Pretend play contributes to the development of emotions, self-regulation, and imagination (Singer & DeHaan, 2019), gives children the possibility to follow rules and at the same time – degrees of freedom (Oers, 2014), allows them to merge into the process, challenge themselves, co-construct meanings and meet uncertainty in symbolic space. Replacement of play with structured planned activities, and its exploitation for teaching, leads to the disappearance of play from kindergartens (Loizou & Trawick-Smith, 2022). There is a gap between the declaration of the importance of play and real practice due to the distortion of teachers’ understanding of key features of play and its role in children’s development. The objective is to study how teachers’ perspective on play is related to the strategy of its support. The theoretical framework is a cultural-historical approach to play (Vygotsky, 1967; Pramling et al., 2019; Bredikyte, 2022). This is a mixed-methods study, interpretative paradigm. Participant's consent was obtained. Data were anonymized. The research is conducted according to MCU's ethical code. Semi-structured interviews, including commentary on 2 videos, were conducted with 34 preschool teachers. Thematic analysis of interviews revealed 13 positions of the adult in joint play and 3 subthemes: overvalue the adult's role, undervalue the child; trust children, undervalue the adult; and search of balance. The assessment of the conditions for play development was carried out using the scale "Play Environmental Rating Scale. ECERS-3 Extension" (Shiyan et al., 2024) in 28 preschool classrooms (13 kindergartens). The average total score is 3,35 (sd=1,31; med=3,43), which corresponds to the minimal quality level of conditions for play. Key deficits are the participation of the teacher in joint play with children, and the provision of conditions for multi-age interaction. Significant differences are revealed in the strategy of play support among teachers with a contrasting understanding of the pseudo-play video. Teachers who distinguish between play and pseudo-play and emphasize the developmental value of spontaneous children's play create a multifunctional play environment and more often participate in joint play as partners, supporting more uncertainty in the environment and in the relationship with children. Teachers who do not distinguish between a play and a pseudo-play are more often too didactic or outsiders, they create too realistic play environment and destroy the spontaneity of children’s play by their desire to control and organize the process of play. The results of the study can be used in the elaboration of programs for teacher’s professional development.

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