The playful quality of the toddling "style"

In this paper the playful qualities of the social "style" of toddler body-subjects are traced in reviewing actual toddler peer studies in French, Italian, and Norwegian day care. Subsequent to a short presentation of the phenomenologically related concept of the toddling "style," the notion of playful quality is discussed and elaborated in relation to a mood for playing, the Here and There movement and the quality of recurrence. A playful "glee concert" performed by a group of seven toddlers in a Norwegian barnehage (day care), is interpreted as the children's making music together, with no adult "conductor" present. Furthermore, the phenomenon of proto tutoring in toddler peer play, and certain mediating elements of such play, are discussed. Finally, the existential value of the toddling Being of I, Thou and We in the everyday context of day care is considered.