How Play Continues as Deliberate Pedagogy in Finnish Grades 1 and 2

In Finland, play does not stop when formal schooling begins at age seven. In Grades 1 and 2 it becomes a deliberate, planned pedagogical tool, sitting alongside more formal teaching of reading, writing and maths, rather than disappearing once early years education ends.

Play does not stop at the school gate

Formal schooling in Finland does not begin until the year a child turns seven, one of the latest starting ages in the world, a deliberate choice explored further in why Finnish children start school at seven. That extra time is not simply a delay of academics, it protects the playful, exploratory approach children already know from early childhood education and care and carries it deliberately into Grade 1 and Grade 2 classrooms.

Finland's national core curriculum for basic education, the single framework running from Grade 1 through Grade 9, states that schools must provide opportunities for experimentation, exploration, active learning, physical activity and play. This is not guidance aimed only at the early years, it is a requirement for primary teaching from the first term of Grade 1, part of a wider reform that its own Ministry of Education described as emphasising the joy of learning.

What play looks like in Grade 1 and Grade 2 classrooms

Play in these two years is rarely left entirely to chance. Teachers plan structured play, sessions built around a clear learning goal but delivered through a game, a story, a movement break or a partner task, alongside free play where children choose what to do. Research on Finnish classrooms describes teachers taking a participatory rather than directive role, observing where each child is and adjusting the balance between guided and free play accordingly.

Language teaching is a clear example. Since 2020, Finnish pupils have had to begin learning a first foreign language in Grade 1. Because many six and seven year olds cannot yet read or write fluently even in their own language, teachers deliver this early language instruction through play, music, games and movement rather than worksheets, a practice documented by researchers studying Grade 1 and 2 classrooms.

• Learning corners or stations where small groups rotate through short, hands-on tasks
• Games that rehearse phonics, number bonds or vocabulary rather than repetitive worksheet drills
• Roleplay and storytelling used to practise language and social skills together
• Movement and outdoor breaks built around counting, spelling or teamwork
• Gamified digital practice for repeated, low-stakes rehearsal of a skill

Games-based practice for literacy and numeracy

Alongside classroom-led play, Finnish schools increasingly draw on games-based digital practice to reinforce what has been taught more formally. Eduten, a maths practice platform developed out of Finnish university research, reports use in around 70 percent of Finnish schools and pairs gamification with adaptive, personalised exercises, so a Grade 1 or Grade 2 pupil can practise number sense at their own level while still experiencing it as play rather than a test.

The same principle applies to reading and writing, where phonics and early literacy are frequently rehearsed through games and playful repetition alongside direct instruction, an approach explored further in how Finland teaches reading and how Finland teaches maths in primary.

A gradual, deliberate shift towards formal instruction

None of this means Grade 1 and Grade 2 look identical to preschool. The proportion of playful, exploratory activity gradually gives way to more subject-based, teacher-led instruction as pupils move through primary school, but the shift is deliberately gradual rather than a sharp break at age seven. What is preserved throughout is a learning conception, written into the core curriculum, that positive emotional experience, collaborative work and creative activity enhance learning, and that the process a child goes through matters as much as the outcome.

Other Finnish-inspired providers reflect pieces of this same continuum. HEI Schools has built its reputation on play-based pedagogy for early years settings, while Eduten focuses on games-based digital practice for primary maths. OPPI works across the whole K to 5 span, so a partner school carries this play-to-formal continuum deliberately across pre-primary and the first years of primary together, rather than treating play as something that stops once formal schooling starts.

Finland's 2014 core curriculum reform for basic education was designed, in the words of its own Ministry of Education, to emphasise the joy of learning alongside academic achievement from Grade 1 onward, not only in early childhood settings.

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