Recommended Article: Play and Reading: The Beginning of Early Childhood Education
Introduction: Play-centered picture book life education that fills children's daily lives with meaningful learning.

Chapter 1: Picture Book Play and Life Education

“Why play-centered picture book life education?”
01 Toddlers learn and grow while playing to their heart's content
02 The magical power of picture books that capture diverse lives
03 The meeting of picture books and play-centered early childhood education

Chapter 2: Getting Closer to Picture Books

“How can we use picture books to enhance learning effectiveness?”
01 Teacher, do you like picture books?
02 Four Ways to Read Picture Books Well: 'Tong, Jeong, Se, Author's Note'
03 How to read picture books while communicating with children?
04 The Power of Picture Books That Captivate Not Just Toddlers, But Parents as well

Chapter 3: Picture Book Play and 'Me'

“Get to know me and grow!”
Self-esteem / My strengths and weaknesses / Looking into my heart / Clean living / Healthy eating / Concentration / Self-directedness

Chapter 4: Picture Book Play and "Us"

“Respect each other and keep your promises!”
Getting to know each other / Becoming friends / Teachers and family / Our happy class / Wise emotional life / Wise language life

Chapter 5: Picture Book Play and 'Coexistence'

“Let’s create a better world together!”
Nature play/seasonal play/ecological education/democratic citizenship education

List of picture books used in play-centered early childhood education
Other reference materials

Imagination and creativity thrive in empathy and immersion!
A play-centered picture book life education story that inspires learning.

Infancy is a period of rapid intellectual maturation and personality development.
As the saying goes, “Habits formed at age three last until age eighty,” we must help children naturally develop good thoughts, lifestyle habits, and attitudes from an early age.
Therefore, life education is always a hot topic in early childhood education, and teachers are also considering various methods.
In particular, the educational effect is doubled when children are supported to internalize the will and method to recognize the need and practice it on their own by consistently repeating various play and activities in their daily lives, rather than relying on one-sided teaching or nagging.
Even if a play or activity has excellent educational value, if it is boring and uninteresting, children will not focus or repeat it.
Therefore, play, daily life and activities with young children should always be fun.


This book contains many examples of children naturally developing life skills through fun play experiences with their peers and teachers every day.
In particular, we propose fun life education games that allow children to freely exercise their imagination and creativity through picture books, thereby realizing and growing on their own and deepening their learning.
It broadly covers major topics such as self-esteem, self-help skills, emotional regulation, language etiquette, self-direction, mutual respect, interpersonal relationships, rules and promises, environmental issues and ecological sensitivity, and the capabilities of democratic and global citizens.
Through the diverse and fun play examples expanded from picture book reading, you will discover sustainable and happy life education ideas that can be consistently implemented in everyday life.
Play-centered early childhood education, meet picture books!

The magical power of picture books that touch the heart
Adding warm energy to play-centered life education!

The author of this book focuses on the powerful power of picture books, which resonate more deeply with the heart than a thousand nagging words.
As children read picture books together and discuss them, they begin to empathize with the various situations the characters find themselves in and their hearts open up.
On the one hand, picture books are an energy that stimulates children's dynamic will and practice to change in a positive direction, such as by exercising critical thinking skills and thinking about the standards of right and wrong in their own way.
In particular, picture books contain many works that accurately reflect the daily lives of children, so children become deeply immersed in the subject matter while looking into various aspects of life with friends and teachers.
This book proposes meaningful life education that allows children to grow happily day by day through fun and rich play that continues in this immersive environment.

First, in chapters 1 and 2, we looked back at the value of picture books and play in early childhood education, and explored the meaning of early childhood education that is multiplied by the combination of play and picture books.
Along with this, we shared various methods to get closer to picture books and increase the effectiveness of learning.
And from Chapter 3 to Chapter 5, over 100 picture book life education games are presented in earnest.
Starting with games that help children learn about themselves and build self-esteem, they can discover games that teach them to respect each other and keep promises, play games that teach them to live well with the community, recognize and respect differences and diversity, and develop their capabilities as global citizens.
We also did not forget to include games that help children learn how to prevent and peacefully resolve conflicts that they may encounter in early childhood education institutions.

Get to know me and grow!

First, we open the door to picture book life education with games that focus on ‘me.’
It is very important to develop self-esteem, which is the belief that one is a valuable, precious, and capable being, from infancy.
This is because you can develop a sense of accomplishment, independence, and confidence based on self-esteem.
The picture book activities introduced here encourage you to discover what you like, what you are good at, and what you lack, and to strive to become a better version of yourself in the future.
Also, I did not miss the fact that keeping my body clean and cultivating balanced eating habits in daily life is an important part of the healthy development of children.
It is also important to immerse yourself in what you want to do, focus your attention, and explore proactively, and it is also important to have self-control to properly adjust without going overboard.
Accordingly, we read various picture books focusing on ‘me’ with young children and introduced examples of expanded play with young children from picture books.


Respect each other and keep your promises!

The next chapter continues with a picture book life education play that expands respect for myself to you and us.
To understand the meaning and importance of respecting yourself, I first focused on my relationships with close others, such as friends, teachers, and family.
After reading a variety of picture books together, fun games are played that help children develop the ability to understand and empathize with each other and cooperate.
In particular, it goes beyond 'you' and includes play on 'us', that is, community, which is expanded based on mutual respect.
In order for 'us' to live together peacefully within a community, there are minimum courtesy and various promises that must be kept.
We must be able to recognize and regulate our own and others' emotions and express them positively rather than through aggressive behavior or negative language.
This is a promise to protect and safeguard not only the entire community but also myself.
Let's see children understand the importance of keeping promises through picture book play, and gradually expand this to the community, naturally internalizing "social promises."

Let's create a better world together!

The final chapter vividly depicts children learning values ​​such as coexistence and sharing through play in order to live as members of a community with mature civic consciousness.
As members of a community living together on Earth, it is increasingly important to cultivate ecological sensitivity toward the Earth's environment by taking a deep interest in natural objects and phenomena such as plants, animals, soil, and seasons. This is especially important today, as environmental problems become increasingly serious.
Furthermore, being able to confidently express one's thoughts in various situations, developing critical thinking skills, and participating in democratic decision-making are the foundation for growing into a democratic and global citizen.
So, I tried to expand the mind of respecting oneself, others, and us to the entire world.
In other words, there are various picture book games that develop empathy for the difficulties of friends living somewhere on Earth, foster a high level of sensitivity to natural objects in the ecosystem as a whole, and foster practical capabilities for coexistence.
As we read and play together, we realize that we are all connected as members of the global community, think about how to live well together, and encounter the admirable efforts of young children to consistently practice small things in their daily lives.

Children who pursue holistic development and happiness through picture book play and grow day by day.

In his previous work, “Early Childhood Education Starting with Play,” the author of this book guided the way to a fun life education that allows children to grow on their own by accumulating sufficient play experiences led by them.
Now, we propose a richer and more dynamic play-centered life education by using picture books as a catalyst for play and learning.
To enable readers to see at a glance how each picture book related to the topic expands into play, a play development diagram was presented for each life education topic, and the play scenes were captured as vividly as possible, including conversations with children.
You will discover the amazing power of picture books to magically captivate both teachers and children, leading to a variety of playful experiences.
Additionally, you will be able to discover the image of young children growing day by day while pursuing holistic development and happiness while happily immersing themselves in picture book play within the book.

This book, which covers a wide range of life education topics through various games expanded into picture books, depicts children growing through meaningful learning and internalizing the attitude of mature citizens. It is filled with the wisdom essential to creating a happy educational community.
This will certainly provide meaningful insights to many teachers who are working hard to develop play-centered life education methods that are at the same level as children.