Block play and paper folding activity are the important activities in the field of early childhood education. However, studies about effective teaching methods for the development of their creativity and spatial abilities by block play and paper foldi...
Block play and paper folding activity are the important activities in the field of early childhood education. However, studies about effective teaching methods for the development of their creativity and spatial abilities by block play and paper folding activity are insufficient. Therefore, this research has its purpose to examine the educational value of block play and paper folding activity and what effects the representational activities during block play have on children's spatial abilities. Furthermore, this research aims to seek for a more effective teaching method for improving children's spatial abilities on the basis of the already analyzed results.
For this purpose of the research, the following study subjects were established;
1. What effects do the representational activities during block play and paper folding activity have on children's spatial abilities?
2. What effects do the representational activities during block play and paper folding activity have on children's creativity?
The subjects of this research were 56 children of two classes whose ages were 5 years in full. They were children of the kindergartens attached to the " C Elementary School" and "G Elementary School" which located in a middle-class region of Gwangju. For these two classes, the total 56 children were randomly assigned to the block play group(28) and the paper folding activity group(28). The results of protest should no significant difference in their mean ages, spatial abilities and creativity between the two groups, so these groups are assumed homogeneous group. The experimental treatment was conducted 15 times in total for 5 weeks, in proportion of three times a week.
In this research, for measuring children's spatial abilities, the Instrument for Testing Children's Spatial Abilities, developed by Hong(2001a), and for measuring children's creativity, Chilgyopan Creativity Test, developed by Kim Sang yun(2004), was used for both the pre-post tests. Mean and standard deviation are obtained from the data collected before and after test and comparison and analysis by t-test using SAS program are performed to examine a difference between both groups.
The findings of this research were as follows.
First, as for the children's spatial abilities, it appeared that paper folding activity group has significant higher than block play group. And, as for the discrimination of form and background and spatial inference- the sub-factors of children's creativity- it appeared that paper folding activity group has significant higher than block play group and as for the visual storage and reflection, it appeared that block play group has significant higher than paper folding group. But, as for the coordination of vision and motor, looking for the location in spatial perception- the sub-factors of children's spatial abilities- it appeared that there isn't any significant difference between both group. And, as for the group variation between paper folding activity group and block play group, it appeared that paper folding activity group has significant higher than block play group.
Second, as for the children's creativity, it appeared that each group has no significant difference. But as for the sub-factors of children's creativity, fluency, it appeared that block play group has significant higher than paper folding activity group. And as for the sub-factors of children's creativity, elaborateness, originality, diffusivity, it appeared that each group has no significant difference. As for the group variation between paper folding activity group and block play group, it appeared that block play group has significant higher than paper folding activity group in creativity.
The results of this research showed that the representational activities during paper folding activity had positive effects on the improvement of children's spatial abilities and the representational activities during paper folding activity and block play had no significant difference on the improvement of children's creativity. But as for the variation between two groups, it appeared that block play is more significant in creativity, and paper folding activity is more significant in spatial abilities.
The results of this study suggest that paper folding activity and block play should be used in the field of early childhood education in the systematic and concrete way for the improvement of children's spatial abilities and creativity.