Early understanding of the concept of living things: an examination of young children’s drawings of plant life

Abstract

This paper looks at the drawings of a sample of 118 children aged between 4 and 7 years old on the topic of plant life and relates the content to their knowledge of the concept of living things. The research project uses two types of tests: a task to analyse the level of understanding of the concept of living things and a free drawing activity. The data presented indicates that children with the most accurate knowledge concerning what living things are, more frequently draw key aspects of plant life such as the sun, rainfall and clouds and also tend to draw more types of plants. These conclusions point to the use of examining young children’s depictions in order to study how the concept of living things is developed in early childhood.

Keywords:

• animacy
• early education
• drawings
• conceptual change
• plant life

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the following schools for their collaboration: Urdulizko Ikastetxea, from Urduliz, Zipiriñe Eskola, from Sopelana; Plentziako Ikastetxea, from Plentzia.

The authors are also grateful to Malcolm A. Cook for his advice and language supervision of the manuscript.