Calling All Superheroes: Supporting and Developing Superhero Play in the Early Years

Calling All Superheroes highlights the enormous potential of superhero play in supporting learning and development in early childhood. Using examples from practice, it provides guidance on how to effectively manage and implement superhero play and set appropriate boundaries in early years settings and schools.

Illustrated with engaging photographs and case studies, the book gives ideas about how superhero play can be used to promote positive values and teach children essential life skills. Offering practical strategies and questions for reflection designed to facilitate further development, chapters address important topics and challenges such as:

• Child development, the characteristics of effective learning and the benefits of superhero play, including making sense of right and wrong and increasing moral awareness
• How to broach difficult themes like death, killing, weapons, aggressive play and gender-related issues
• Supporting children to recognise everyday heroes and how to find heroic abilities within themselves
• The role of the adults in managing superhero play, engaging parents and creating effective learning environments

Written by a leading expert with 20 years’ experience in the early years sector, this book is an essential resource for early years teachers, practitioners and anyone with a key interest in young children’s education and learning.

Tamsin Grimmer is an experienced consultant and trainer, a director of Linden Learning and a lecturer in early years at Bath Spa University. She is based in Wiltshire, UK.