by Ale Okada, Hannah Payne and Viviane Marques
CARE–KNOW–DO, Playful Ecologies and the Hundred Languages: Connecting Research on Play, Learning and Development
EARLI SIG 28 – Play, Learning and Development: A Research Community on Play and Human Development
The European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) established SIG 28 brings together researchers investigating the role of play and fun in learning and human development. The Special Interest Group was formally established at the end of 2021 and began its activities in 2022..
Photo 1: EARLI SIG 28, 2026
SIG 28 advances interdisciplinary research on the relationships between playful development and enjoyable learning. Its focus includes understanding how play and fun contribute to cognitive development, creativity, social and emotional learning, self-regulation and well-being, as well as exploring the role of play-based pedagogies across different educational contexts and challenges. Alongside this, the SIG works to foster international collaboration among researchers, support early-career researchers, promote dialogue between research, practice and policy, and contribute evidence that recognises the importance of play in children’s development, education and well-being.
Within this research landscape, questions about creativity, agency, imagination and meaningful engagement become central to understanding how learners develop and flourish.
Reggio Emilia: A Civic History of Learning Through Multiple Languages
Photo 2: Alexandra Okada, Rumpus co-Director, and Alessandra Landini, Principal in Reggio Emilia and member of the Board of Directors of Reggio Emilia Municipal Schools
The Reggio Emilia approach is one of the most influential educational traditions connected to creativity, participation and children’s expression. It is important to recognise, however, that Reggio Emilia is not simply a method; it emerged from a specific historical, cultural and civic context.
Its origins date back to post-war Italy. In 1945, families in Villa Cella, near Reggio Emilia, created a school through collective community action. Loris Malaguzzi became involved in this movement and later contributed to the development of the municipal early childhood education system in Reggio Emilia. The first municipal preschool opened in 1963, and infant–toddler centres developed following Italian legislation in 1971.
International recognition grew in 1991, when the Diana School in Reggio Emilia was highlighted for its innovative educational practices. The approach continues today through the work of educators, researchers and organisations such as Reggio Children, which supports professional development, research and international exchange.
The Hundred Languages of Children
The best-known idea associated with Loris Malaguzzi is the Hundred Languages of Children.
The concept expresses the idea that children have many ways of thinking, representing and communicating their understanding of the world — drawing, painting, sculpture, movement, music, storytelling, construction, scientific exploration and many other forms of expression.
The Hundred Languages challenges the idea that learning can be reduced to verbal and mathematical forms of achievement alone. Instead, it highlights the importance of recognising diverse forms of communication, creativity and meaning-making.
What is CARE–KNOW–DO?
CARE–KNOW–DO is a pedagogical framework developed by Alexandra Okada at The Open University and refined through a series of EU-funded research projects, including CONNECT and currently METEOR. It is now used across schools and universities internationally. The framework grew out of research on open schooling — an approach that links schools with universities, families and communities to address real-world socio-scientific issues, from biodiversity and health to climate change and artificial intelligence.

CARE-KNOW-DO organises learning into three connected dimensions:
- CARE invites learners to engage with issues they value — sustainability, justice, equity and well-being — foregrounding relationships and dignity.
- KNOW focuses on building critical, evidence-based understanding.
- DO invites learners to act: to communicate, collaborate and innovate in response to real problems.
Read together, these dimensions describe what we call playful ecologies of learning — flexible, participatory environments in which curiosity, enjoyment and meaningful action support inclusive and equitable literacy.
CARE–KNOW–DO and the Hundred Languages: A Reflection
Playful Ecologies for Inclusive, Equitable Literacy
The relationship between Reggio Emilia and CARE–KNOW–DO can be understood as a conceptual dialogue rather than a direct historical connection.
CARE–KNOW–DO shares with Reggio Emilia an interest in recognising learners as capable participants and valuing diverse ways of knowing and expressing ideas.
The connection can be explored through three dimensions:
CARE – Values and relationships
Reggio Emilia’s image of the child as capable, curious and an active participant connects with CARE’s emphasis on relationships, dignity, inclusion and well-being.
KNOW – Multiple ways of knowing
The Hundred Languages resonates with KNOW by highlighting multimodal learning, creativity and diverse forms of literacy.
DO – Learning through action
Reggio practices such as the atelier, project work and pedagogical documentation show how ideas become visible through exploration, making and reflection.
This interpretation suggests that CARE–KNOW–DO can provide a contemporary framework for exploring playful ecologies in which learning involves relationships, knowledge construction and meaningful action.
Read together, these three dimensions position CARE–KNOW–DO as a contemporary framework for playful ecologies: learning environments in which relationships, multiple ways of knowing and meaningful action reinforce one another. Like Reggio Emilia, the framework treats knowledge not as something to be stored but as something to be expressed, made visible and put to use.
Creativity, Thinking and Learning: Connections with Project Zero
These playful ecologies build on established traditions that challenge narrow definitions of intelligence and make learning visible for reflection — resonances of Gardner’s multiple intelligences and Perkins’ visible thinking can be traced in Reggio Emilia’s Hundred Languages and its pedagogical documentation. Yet the contribution of the model lies in synthesis: it gives practitioners a shared vocabulary for creativity, thinking and learning, grounded in and made visible through practice.
Fun, Play and Learning with the Rumpus Research Group

Photo 4: Rumpus International Research Group and METEOR UK Special Interest Group — Fun and AI in Learning, at Reggio Emilia. Hannah Payne, Viviane Marques and Alexandra Okada
Contemporary research on play continues to explore how joyful engagement, curiosity and meaningful participation shape learning experiences.
Within this broader conversation, the Rumpus International Research Group and the UK-based METEOR Special Interest Group examine the role of fun — and, increasingly, of AI — in learning. Their work asks how enjoyment, curiosity and playful engagement can support deeper participation and creativity, and how these qualities can be sustained across diverse educational settings.
Bringing the threads together
Research on play, Reggio Emilia’s educational philosophy and frameworks such as CARE–KNOW–DO all contribute to an ongoing conversation about how learning environments can support creativity, well-being and inclusive participation. Taken together, they point towards learning that is not only effective but lifeworthy — learning that matters in the lives learners are actually going to lead, and that opens onto pathways of flourishing for children and communities alike.

Photo 5: Liliana Silva (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), Director of the Mo.Re.Play Research Center, specialising in playful competencies and game-based learning. and Hannah Payne — Rumpus Researcher, Inclusive Learning specialist and Early Years Educator
Photo 6: Dr Pablo Torres — EARLI SIG 28 Coordinator (Play, Learning and Development), Faculty of Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Viviane Marques (Rumpus Researcher, Teachers’ Professional Development Specialist and Early Years Educator)




Image 1: Dr. Okada and Dr. Valente at the MIT Media Lab – Lifelong Kindergarten