Constituent elements of playing activity: imagination and imitation as a synthesis in child action

Abstract

The present article is part of a research on the importance of the playing activities for children in preschool age. Our goal is to present elements that justify considering it as the main activity of this period of children's lives, as well as to understand the role that imagination and imitation play in the actions performed during play. To do this, we initially presented the concept of activity and main activity, based on the studies by Vigotski, Leontiev and Elkonin. Then, we discuss how imagination and imitation are a unit at the moment of the play activity, and so resulting in the child's actions during the activity. At the end of the text, we present our understanding that it is through this activity that pre-school children take ownership of typically human activities and culture, representing in the social role plays the relationships in which they participate, and putting into action the senses produced through the experiences that creates the content of imagination and imitation.