본 연구는 유아가 유치원 주변의 자연물을 직접 탐색하고 실외모래놀이에 활용해 보는 활동이 유아의 자 연친화적 태도에 어떠한 영향을 미치는지 알아보는데 목적이 있다. 연구대상은 강원도 J군에 소재한 2개의 공립유치원에 재원중인 만 3․4․5세 유아 31명이며, 주 3회씩 8주 동안 총 24회 실시하였다. 연구도구는 유아의 자연친화적 태도를 측정하기 위해 이성민(2012)의 「자연친화적 태도 검사」도구를 사용하였다. 그 결과 자연물과 함께한 실외모래놀이 활동이 유아의 자연보호태도, 자연사랑태도에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 즉 자연물과 함께한 실외모래놀이 활동이 유아의 자연친화적 태도에 긍정적인 영향을 미 쳤다고 할 수 있다. 이를 통해 자연친화교육으로서 자연물과 함께한 실외모래놀이가 주는 가치를 새롭게 인식하는 것에 의의가 있다.

The purpose of this study was to find out how outdoor sand play activities with natural object affects children's nature-friendly attitude. The subjects of this study were 31 children (aged 3 4 5) attending two public kindergartens which are located in Gangwon-do. The experimental group was selected from 15 children (two 3-year-old, four 4-year-old, nine 5-year-old), the control group from 16 children (four 3-year-old, two 4-year-old, ten 5-year-old). The outdoor sand play activities using natural objects were administered to the experimental group, while outdoor sand play activities using artificial sand tools were administered to the control group. The experimental treatments had been conducted by the researcher 3 times a week for 8 weeks from August 25, 2014 to October 16, 2014, totalling 24 sessions. To inspect children's nature-friendly attitude, a research tool was used an improved 「A Test Nature-Friendly Attitude」by Lee Sung-min(2012) from the adapted and modified version by Lee Mi-hye(2009) based on CATES-PV(The Children's Attitudes Toward the Environment Scale-Preschool Version) by Musser and Diamond(1999). The results of this study were as follows; The outdoor sand play activities with natural object lead to statistically significant differences in the nature-friendly attitude of children(p< .001). This implies that the outdoor sand play activities with natural object have positive effects on the nature-friendly attitude of children.

• 차미열(정선 증산초등학교병설유치원 교사) | Cha, Mi-Yul 교신저자