In the curriculum for Swedish pre-school the focus is mainly on five concepts. These are care of the children, learning, influence, rearing and security. These concepts are to characterize the activities of the pre-school in Sweden.

Back in time the focal point of pre-school activities for young children was mainly on security. The learning part became more prominent as the children grew older. When speaking to teachers and parents I do sense that some believe this is the case even nowadays. They seem to suppose that pre-school for young children are only babysitting and not until the children get older they will get the opportunity to start learning. Is this how pre-school for the youngest children is functioning? My aim with this essay is to find out how the pre-school teachers are motivating their work and also how they are using the curriculum. In my search for significant material for my essay I visited two pre-schools where I interviewed four teachers and also performed observations. The empirical material I came across during interviews and observations was then compared to previous research made by other researchers. My result shows that teachers of pre-schools for younger children strictly work among the goals of the curriculum. The activities all have an obvious purpose and are linked to the curriculum. One of the main activities in investigated pre-schools is playing. Playing sessions are according to the teachers used for many reasons. By playing the children will not only learn how to behave in a group but also attain knowledge of new words and concepts, imaginativeness and taking turns. Likewise activities such as different kinds of language activities, singing and creating appear to be common in these pre-schools. The care of the children do occupy a big part of the day at pre-schools for young children but even so, these moments are used for learning.