This article presents results from an ethnographic study on children's everyday life in Finnish daycare centres. It raises the question of the relation between play and real life. Play and playfulness are analysed as communicative resources children use in creating and reproducing everyday routines, not only inside play activities, but also in other kinds of situations occurring during an ordinary day. The free-floating social interaction of the centre constitutes the context of play. Play is not a separate children's world; by using play children also intrude on adult order and on the power of adults over children.
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