Development of Children’s Spontaneous Play Involving an Artificial Hill on a Kindergarten Playground and the Environmental Characteristics

Abstract

  In this study, the author observed young children’s playtime involving tsukiyama (artificial hill) in a kindergarten, focusing on how they developed their tsukiyama play utilizing its environment. The author examined the characteristics of the environment and the value of tsukiyama, with the aim of suggesting appropriate assistance that childcare providers should offer to children. As a method of observation, the author recorded the children’s play involving tsukiyama using field notes and photographs, and then created episodes and graphics based on examples thus obtained for the purpose of analysis. As a result, the author was able to examine the structure of their play in detail using these actual examples. The author was able to clarify how children arranged tools by utilizing the height, slope, and other physical characteristics of tsukiyama to develop their play and how individual children developed their play using their free imagination. The examples enabled the author to capture the characteristics of tsukiyama as a base for small-group creative play and confirm its educational value. The author came to the conclusion that childcare providers could offer three types of assistance: 1) Placing natural objects, as well as tools that children can freely move around, to allow them to expand their creative imagination for play; 2) Intentionally keeping the playground in the same condition left by the children or putting off cleanup (provided that safety is taken into account); 3) Maintaining their readiness to provide partial assistance and keeping a watchful eye. These points were considered important in supporting children’s spontaneous play.