Playing and creativity are united by the fact that in both cases a person is faced with an open situation of uncertainty. However, in the first case, we are talking about constructing imaginary situations (Kravtsov &Kravtsovа, 2019), and in the second – about solving non-standard problems (Craft, 2007; Veraksa, 2019). We set out to analyze • what are the conditions for play development and creativity in preschool classrooms; • are the quality of the conditions for play and the quality of the conditions for creativity related to each other? An assessment of educational conditions in 39 preschool classrooms in Russia and Kazakhstan was carried out using ECERS-3 extensions: “Play Environment Rating Scale” and “Creativity Environment Rating Scale”. Both instruments assess quality on a 7-point scale (from unsatisfactory to excellent). The conditions both for play and creativity are at a level below the minimum: The average score for the conditions for supporting play is 2.62 (with sd = 0.84), minimum score = 1.00, maximum = 4.43; for the development of creative abilities 2.33 (with sd = 1.09), minimum score = 1.00, maximum = 5.50. Deficiencies in the conditions for supporting play include the rare participation of the teacher in joint play with children, as well as the unavailability of unstructured materials for play. Deficiencies in the conditions for the development of creative abilities include rare joint discussions of problematic situations related to children's lives, including situations of divergent points of view and contradictive situations, with different development options. There are no correlations between the conditions for play and the conditions for creativity (the relationship is not significant at both the 0.01 and 0.05 levels; the correlation coefficients are weak (correlation coefficient 0.28, P-value = 0.0826)), which indicates that kindergartens tend to focus on either one or another group of conditions, and these efforts are not systematically coordinated. The identified deficits allow us to draw a conclusion about the skills that teachers lack: the ability to work in situations of unpredictability and surprises, which is required by both accompanying the play (spontaneity, playfulness, readiness to react sensitively and non-directively joining in the play) (Hännikainen, 2013) and stimulating the resolution of conflicting situations (ability to notice a problem, organize a discussion, support the diversity of children's answers) (Siraj-Blatchford, 2009).

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