Playworlds are a form of participatory design research based in Vygotksy’s theories of play, art, imagination, and creativity.  Playworlds are designed to support all participants’ development. Our playworld research group considers playworlds to be an ‘art of development’ and a ‘way of being’: multivocal, researcher-participant, collaborative acts of creation that, we find, are very difficult to represent for study using traditional methods.  This session experiments with new ways to discuss playworlds, ways that themselves exemplify playworlds.  It will include the voices of, and photographs and performances by, playworld researchers, artists, teachers, children, administrators, and imaginary characters. The session will be grounded in a discussion of six themes concerning playworlds as care practices: truth, time, human magic, infinite possibilities, fun, and the enriching and intensifying of the real. Examples from playworlds internationally (Japan, Finland, Sweden, Serbia, US) and in various settings (preschool, school, after-school, foster care, senior center) will be included.