Browsing by Author "Suomela-Inkeri, Kirsi"

Tiedekunta - Fakultet - Faculty Educational Sciences Tekijä - Författare - Author Kirsi Suomela-Inkeri Työn nimi - Arbetets titel Kapteeni käskee: ”Kiipeä puuhun!” Varhaiskasvatusta ja lasten leikkejä metsäympäristössä Title Captain says: ”Climb the tree!” Early childhood education and children’s games in a forest environment Oppiaine - Läroämne - Subject Education Työn laji/ Ohjaaja - Arbetets art/Handledare - Level/Instructor Master’s Thesis / Kristiina Kumpulainen Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract The documents guiding early childhood education were updated a few years ago. In 2016, the National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care became work defining instead of being a mere recommendation. The curriculum expands the learning environment to include the neighbourhood as well. Simultaneously, the concern in society regarding children´s decreasing amount of exercise has grown. There is also fear of children becoming disengaged from the natural environment. Motivated by these issues, I wanted to research what kind of games children could play in nature. The framework of this study is Gibson’s Affordance Theory. Affordance describes the possibilities a child has for action. A forest environment provides an abundance of possibilities for play. The objective of my research was to discover what kind of games children play in the forest. I categorised the games according to the play type categorisation of Bob Hughes (2002). This research is a qualitative case study. The case was a specific day care centre with two child groups. Each child group had 14 children, a kindergarten teacher and a nurse. I studied the child groups with participative observations and filmed the groups with a digital video camera. From the research material I transcribed the parts that were interesting from the viewpoint of my original questions and categorised them according to Hughes’ play type categorisation (2002). The analysis of my research was theory-guided: theory and previous international studies guided my research. The games played by the children in the forest were diverse and almost all of Hughes’ (2002) play types were represented in my research. The activities lead by the educators included different games compared to those children played spontaneously. When the children were playing independently, more play types occurred. I categorised almost all games belonging to several play types. The children were enthusiastic about the activities. Unwanted behaviour, such as bullying, occurred rarely. Almost all the playing in the forest included physical activity and the children were often breathless from the physical exercise. The possibilities for play offered by the forest were versatile. In conclusion, the research showed that the forest represents an inspiring environment for play. Avainsanat - Nyckelord Varhaiskasvatus, luonto, affordanssi eli tarjouma, leikkityyppi Keywords Early childhood education and care, nature, affordance, play type Säilytyspaikka - Förvaringsställe - Where deposited Helsinki University Library – Helda / E-thesis (theses) Muita tietoja - Övriga uppgifter - Additional information