Goal: Respect children’s needs, explore new strategies for outdoor independent game practice, and promote children’s authentic learning.
Operational Points: Regularly carry out outdoor independent game activities, collect “wild” ideas (by encouraging children to propose game space ideas through storytelling, drawing, etc.), create a wild fun space using local materials (collect natural game materials, set up real game scenes, and embed regional cultural elements), and allow children to choose the game area according to their own wishes, operate the game materials, and grow together with their game partners.
Reflections on the Present
Fenglin Town has a profound historical culture and abundant natural resources. It is listed as a national ecological town and is the only millennium-old city revival pilot in Wenzhou. In this town with a strong cultural heritage, when you step onto the winding stone steps, you will find a beige building hidden among the dense old houses – the Central Kindergarten of Fenglin Town, Yongjia County. The kindergarten is rebuilt from a century-old school, and currently, there is still a school founding stone tablet, a historical school building, an “Mengquan” ancient well, and a “Loyalty and Filial Piety Gate” in the garden. In such a rural kindergarten with a simple and charming flavor, the cement ground and plastic playground seem particularly out of place.
For our rural rebuilt kindergarten, the subsidized garden renovation is a remnant drawback, often leading to the “three tendencies and one concern” problem: standardization, pursuing an urbanized kindergarten; plasticization, with plastic fields and finished products with little exploration value; convenience, using instant products such as artificial turf. For the sake of “safety” and cleanliness, the garden is mostly a place suitable for “well-behaved babies” to grow, and “wildness” hardly appears.
The Environment of the Kindergarten in the Past
There is also a misunderstanding in rural kindergartens. Most people believe that children here play in the countryside and do not need nature education. However, in the hollowed-out countryside, the phenomenon of “electronic nannies” is becoming more and more serious. Due to weak educational awareness, children’s dependence on electronic products is far more serious than imagined. At present, rural children also need to return to nature to build cognition and need the opportunity to understand the impact of their behavior on the environment. So, how to improve the environmental education in the kindergarten? Under the impetus of the curriculum reform “Nine Keys” in Wenzhou, our kindergarten embarked on a transformation journey.
“Wild Fun Game Space” is one of the keys to the curriculum reform, and its main purpose is to solve the problem of the disconnection between children and nature. It advocates building a “wild” kindergarten to allow children to freely and independently enter nature, experience the wild and ecological nature classroom, and develop in the process of getting close to nature’s authentic education. Based on this key, we re-examined the current environmental situation of the kindergarten. How should the wild fun environment be reconstructed? For whom? What kind of environment is needed by children? Guided by these questions, we began to explore the construction of the space.
Pursuing Wild Fun · Site Planning
If you think back to the wild fun scenes of your childhood, what would they be? Many people say that the endless fun hidden in the fields, streams, and bamboo forests: climbing trees, catching crabs, playing with mud… The happiness that can be recalled seems to be inseparable from nature. We conducted a wild fun collection through questionnaires, interviews, and other forms, targeting children, parents, teachers, and the community, to pursue space ideas that meet the needs of children and are suitable for our unique resources and culture.
Questionnaire Survey
Multi-perspective Research, Searching for Sentimental Ideas
Children’s Say · Expectations for the Wild Fun of the Maze and Cableway
Our kindergarten advocates giving power to children, truly following the children’s perspective, and releasing their “wild” thinking. We let children fully express the game activity areas they want and the outdoor games they want to play. “Dig a mud pit again!” “To play war games, we need an underground maze.” “I want to install a zip line and fly over from the top of the hill!” The children said and drew, and we continuously captured the information from them.
The Elder’s Say · The Pursuit of Memory of the Ancient Well Culture
There are many old “marks” in the kindergarten. According to the memories of the old man at the gate, there was an ancient well in the center of the playground. When they were young, they liked to draw water and play by the well. Later, because every household had tap water, the ancient well was sealed. The well has a cultural symbol of hometown. If it can be properly handled and restored, the continuation of this culture will certainly be meaningful.
Parents’ Say · The Yearning for the Flavor of the Orchard and Canal
“When I was young, I especially loved climbing trees, picking fruits, and playing hide-and-seek. I never got tired of it.” “I picked a leaf with my friends and put it into the mountain stream to compete which one would reach the pond first. I really want to bring the landscape of Nanxi River in.” To create an ecological kindergarten environment, many parents also put forward suggestions.
Cross-border Say · Thinking about Wild Fun from a Different Perspective
Seminar Site
In the three-region forum, experts and designers from different places formed a project team based on our kindergarten’s curriculum and children’s needs. From the different perspectives of educators and designers, they thought about the creation of the wild fun space to seek more breakthroughs. Finally, they came up with seven highly interesting and child-friendly drawings, which were implemented after discussion and demonstration. Standing on the “shoulders of giants”, we had a broader and deeper thinking.
Integrating Local Resources to Create a Space Infiltrated with Culture
Fenglin is a town of farming and reading, and also belongs to the land of mountains and waters. Our kindergarten is located in this mountain forest. Therefore, we decided to interact with the ancient town culture and carry out the construction of the kindergarten to create a natural field close to children’s lives.
Visibility of Farming and Reading Elements
The most beautiful ancient village is the epitome of the farming and reading culture. There are also many villages in Fenglin that have gradually developed over thousands of years, and here the most traditional and complete farming and reading model in China is still preserved.
In order to draw on the surrounding environmental resources and create a farming and reading atmosphere in the kindergarten, we visited the ancient villages to find the elements of local folk customs and ancient buildings – the regional architectural form of the horse-head wall; traditional handicrafts such as bamboo weaving and blue tiles; natural creations such as beach forests and fields. Therefore, you will see their presence everywhere in the kindergarten, such as the fence paved with cobblestones, the stove made of stones, and the tunnel woven of bamboo and wood.
Reproduction of Farming and Reading Scenes
Education is not about “telling”, but giving children the opportunity to experience personally, thereby triggering deep learning. The farming garden is the place that most prominently showcases the inheritance of farming and reading. We opened up farming projects in the kindergarten, set up planting areas and breeding farms, awakened the labor ability of modern rural children, regained the diligent character of rural children, and truly harvested the joy of farming and reading.
Farming Garden
Creation of the Landscape of Joy
Originally, except for the faucet, there was no water at all in the garden. Corresponding to the revival strategy of the ancient town: to perceive the landscape of Fenglin, integrate the landscape pattern, and integrate the view corridor, path, and nature. This exactly meets the construction needs of our kindergarten.
Taking advantage of the large outdoor space, we actively created an environment with the local “original flavor”. The original large-scale plasticization was replaced by nature, and the environment became more open and free. The entire site is not completely flat, with a small slope on one side and a naturally raised large slope. Inside the slope, there is a small house that children imagined.