Original Papers
A study on the Meaning of Silkworm as a Teaching Material in Kindergarten -The Classification by the KJ-Method Focusing Teacher's Episodes -
2011 Volume 52 Issue 2 Pages 55-64
Details
2011 Volume 52 Issue 2 Pages 55-64
In Japanese kindergartens, children encounter various living things such as animals and insects. Even though insects are close to children's lives, they live only short period of time, the number tends to be fewer, or it is difficult to observe metamorphoses. As a solution to problems, silkworms are easy to observe such changes with larger quantity, while they are the oldest teaching material in Japanese kindergartens. With such reasons. this study tries to examine the meaning of silkworms as a teaching material, and consider to a relation with kindergarten and Elementary School 654 five-year-old children from 2 cohorts of 2 kindergartens participated in this study. The researcher selected 265 episodes of raising silkworms from 32,126 teacher's observation episodes. The episodes were analyzed using the KJ (Kawakita Jiro) method. The results showed that five main categories "interactions with silkworms", "interactions with friends and teachers", "noticing silkworms", and "learning about silkworms from picture books". The following points are figured out from the analysis: 1) Aroused children's interest in silkworms though interactions with friends and teachers. 2) Compared to other insects, silkworms can be touched easily by children at different stages of their growth. 3) Metamorphoses of silkworms are apparent and show various forms, and thus there are more chances for children to notice features and changes as insects. 4) Raising silkworms are regarded as productive activities since they can produce silk thread. 5) Silkworm's picture books are available for children. so children's activities can be connected to their inquiry. The meaning of silkworms as a teaching material in kindergarten was emphasized by these results as well as its possibilities to be connected to the early child education. Also. other points of significance and challenges of raising silkworms as a teaching material were discussed in this study.
