In the realm of global early childhood education emphasizing “game-based learning for development”, many regions have acknowledged the beneficial effects of outdoor construction games on children’s physical and mental well-being. In China, kindergartens are evolving from solely “encouraging games” to a more advanced phase of “utilizing games to promote socio-emotional development”. Specifically, outdoor construction games represent an important learning approach that fosters children’s holistic development by integrating various fields including science, mathematics, language, social studies, and health. These games provide children natural settings to acquire social norms, and cultivate empathy through collaborative construction activities and conflict resolution scenarios. The research presented in this paper, conducted at Z Kindergarten in Yinchuan, employed NVivo 11 Plus software to code and analyze observational and interview data related to children’s game activities. The findings revealed several key points: (1) The lack of regular updates to game materials and the limited variety of supplementary resources restricted the complexity of collaborative efforts among children; (2) Most teachers adopted overly simplistic teaching methods, which limited the depth of children’s cooperative construction activities and hindered effective peer interactions; (3) Many teachers conducted observations sporadically, missing critical opportunities to transform peer conflicts into valuable learning experiences; (4) Delayed teacher intervention in conflict situations obstructed the timely sharing and discussion of game experiences among children. To address these issues, this study proposes a four-dimensional hierarchical teacher support framework encompassing material, cognitive, autonomous, and emotional aspects. Firstly, it advocates for the establishment of a dynamic system for renewing game materials, incorporating low-structured materials and supplementary resources to stimulate collaborative activities and enhance children’s communication. Secondly, kindergartens should prioritize teacher training and professional development to refine their support strategies for children, thereby fostering productive peer discussions and reciprocal learning. Thirdly, teachers should adopt structured observation techniques focused on children’s social behaviors to identify their interactions, and provide timely scaffolding that facilitates the development of social skills. Lastly, the implementation of a responsive conflict intervention mechanism is recommended, using prompt group debriefings to help children articulate their emotions and summarize conflict resolution strategies. The pilot experiment demonstrated significant improvements: there was a notable increase in the duration of children’s collaborative construction activities, along with a substantial rise in the frequency of peer negotiation behaviors. These findings suggest that the proposed approaches offer practical and effective methods for optimizing preschool teachers’ support in outdoor construction games, with positive implications for enhancing children’s social-emotional development.

Outdoor Construction Games, Teacher Support Strategies, Peer Interaction, Game-Based Learning, Educational Interventions, Social-emotional Development