본 연구는 질적 연구방법을 적용하여 유치원 교실 내에 개구리를 기를 수 있는 자연관찰영역을 구성하여 일상적, 지속적으로 개구리와 만나며 보살펴 주고 기르는 과정에서 유아들이 어떠한 자연친화경험을 하는지 알아보는데 목적이 있다. 이러한 목적에 따라 충청북도 청원군에 소재한 M초등학교병설유치원의 만 3, 4, 5세 혼합연령으로 구성된 유아 7명을 연구 참여자로 선정하여 참여관찰을 통한 녹화자료들의 전사와 사진, 연구자의 기록 및 메모, 유아들의 작품 분석 등의 다양한 방법으로 자료를 수집하였다. 수집된 자료의 분석 결과, 개구리 기르기 활동에 참여한 유아들의 경험은 「개구리에게 느끼는 두려움」, 「개구리와 관계 형성하기」, 「개구리를 애정으로 돌보기」, 「호기심에서 생긴 궁금증 해결하기」로 나타났다.

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature-friendly experiences of children in the course of keeping taking care of and raising frogs in daily routine life in a nature-observing section in the kindergarten classroom.A research question was posed:1. What are the nature-friendly experiences of children who engage in frog-raising activities in the kindergarten classroom?The subjects in this study were seven children(four males and three females) in a multiage class of Western ages 3, 4 and 5 named "Deer" in a kindergarten attached to an elementary school located in Cheongwon-gun, North Chungcheong Province. An experiment was conducted during a 12-week period of time from April 9(Tues.) to June 28(Fri.), 2013.To ensure the validity and reliability of this qualitative research, data were gathered in various ways by utilizing triangulation(Merriam, 1994), which included the transcribed data of the recording materials, photographs, this researcher's record and memos and the works of the children. As for the analysis of the collected data, organizing, domain analysis, data classification and analysis were carried out, and then the results of the analyses were interpreted.As a result of analyzing the nature-friendly experiences of the children in the frog-raising activities, the following findings were given:The experiences that the children who participated in the frog- raising activities had were classified into four: fear for frogs, relationship building with the frogs, taking care of the frogs with affection, and satisfying curiosity.First, the children experienced fear toward the frogs. Their fear was comprehensive of surprise, worry and fright. They said, "They are gross," "Can they grow up well?" or "What if another one dies? Because of the fear, they found it hard to get used to the frogs and regarded the activities as strange. But when their teacher showed her curiosity about the frogs and tried to do research on the life cycle of the frogs with the children, their fear gradually died away.Second, the children experienced relationship building with the frogs. They voluntarily showed prosocial behavior such as feeding, water changing and cleaning without expecting any reward. Their relationship building was categorized into three: 'getting interested,' 'empathizing' and 'helping.' While the frogs hatched out of the eggs, they were just curious at first, but they viewed them as the same living things as themselves in the latter half. They were concerned about how the frogs felt and helped them together.Third, the children experienced taking care of the frogs with affection. Before they engaged in the frog-raising activities in the classroom, the words 'animal' and 'life' were just something like what would be important yet not that personally significant. When they participated in the activities, however, they had a chance to take care of the frogs with affection, and they got increasingly interested in the frogs and felt growing affection for them. This process could be classified into four: 'indifference,' 'getting interested,' 'attachment for life,' and 'curiosity about another life.' In other words, they felt familiar with the frogs while they studied their life cycle and raised them, and they got to respect their way of life, and then they gradually felt affection for them. Furthermore, they started to show interest in other living things in nature.Fourth, they experienced satisfying their own curiosity. They had interest in the appearance and characteristics of the frogs as well as their movement and tried to use their own senses and sensory perception to satisfy their curiosity. This process could be classified into two: 'becoming a careful observer' and 'becoming an active inquirer and learner.' At the onset of the study, they satisfied their curiosity based on their own experience or through interaction with their peers and teacher, and then they read pictorial books of amphibian or eco-picture books to satisfy their curiosity as they proceeded with the activities.

요 약
 Ⅰ. 연구의 필요성 및 목적
 Ⅱ. 연구 방법
  1. 연구 대상
  2. 연구 환경
  3. 연구 과정
 Ⅲ. 논의 및 결론
  1. 논의
  2. 결론
 참고문헌
 ABSTRACT

• 오정희(청주미원초등학교 금관분교장병설유치원 교사) | Oh, Jung-Hee