#823: Negotiating Tensions as Sites of Learning: Teacher-Child Interactions During Mathematical Play

Play offers rich opportunities for young children to engage with mathematics, yet its classroom enactment often involves negotiating tensions between children’s autonomy and curricular expectations. Drawing on cultural-historical activity theory, this study proposes a framework for identifying teacher–child negotiations around rules, representational tools, and agendas and examines how such negotiation shapes opportunities for shared sense-making during math play. Our analysis identified three relational configurations that capture how these negotiations unfold: teacher-dominant coordination, parallel coordination, and joint improvisation. The framework provides methodological and pedagogical tools for examining and intervening playful math learning environments that center children’s agency and shared epistemic authorship.