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This case study examines the role of playful talk in negotiating the "how" of collaborative group work in a 6th-grade science classroom. Here we develop and test a Vygotsky-derived hypothesis that postulates playful talk as a mechanism for identity exploration and group status negotiation. Our findings indicate that students utilized the playful talk genre as a means to (a) position themselves and others as more or less competent within the group in order to create or foreclose opportunities to learn, (b) maintain and strengthen bonds that were developing within the group toward the goal of achieving higher levels of coordination and opportunities to learn, and (c) pivot toward a self-selected identity aimed sometimes at affecting one's status within the group. Taken together, these 3 playful talk functions allowed the group to manage tensions that arose as a result of periods of low coordination and to open opportunities to learn for lower status group members. This study contributes to researchers' understanding of affective aspects of collaborative learning, which are theorized as foundational to success in such endeavors.