A distinct piece of playing with an identifiable beginning, middle and end.
When owned by the children playing, a Play Episode is an example of spontaneous playing in which a physical location, objects, playmates, and a narrative/storyline come together to produce a distinct example of playing that has an identifiable beginning, middle, and end.
More accurately, it has a beginning, middles (plural), and an end as the middle is likely to go through a series of related changes as the narrative and storyline develops. In other words, children may make (or propose) a change to the narrative in their playing which, if accepted by the other players, subtly changes the direction of that playing leading to yet other proposals.
Over time, the narrative may seem completely different from how it started yet if no ‘end’ has been reached yet all that change is part of the same Play Episode.
All this playing takes place within a Play Frame yet what begins this Play Episode is likely to have taken place outside the context of the Play Frame and may have formed the spark that created it in the first place.
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See also Spontaneous Playing, Play Frame and Play Spark (to come)
