An increasingly well‐developed body of research uses neighbourhood walks to better understand primary school children's experiences of local environments, yet virtually nothing is known about preschool‐aged children's connections to their neighbourhoods. A reason for this omission is the commonly held view that preschool children lack competency to reflect on lived environments beyond playgrounds, kindergartens, and other confined settings that dominate early childhood. However, preliterate children walk around, use, and create intimate relationships with local environments as shown by 10 children aged 3–5 years from Dunedin in New Zealand during go‐along interviews. We asked each to walk us around their locale, explaining and pointing out favourite and less beloved places and activities. In this article, we advance two arguments: first that preschoolers are knowledgeable meaning makers of place; second that walking with them is a key step to understanding their life worlds and provides a way for preliterate and preverbal children to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of their spatial worlds, including as research participants. We challenge the idea that children of this age lack large‐scale spatial competency and understanding. Walking with them generated an in‐depth appreciation of their experiences of environments and revealed deep connections they had with their locales at varied scales. The work enables us to offer novel insights into spatial competency, sociospatial complexities, and the multiple dimensions of young children's wellbeing affordances in urban environments. Such insights are highly relevant for geographers, planners, and others who shape children's urban environments.

中文翻译：

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与学龄前儿童一起散步，探索他们当地的福利

越来越成熟的研究机构使用邻里步行来更好地了解小学生对当地环境的体验，但是对于学龄前儿童与邻居的联系几乎一无所知。造成这一遗漏的原因是普遍的观点，即学龄前儿童缺乏能力去思考操场，幼儿园和主导幼儿期的其他密闭环境以外的生活环境。但是，有识字的孩子在当地环境中四处走动，使用并与他们建立亲密的关系，如十名3至5岁来自新西兰但尼丁的孩子在进行面试时所展示的。我们要求每个人在他们的语言环境中走动，解释并指出最喜欢和不太喜欢的地方和活动。在本文中，我们提出了两个参数：是知识渊博的意义创造者；其次，与他们同行是理解他们生活世界的关键一步，并为识字和谚语的孩子提供了一种展示他们对空间世界的知识和理解的方式，包括作为研究参与者。我们质疑这一年龄段的儿童缺乏大规模的空间能力和理解力的想法。与他们同行产生了对他们的环境经历的深刻理解，并揭示了他们与不同规模的地区之间的深厚联系。这项工作使我们能够提供有关空间能力，社会空间复杂性以及城市环境中幼儿福利能力的多个维度的新颖见解。这些见解与地理学家，规划师以及其他塑造儿童城市环境的人息息相关。