky & Silverman, 1975, Getzels & Jackson, 1970, Lieberman, 1977). A child who can create a make believe situation, making a horse fly or cooking a disgusting soup for the monster to eat so he will go away, will be able to invent and comprehend incongruities, important aspects of humour. Thus there is a relationship between children's representational abilities and their ability to produce and appreciate humour. McGhee (1972) talks about 'fantasy assimilation" where children assimilate an inconsistency, a mismatch of information (e.g. a giant dinosaur being carried by a baby dinosaur) into existing relevant cognitive structures, schemata, without attempting to accommodate those schemata to fit the inconsistency. Children are creating a different version of existing schemata in order to accept, understand and produce incongruity. The creative aspects of children's humour are part of the bigger spectrum of development. Kuchner (199l) says that "Humour draws from the same well as other forms of creativity or creative problem solving" (p. 4). In order for creativity to take place, children need to have developed divergent thinking that is, be able to associate ideas through different directions. Creative problem solving involves bringing together two domains of thought that had not been related together before (Koestler, 1964). Humour requires this kind of cognitive insight, and incongruity humour is based on the child's "ability to manipulate symbols at several levels simultaneously" (Kuchner, 1991, p. 5). Moreover, Ziv (1989) talks about "cognitive playfulness" referring to the playfulness involved in humour which is closely related to what creativity tests measure- divergent thinking. He also makes the point that humour and creativity involve more than cognitive processes. The ability to move from reality to the imaginary, from seriousness to funniness, are elements of "cognitive playfulness" which are essential to creativity and humour (Ziv, 1989). The purpose of this study is to investigate the following research question: What is the relationship between play and humour in humourous events produced by six 15-21 month old children during their daily activities in their child care center?


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Methodology Setting: The infant room The infant room has a child-centered, play-based curriculum with a flexible schedule. Caregivers set the room every day based on the number of children, their interests, age, abilities and developmental milestones they are working on. A big part of the infant curriculum is eating and sleeping due to the age of the children; feeding is a ritual in the infant room and there is a great deal of socialisation at the table. Play: Free play is the main activity of the infant curriculum. Children are involved in play whether that takes the form of eating, diaper changing, washing the dishes, putting away toys, painting, reading a book, climbing in boxes, etc. Playfulness is the key to the atmosphere that prevails in the room. Caregivers and children are being playful and participate in activities that might be considered "work" with a playful objective. Children have the opportunity to play with their caregivers and their peers. They can choose from a variety of materials with which they can play. There are times that children play without the use of materials, alone or in the company of a caregiver or a peer (e.g. physical play). Children are the ones who elicit the interactions and caregivers are there to assist, encourage, verbally describe children's actions and promote social interactions. Children often invite caregivers into their play, ask them to watch and also ask for help. Peer play interactions come about mainly when the older children, under the guidance of the caregivers, invite younger children to participate in an activity.

Participants The participants of this study included six children, 3 males and 3 females, between the ages of 1521 months at the beginning of the study, and their caregivers; two full-time children, and four parttime children. Five of the children were continuing their attendance to the center and one was new to the program but had attended child care before. The specific children were chosen because of their age, younger than two and older than fifteen months, and their time schedule. There was a need for observing the children as often as possible since humour did not take place very often. With the use of a consent form the parents approved the participation of their children in the study. The consent form informed the parents about the aims of the study and the implications on their children. Also parents were encouraged to informally share events with the researcher about their children's experiences with humour. The caregivers who participated in the study were 2 full-time caregivers and 5 part-time student caregivers. All of the caregivers had or were working on their Masters degree either in Early Childhood Education/EC Special Education or Psychology. The age range of the caregivers was 23-35.

Procedures Non participant observations Non participant observations included 37 hours of observation, 232 anecdotes which included either smiles and/or laughter, during morning and afternoon free play time.

Participant observations Reflective Journal. During the collection of the data the researcher (author) worked in the infant room part time, 20 hours a week. On those two days after work she kept a journal of the "humour-


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ous events" that she had observed during the day that related to humour in reference to the six children studied. Through participant observation, 236 events, which included smiles and/or laughter, were recorded. Videotaping. Children were videotaped for approximately 13 hours during their daily activity with no specific focus. After each day of videotaping the researcher kept a log of all that was happening in each tape and extracted the "humourous events." Document review. The daily communication charts were the forms which caregivers used to record the children's daily activities, including feeding and napping comments, as well as play and developmental attributes. Overall, 144 anecdotes which included smiles and/or laughter were recorded from the document review. Semi-structured Interviews. The interviews were conducted with all the staff of the infant room, including both full-time and part-time staff, and the student caregivers. The interviews gave the caregivers the opportunity to define their views on humour, share information about the children, their production and appreciation of humour, as well as talk about how they responded to humour produced by the six focal children.

Data analysis In this study a humourous event, the unit of analysis, is an event between two or more people that involves incongruous activity of some sort, something out of the ordinary that violates the existing patterns of the specific event, resulting in smiles and/or laughter. A number of 100 anecdotes were used as the best examples of humourous events since they represented the definition ofa humourous event as described above. Predetermined categories from a larger study on humour (Loizou, 2002) were used as the framework of this study. These included a. Incongruous use of materials, where children were aware of the appropriate use of the materials but they intentionallyused them in an altered way or appreciated events where peers misused materials; 2. Funny words/sounds/gestures, where children produced or appreciated humourous sounds, gestures or words that were produced intentionally or not; YIncongruous actions, where children produced or appreciated actions that were out of the ordinary and violated existing schemata. All humourous events were then categorised in terms of the play activity that they included. The first level of analysis included two major categories of play activity: a. play activity, where children were involved in playing with different materials, peers or caregivers, language, pretending etc. and b. routines turned into play activity. Table 1 represents the first level of analysis, the play activity within a humourous event. Table 1: Play Activity within a Humourous Event I st Level of Analysis Humourous events (Incongruous use of materials, incongruous actions, funny words/sounds)

Play

Routines turned into play

The second level of analysis involved the search of specific play activity within the two major categories. This led to different subcategories. The play category included the following kinds of



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play activity that were part of a humourous event. These were: a. play with materials where children were involved in a play activity and used different materials, either toys or everyday materials in a bumourous ways (e.g. pretending to use a sponge as hat instead of using to dean their eating space); b. physical play where children were using their body in a humourous way to explore their physical abilities (e.g. bending over and looking between their legs smiling and waiting for a response from an adult or a peer); c. pretend play where children were involved in different kinds of pretend activity in a humourous way (e.g. running to the bathroom and sitting on the toilet with the diaper on, pretending and saying that they were doing pee-pees); and d. play with the language where children used funny sounds or words (e.g. purposefully mispronouncingthe word "'twchives'" instead of chives). For the second category, routines turned into play, the more specific play activity that was developed was play with materials. Table 2 provides a description of the 2ndlevel of analysis, the categories of play activity within a humourous event. Table 2 Categories of Play Activity within a Humourous Event 2 "a Level of Analysis Play

Routines turned into play

Play with materials Physical play Pretend play Play with language

Play with materials

Finally, table 3 gives a description of the third level of analysis which includes the attempt to find the relationship of humour and play. The predetermined categories of humour are paralleled with the newly developed categories of play activity within the humourous events. There is a clear parallelism of the different categories pointing out the specific play activity involved during humourous events. It is essential to point out that in the center of the table the terms creativity and social interaction are highlighted. Creativity is a term that has multiple definitions. For this study it is important to consider creativity as a way of thinking or acting that is original, unique and alternative (Mayesky, 1998), as well as "'adaptability and flexibility of thought" (Kemple & Nissenberg, 2000, p. 67). It is clear that during play activity children used original thinking, acted alternatively (e.g. using a smock as a skirt, or pretending to do pee-pees with the diaper on) thus turned their play activity into a humourous event. Moreover, the term social interaction is used to emphasise the fact that a humourous event happens with the interaction of two or more people. As McGhee (1989) states "'humour cannot be really understood without placing it in the framework of social exchange" p. 18. Table 3 Parallelism of Humourous and Play Activity 3 ra Level of Analysis

HUMOUROUS ACTIVITY

PLAY ACTIVITY

Incongruous use of materials

Play with materials Routines turned into play

Incongruous actions

Physical play

Funny words/sounds

Play with language

Incongruous actions and use of materials

Pretend play


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Findings The findings of this study suggest that children are involved in different kinds of play activity when they are producing a humourous event. There are two frames of play: a. Play and b. Routines turned into play. In the frame of play the following play activities take place: play with materials, pretend play, play with language, and physical play. As one of the caregivers of the study suggests "a lot of humour revolves around play.'" In the routines turned into play the children turn everyday routines and rules into play by using materials in a different way they are supposed to. The different play activities will be presented and supported by vignettes from the children's everyday experience in their child care and by some comments from their caregivers.

Play Incongruous' use o f materials which involves plav with materials An important component of the curriculum is the materials within the infant room and the infant's world in general. The children of the study were observed to participate in activities during which they used different materials in their play. There were limited externally imposed rules which provided a fertile environment for children to be creative and thus humourous with the materials and their space. Children made their own choices as to what to play and how to use the materials. The following vignettes show that. Adonis puts the block container on his head. He walks around bumping and raising the container up smiling. Virginia (caregiver) looks at him laughing saying "Adonis you can't see with that on your head." Adonis walks some more, bumps somewhere and decides to take it off, smiling. Akiko is playing on the floor by the pretend play house area. She takes the pretend dishes and cups from the small table and places them in the pretend play sink. She then takes the sink-white rectangular container- out of the cupboard, empties all the dishes and cups on the floor and sits in it. She looks at the caregiver and smiles. A caregiver comments on the use of materials and describes, Katie put[s] the smock over her head and push [es] it down as a skirt . . . . She truly understands that the smock doesn't belong on her waist as a skirt and she laughs at it. That is, understanding that it's funny. That it looks funny, it looks different. The children were aware of the appropriate use of the different materials in their play and they incongruously used them in an attempt to be funny. The materials used by children were part of their play activity such as scarves, balls, hats, cones and then there were instances were the materials used were part of the everyday activities and routines, such as bibs, sponges, utensils, smocks etc.

Incongruous actions which involve pretend play Children were involved in pretend play activity where they used different materials, pretended to do something out of the ordinary or be someone else involving a caregiver or a peer in their activity. The activity usually took place on the floor where children were free to move around and had easy access to all the different materials in the room. In the vignettes that follow the children were involved in pretending to have a boo-boo (a knock), to want to pee with the diaper on and to use yogurt as shampoo. All these activities involved an interaction between certain children (the


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producers of the activity and the humourous event), specific materials and the caregiver who was at most times the appreciator of the humourous event. Abigail gets the ice-cube that Kylie used for the boo-boo. Emily asks Abigail if she has a boo-boo too. Abigail says "'yeah'" and points to her cheek smiling. Then she sits down on a pillow and uses the ice on her toes looking at the caregiver smiling. Then Abigail steps on the ice-cubes saying "cold" and looking at the caregiver, smiling. Emily looks back at her smiling and saying, "'It's cold.'" Kylie runs to the bathroom and sits on the toilet with her diaper on. The caregiver follows her in the bathroom and looks at her. Kylie says "'pee-pees'" swinging her arms from side to side smiling and looking at the caregiver. The caregiver looks at her and smiles back at her. Adonis picks a cone and places it on his head and says "hat" The caregiver looks at him and laughs out loud making Adonis laugh even harder. One of the caregivers describes an event she experienced with one of the children suggesting a combination of pretend play and humourous activity. Adonis, 1 remember, put his yogurt on his head and was using it like shampoo. He knows that he is probably not supposed to be putting yogurt on his head but he thinks that is funny, and it is funny. We laughed, we all thought it was funny. As the data suggest the blending of a social interaction, the use of materials and creativity lead to the production of a humourous event through the medium of play.

Funny words"and sounds which involvedplaying with language The children of this study were involved in playing with language and sounds in different ways. In their attempt to learn, to imitate and to construct meaning of the world, they used language in different ways. There were instances where children were aware of the different words that were supposed to be used but used them in an incongruous way to turn their play into a humourous activity. One of the caregivers comments on the issue. "'Adonis does a lot of play with language." Adonis created a repeated "joke" with the word "chives." In the infant room there was a basket with empty containers of spices that children opened, smelled and closed the tops, enjoying the activity. Once Adonis was holding the empty chives container, he smelled it and took it to his caregiver. The caregiver commented on the smell saying that it smelled like chives. Adonis attempted to say the word, mispronounced it and said "tchwives." The caregiver smiled and corrected him. But then he repeated the word in the same way and laughed as the caregiver kept correcting him. This humourous incident continued for a whole week, and Adonis would go to different caregivers, point to the container and mispronounce the word chives and laugh. And then there was the most "'serious form" of word play, the joke that Katie knew and often shared with her caregivers. Katie was aware of the context of a joke, that it was something that people had to laugh at but was not able to comprehend the incongruity of the joke. The fact that she had an older sister who was into jokes at the time provided the framework for Kylie to learn and use the following knock-knock joke. Knock -knock Who' s there? Boo! Boo who? Don't cry. I love you!


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Incongruous actions which involve physical plav Physical play is the most common form of play observed in infants. In their attempt to explore the world they constantly use and test their physical abilities. The most common activity that was used in the infant room included children raising their bottom and looking between their legs expecting a peer or a caregiver to look from the other side and comment on their actions. There were multiple instances where the caregivers were the ones peeking from the opposite side saying "'hello" to the child and other situations where a peer would copy the child who initiated the action and they would both be in the same position looking at each other, laughing out loud. A caregiver in the infant room further supports the above findings by commenting that "some [children] use physical ways to express humour, some are much more expressive, animated with their bodies.'"

Routines turned into play Incongruous use o f materials when following a routine In the infant room there are not any restrictive rules but there are certain routines that the children are very familiar with and they use them on a daily basis. Some of these include wearing a smock to play in the water, cleaning up their space before and after they finish eating, wearing a bib during eating time. The children enjoy turning these routines into playful events and eventually into humourous events. The following vignettes showed children's ability to violate their caregivers" expectations, incongruously use different materials and thus through the medium of play, the routines are turned into humourous events. Charles is at the table. Emily (caregiver) gives him a sponge and asks him to clean up his space. He puts the sponge on his head, stops and looks at Emily. Emily looks at him and smiles. She gets the sponge, and asks him if he thinks the sponge is a hat. He says "yeah" and smiles. Then Emily asks him if he thinks he is a funny boy and he says "yeah" smiling. Adonis would get the sponge to clean up his space at the table and raise it close to his mouth, raise his eyes up, look at Emily (caregiver), smile, and put the sponge in his mouth. Emily would smile and say "you know that is not for your mouth" and then he would smile and keep having the sponge in his mouth. Akiko is at the table drawing with Trevor and Adonis. Florence (caregiver) looks at her eating the crayons and tells her to use her crayon on the paper. Akiko looks at the caregiver and smiles. Then she puts the crayon in her mouth. Florence gets up and walks to Akiko's side and takes the crayon out of her mouth. Then Florence puts the crayon on the table and moves Akiko back to sit on the chair. Akiko looks at the crayon and then at Florence, smiles, picks up the crayon and puts it in her mouth.

Discussion This study suggests that children who are involved in humourous activity are involved in a different form of play, one which is beyond exploration. When children are being humourous it means that they have already explored the different possibilities of using materials and/or their bodies and are now in the process of discovering alternative uses (Pellegrini 1984-1985). Bergen (1998) talks about McGhee's point of view on exploration and play. McGhee (1984) states that a distinction between exploratory play and playful play is exhibited by 2 year-olds. Exploratory play is interesting but not humourous; playful play is associated with incongruity and has humourous elements...when [children] find deliber-


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ate incongruities funny, they are giving evidence of their cognitive development and beginning ability to play with ideas. (p. 74) The findings of this study suggest a relationship between play, humour and creative thinking. "'Play provides a domain for creative expression [humour] and the encouragement of the creative processes" (Saracho, 2002, p. 435). Young children manipulate the world, objects, adults and themselves in a non-figurative way during their play. They question the "mental representation of reality" (Saracho, 2002, p. 434) through playful play, they construct alternative representations (incongruous activity) (Dansky & Sylverman, 1973). Many researchers have come to agree that there is a link between play and creative thinking abilities (Russ & Kaugars, 2001, Russ, Robins, Christiano, 1999, Saracho, 1998). Moreover, the findings of this study suggest that young children have the ability to use creativity in their play, with materials, language and their bodies, thus translating their play activity into humourous events. This finding is supported by Yrevlas, Matsouka and Zachopoulou (2003) work which suggests that the children who have a predisposition for play tend to be physically creative and produce novel ideas or movement patterns. More specifically Trevlas et al. (2003) suggest that "'the child who engages in creative processes with fluency and flexibility in ideas and solutions productions shows a number of psychological characteristics, such as positive attitude, high physical and cognitive activation, disposition for communication, joy, imagination, curiosity and humour.'" (p. 540) In addition H~innik~inen (2001) suggests that children create and recreate their culture during playful actions and such actions resemble play and include fantasy, humour, joking, exaggeration and laughter. This study adds to this information by suggesting that young children under the age of two have the cognitive abilities, to play with ideas, to deconstruct preformed structures and construct alternative uses of objects and be incongruously creative, thus humourous during play. Moreover child care experience provided children with the opportunity to explore the world and learn to be a member of a group. When children had acquired the rules and routines of their environment, developed secure relationships with their caregivers, they begun to violate them though play. They turned those routines and rules into play, knowing what they were doing was not "appropriate". This is further supported by Garvey's (1977) and Dunn's (1989) work which suggests that children have fun violating rules they have learned and test the limits and exercise control over their relationships. Moreover H~nnik~iinen (2001) says that "'it is through playful actions that children develop ideas, analyse and seek knowledge about the more concrete aspects of their world" and that humour is "an essential component of playful actions" (p. 133). In addition Ziv (1989) suggests the idea of"cognitive playfulness" where children change frames of mind, from a serious frame of mind to a more joking one. Moreover, the findings of this study suggest that one can consider humour as a psychological tool which helps enhance creative thinking. Children used humour as a psychological tool (Vygotsky, 1978) to creatively play with certain routines. "The psychological tools are not merely facilitators or auxiliaries: their use allows (or even requires) qualitatively different functioning "revolutions" in thinking associated with changes in psychological tools" (Meadows, 1993, p. 244). The children of this study used humour to view daily routines from a different perspective altering them into playful humourous events. As Shepardson (1999) suggests "'psychological tools provide children with a lens, a way of seeing phenomena, as well as talking, acting, and thinking about phenomena" (p. 629). Humourous events were a form of play which arose primarily in the interactions between the children and their caregivers. For example when children were at the table eating, they would use aspects of that social event to create or appreciate humourous events, by misusing the sponge, their food, their utensils etc. Moreover, whenever children produced a humourous event they expected their caregivers to comment, smile or laugh with them. Shepardson (1998) suggests that "'individuals gain access to psychological tools by being part ofa sociocultural milieu" In addition, when children violate certain rules, translating simple routines into play, smiling and laughing they


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are advancing metacognitively. "'Even toddlers show impressive implicit knowledge [and it is] especially evident in their monitoring of their own cognitive abilities" (Siegler, 1991, p. 191 ). There are different socio-cognitive attributes, such as social interaction, relationship development, creative thinking and metacognitive experience, that need to be considered when investigating the relationship of play, creativity and humour. The social environment, caregivers, peers, and the play-based curriculum provided the necessary forum for children to construct, deconstruct social and cognitive structures that further enhance their learning and development.

Recommendations

Results from this study lead to the following suggestions. Make opportunities available for young children to share a social experience in a group care setting in order to become part of a community of learners which would be the foundation of their development and learning. Provide children with the necessary time and space to explore their environment, test the rules and their abilities, and use the materials in new and creative ways. Moreover, children need the space to explore relationships (with adults and peers) in order to construct their own understanding of the framework under which they can be creative and playful. The underlying assumption of the above ideas is that the curriculum of such a setting is a playful one with an emphasis on free play activity which provides children with multiple choices and opportunities to explore their environment and with flexible adults that scaffold their experiences.

Conclusion

This study suggests that we need to consider younger children as capable of being members of a social group and developing the necessary cognitive abilities to play with ideas/concepts and switch from reality to an imaginary world, creating humour.

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