Children's Paintings Based on Dynamic Experience of Activities in Nature: Embodiment of Vitality Affect in Visual Art

Children's Paintings Based on Dynamic Experience of Activities in Nature: Embodiment of Vitality Affect in Visual Art

The purpose of this research is to clarify the relationship between playing in nature and paintings in terms of experience in early childhood care and education. Nature has a meaning; the whole environment as natural phenomena and the ecology learn through living as playing. The place of interaction between child and nature is 'a sphere of playing in life' （Nakagaki,1989,p.24）; it is nature for the child. Playing and life with nature has an importance for early childhood. However, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, we are faced with the reconsidering of experiences in nature. Kai（2014）points out that insufficiency of cultural viewpoints on scientific cognition, and ethics of the mind on nature of an enterprise and citizen in Japan. He asks for the necessity to think of an environment as an ecosphere. Rethinking an experience in nature in early childhood education has a possibility to create new relationships between human and nature on a fundamental level.