As traditional musical accompaniment to children's play in Java, tembang dolanan —an assemblage of Javanese children's songs— has only been studied for their didactic values (e.g. Nugrahani, 2012) and capacity to preserve local wisdom (e.g. Sari et al., 2020) as well as character building (e.g. Dhalu et al., 2020). This reflects the lack of childism (Deszcz-Tryhubczak & Garcia Gonzales, 2022) in examining tembang dolanan, consequently disregarding the assemblage's intrinsic playful qualities —qualities closely associated with children. This paper aims to reinstate the childism paradigm in the study of tembang dolanan by focusing and scrutinizing the elements of play within the said musical assemblage. The concept of play, in this study, is analyzed through the close reading of the poetic elements, such as word choices, images, sounds, and the use of nonsense in the lyrics. Focus on the collaborative creation of play sphere through the sobg is also employed in the study, mainly through the framework of playworld (You & Malilang, 2017).