Early childhood advocates agree that positive teacher-child relationships are critical to classroom quality. Much research has emphasized quantifiable teacher characteristics and child outcomes without fully capturing the complexity of these relationships. Drawing on extensive classroom observations, two video-recorded free play sessions and teacher interviews, this study explored some of the ways that preschool teachers create and maintain positive relationships, with emphasis on how they care for the children: their ways of being with and for them. The results of this study provide practical examples for building and sustaining teacher-child relationships, help delineate the complexity of the relationships that exist in preschool classrooms and demonstrate the everyday ways in which those relationships are foundational for children's learning and development. (author abstract)