Part I: Theoretical premises and research on playing and learning -- 1. Developing play-responsive didaktik - mission impossible? -- Teaching and learning in ECEC -- Different voices, arguments and standpoints -- Guidance for readers -- 2. Learning, teaching, and didaktik -- The processes and products of learning and development -- Teaching and its phylogenetic and ontogenetic development -- The 'what' of learning and didaktik -- 3. Playing, playworlds, and early childhood education -- A brief note on play theories -- The development of play: Actions, objects, and meaning -- Key references in research on play -- The diversity of beliefs about practices of play -- The sociogenesis of forms of play and its implication for ECEC -- 4. A combined research and development project -- Intersubjectivity and alterity -- Language as constitutive and perspectivizing -- The freedom of play and open-endedness -- As if and as is and learning from fiction -- Part II: Empirical studies -- Teachers' playing skills -- 5. The Lava-Shark: Teachers attempting to enter children's play -- 6. The Lion and the Mouse: How and why teachers succeed in becoming participants in children's play -- Responding to alterity -- Coordinating as if and as is -- 7. Goldilocks and her Motorcycle: Establishing narrative frames -- 8. The Triangle-Lady and The Three Billy Goats Gruff: Constituting contents for learning in play -- Playing and teaching as integrated activities -- 9. When Kroko-the-Crocodile got sick -- 10. The Magical Fruits: Establishing a narrative play frame for mutual problem solving -- 11. The Letter Thief: From playing to teaching to learning to playing -- Part III: Conclusions and theoretical elaboration -- 12. A play-responsive early childhood education didaktik -- References. .