Our Events
Keep up with our upcoming events, conferences, presentations, and play cafe sessions here. Stay tuned for exciting projects ahead!
25th May 2025 | The Little Plaza, Edinburgh
The Play Cafe Gathering!
Join us as we celebrate THE PLAY CAFE PROJECT!
Celebrate with us in a beautiful play cafe at Little Plaza combined with arts and craft activities, painting, music sessions and more! Light snacks, tea, coffee and juice are available for everyone!
Families and children of The Play Cafe family will be receiving our illustrated Storybook as well as a voucher. So do come down and enjoy this moment with us.
Our Storybook Illustrator, Ms Iffah Humaira, will be there too!
The Play Cafe Project Poster Presentation UNICEF @ Athens, Greece
Our Poster Presentation by our Research Assistant, Ms Aggeliki
19th October 2024 | 11:00 AM – 6PM
Pop Up Play Cafe & Sharing Session with Practitioners, Cares and Parents @ Athens, Greece
Join us in our second pop up play cafe in Greece, Athens! It is to create a welcoming, warm, inspiring, accessible, enriching, anti-discriminatory and anti-racist play and social environment for children and their families. An informal drop in, stay and play experience, free and open to all. It is followed by an embodied workshop about free play.
Links to presentations:
Play cafe – ‘Slow Pedagogy – Συζητώντας για την εναρμόνιση με τους ρυθμούς του παιδιού’
Shared by Konstantina Papaspyropoulou, PhD student, The University of Edinburgh
21st June 2024 | 5:00 PM – 8: 00 PM
Pop Up Play Cafe @ Athens, Greece,
Friday 21st June 2024
Pop-up play cafe @ Athens, Greece
The main objective of this pop up play cafe curation in Greece, Athens, is to create a welcoming, warm, inspiring, accessible, enriching, anti-discriminatory and anti-racist play and social environment for children and their families. An informal drop in, stay and play experience, free and open to all.
Team:
Kristina Konstantoni, Reyhaneh Mozzafar, Aggeliki Dimoulia Iffah Humaira, Vasiliki Bourdouvali, Eftychia Panagopoulou, Sofia Stathopoulou and Konstantina P.
25th May 2024 | 1:35 PM – 2:10 PM
Froebelian Futures Conference @ University of Edinburgh,
Saturday 25th May 2024 (9AM – 4PM)
Breakout Session: ‘The Play Cafe Project: Froebelian approaches in community and public/semi-public spaces”, Froebelian Futures Conference
Presenters:
Konstantoni, K., Mozaffar,R., Dimoulia, A., Eri Tantawi, I.H 2024,
15th May 2024 | 6:00 PM – 7:15 PM
Froebelian Futures in conversation series with The Play Cafe project, the Early Years Research, Policy and Practice Group and Children and Young People Hub
(Online public webinar)
Webinar: Child-led and free play in Non-Governmental Organisations/ Third Sector & Community based initiatives: Opportunities & challenges
Children have a right to play not just in early learning and childcare provisions but also in everyday public life. The importance of child-led and free play, particularly within the early years, has been acknowledged at least in Scottish policy and practice rhetoric. However, the opportunities and challenges of child-led and free flow play are less understood in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), third sector and community based initiatives. Additionally, conceptions and experiences of play from the Global North are often universalising, receiving more attention than those from the Global South – effecting both global debates and how inclusive our public spaces are of different communities.
This webinar draws on our play cafe action and research related projects (Froebelian Futures and the Play Cafe project: what would Froebelian play cafes look like?) funded by the Froebel Trust to open up a critical dialogue about child-led and free play in public life and especially in non-governmental organisations/third sector and community based initiatives, critically reflecting from Global North and South contexts.
“A Froebelian Futures in conversation with” event, in partnership with The Play Cafe Project/ The Early Years Research, Policy and Practice Group / The Children and Young People Hub – University of Edinburgh
This event is for researchers, policy makers and practitioners and all those with an interest in early childhood education.
Presenters:
Speakers include:
‘Play cafes and Froebelian approaches in community and public spaces’
Dr Kristina Konstantoni and Dr Reyhaneh Mozaffar, University of Edinburgh
‘Pop Up Play: Expectations, Experiences and Impact’
Kathryn Lawrence, Kin Collective Family WellBeing CIC
‘Child-led initiatives in a community-based NGO: From theory to practice’
Aggeliki Dimoulia and Ioanna Mosxouri, Network for Children’s Rights, Greece
‘Learning, Playing, Working: Play and After-School Learning in India’
Manasa Gade , Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh
Facilitators: Simon Bateson, Froebelian Futures Co-Director, Cowgate Under Fives/University of Edinburgh and Dr Laura Wright, University of Edinburgh
“A Froebelian Futures in conversation with” event, in partnership with The Play Cafe Project/ The Early Years Research, Policy and Practice Group / The Children and Young People Hub – University of Edinburgh
Click here to register with Us now!
