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.

  In this study, we hypothesized that preschool teachers’ facilitation would lead to changes in: (1) the types and quantity of movements among children during spontaneous play, (2) their interactions with peers, and (3) their use of objects and spaces within the preschool environment, consequently fostering new activities. To test this hypothesis, we observed preschool teachers facilitating children's spontaneous play. The participants were 40 children from Preschool A and 24 children from Preschool B, all from the five-year-old class. Observations during free playtime were documented through note-taking and video recording, and teachers' responses to specific cases were collected via interviews and compiled into field notes. The results revealed that: (1) when teachers engaged with the physical environment, the way children’s use of objects and spaces, along with their peer interactions, changed in various ways, leading to an increase in movement types; (2) when teachers focused on children’s interactions with peers, there were similar changes in object and space use, as well as an increase in movement types; (3) when teachers emphasized a specific movement during play, changes in peer interactions and object/space use occurred, but the variety of movements decreased; (4) when teachers facilitated play by organizing rules that allowed children to act on their imaginations, both the variety and frequency of movements increased; (5) when teachers repeated the same engagement with the physical environment or peer interactions, the variety of movements did not increase; (6) when the number of children participating in play decreased during repeated interventions, the variety of movements also decreased. Interviews with preschool teachers further suggested that these facilitations were characterized by second-person engagement, in which teachers empathized with children's feelings. We concluded that preschool teachers’ facilitation, through empathetic engagement, can positively impact children's peer interactions and their use of objects and spaces during free play, promoting a wide range of movement experiences and enhancing the variety of children's movement patterns. However, several points warrant attention. Repeated use of the same intervention does not increase movement variety, and overly directive interventions occasionally limit children's autonomy, reducing the diversity of their movements. Additionally, a reduction in the number of play participants sometimes constrains children's types of movements.