세시풍속 교육활동을 교육과정 운영과 함께 상호 연관성을 가지고 통합적으로 이루어지도록 하고, 계절에 따라 자연스러운 일상으로 지속적인 운영이 되도록 하는 가운데, 세시풍속 교육활동에 참여한 유아들의 경험을 질적으로 탐색해 보았다. 세시풍속 교육활동에 참여한 유아들의 경험은 「신명나는 세시풍속」, 「스스로 알아가는 세시풍속」, 「생활 속 세시풍속」, 「더불어 즐기는 세시풍속」,「생소한 세시풍속」으로 나타났다.

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of young children who kept participating in educational activities about seasonal customs as part of kindergarten daily routine.

For the purpose, following research question was set up.

1. What are the experiences of young children who engage in educational activities about seasonal customs?
The subjects in this study were 10 young children at a kindergarten attached to S elementary school located in a rural community in Gangwon Province. They were at the Western ages of three, four and five.
The young children engaged in educational activities about seasonal customs during an 11-week period of time from April 1(Mon.) through July 15(Mon.), 2013. They kept performing individual activities, small group activities, large group activities and optional activities, and they had a circle time as well.
As for data collection, the video materials were transcribed by using triangulation(Merriam, 1988/1994) to produce more valid and reliable results, and the photographs of the young children's activities, the journal of their teacher, their works, plans on play including optional activities, and evaluation data were all gathered. The collected data were organized, and the organized data were classified, analyzed and interpreted after a domain analysis was made.

The result of this study is as follows:

The experiences that the young children gained in the course of engaging in the educational activities about seasonal customs were categorized into five: “exciting seasonal customs,” “knowing about seasonal customs on their own,” “seasonal customs in daily life,” “enjoying seasonal customs together,” and “strange seasonal customs.”

First, the young children found seasonal customs exciting while they performed the educational activities. They gave an exclamation of joy and used diverse words to express their pleasure in the activities of seasonal customs. They continued to be interested in these customs as they found it so delightful to do the activities, and they kept playing by doing more than what's initially planned to do. Thus, they took the initiative in their own play.

Second, the young children gradually got to know and understand the origin, meaning, play and food of seasonal customs and other customs in their own way while they engaged in the educational activities. They expressed how they felt about the customs, and understood the reason that their ancestors enjoyed seasonal customs. Also, they found it wonderful and exciting to learn about folk belief related to seasonal customs.

Third, the young children naturally got to learn about the characteristics of each season while they participated in the educational activities. When a new season came, they had experience to make a preparation for the seasonal custom of the new season and to wait for that. In addition, they learned to value life while they was frequently in touch with nature.

Fourth, the play of seasonal customs provided a lot of chances for them to mingle with one another, and they learned to cooperate with one another in that course. Thus, they were naturally able to foster their prosocial attitude and skills, and they learned to care about their friends and others.

Fifth, seasonal customs were quite strange for the young children since they weren't often exposed to them, but they got interested in the customs as new sources of experience. Despite their unfamiliarity with seasonal customs, they understood the meaning of the customs and expressed it in their own way.

• 이혜영(인제상남초등학교병설유치원 교사) | Yi, Hye-Young