Nikolay Veraksa is an internationally well-known expert in child psychology and education. He works as a professor at the Faculty of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia, and is a leading researcher at the Federal Scientific Center of Psychological and Multidisciplinary Research. He is also the Head of the UNESCO Care and Education in Early Years Chair in Russia. His interests are connected with cultural-historical psychology and its development and implication in education. He is an author and co-author of more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals and author of more than 20 books. He is also an editor of special issues in journals, such as International Journal of Early Years Education, Frontiers in Psychology and European Early Childhood Education Research Journal.

• Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Project-based activity and play: impact on child development.- Chapter 3. Children's Drawings as a model of the Preschooler's position in Family Relationships System: A Psychological Perspective.- Chapter 4. The semiotic mediation of children’s modeling: The example of 9- to 10-year-old’s physics reasoning.- Chapter 5. Mapping, orienting, and addressing: Children making and reading maps.- Chapter 6. The effectiveness of different types of sign/symbol mediation in teaching elementary mathematical concepts to older preschoolers with varying levels of executive function.- Chapter 7. The use of sensory ethalons and visual models by modern older preschoolers and their peers in the last third of the twentieth century.- Chapter 8. Play plans as cultural tools: Children taking control of their play in Tools of the Mind classrooms.- Chapter 9. The problem of visual modelling and self-regulation development in early childhood.- Chapter 10. L. Venger’s Contribution to the Solution of the Problem of School Readiness.