"Play" In Kindergarten

In this study,35 children from Grade Three in Y Garden,J District,Chengdu were interviewed by focus group,so that children could watch the video clips of their participation in the kindergarten "play" activities.Open questions were used to remind children of their experiences in the activities.Based on grounded theory,a bottom-up generation theoretical framework was built around two major research themes(kindergarten "play" in my eyes and what I learned in play).The study found that:1.Children think that "play" in kindergarten is a mixture of play and teaching’s teaching.In children’s eyes,the main teaching play in kindergarten is "teacher’s play".Even though a small number of children regard it as play,children think that the play is a practice link in activities rather than a "play" link carefully designed by teachers.In addition,most children agree that free play in kindergarten is their real play.2.In children’s eyes,the essence of play is the inner experience of freedom and fun.Among them,fun is an important factor to promote the transformation between play and non-play,and freedom is the premise of fun and the key to distinguish between play and non-play.It should also be noted that "fun" is a local concept of children,which is not only happy,interesting,satisfying and other experiences,but also includes children’s sense of accomplishment gained by "learning skills".3.Whether it is free play or instructional play,children tend to think that play and learning are blended in the process of playing,and they can learn something through playing.4.Although the learning mentioned by children in the two play activities has the content of "learning to be passive" superimposed by teachers,there are great differences in "learning" between the two play activities.The "learning" that children talk about in free play is a kind of harvest and development,which is the result of children’s interaction with people,things and environment around them in the process of activities;In the main teaching play in kindergartens,the "learning" mentioned by children is to acquire systematic subject knowledge taught by teachers.This study also makes a comparative analysis of children’s understanding of play characteristics and the relationship between play and learning,focusing on the following three aspects:(1)Is learning ability an important basis for children to judge whether activities are play or non-play?(2)Does the existence and guidance of teachers destroy children’s play?(3)When talking about learning in play,foreign children will not mention "I learned to be passive when playing".In addition,the play concept constructed by children in this study reflects the influence of people,things and environment in children’s culture,mainly as follows:(1)objective environment: daily activity arrangement and activity materials;(2)Adult influence: teachers and parents’ words and deeds permeate.To sum up,this study puts forward the following suggestions:(1)Respect children’s dominant position in play,pay attention to and respect children’s play experience;(2)Maintain proper tension between play and teaching,and properly weigh play and teaching;(3)Teachers provide support for children’s play.