Bringing digital resources into preschool science: A forest treasure hunt

Using a smart education platform to explore science in the final year of kindergarten  

Gao Qihui, Wang Liping, Xiong Liwen  

Wanli Administration No. 3 Kindergarten, Hengmao campus, Nanchang  

[Abstract] In the wave of educational digitization, digital transformation has become an important trend in the field of education. To further promote the integration of smart education platforms in the teaching of senior kindergarten classes, our kindergarten has fully utilized the advantages of these platforms. By implementing a dual-teacher teaching model that combines online guidance with offline activities, we used “Forest Treasure Hunt” as a starting point to stimulate children’s interest in learning, and this approach helped to overcome problems such as uneven educational resources and insufficient digital skills of teachers. Practice has shown that this model can significantly improve teaching quality and effectiveness, providing a replicable example for the digital transformation of preschool education.

【Keywords】Smart education platform; Digital transformation; New teaching models

In today’s era of rapid digital development, how to use digital tools to improve the quality of early childhood education has become an important issue that many kindergartens are trying to address. Therefore, our kindergarten keeps up with the times by integrating platform resources with teaching materials in order to enhance teaching quality and effectiveness, thereby providing children with a diverse learning experience. This paper takes the mathematics activity “Forest Treasure Hunt” in the science area of the senior class as a case study. By combining the various resources and functions of this platform, it explores the research and analysis of smart education platforms in the teaching practices of senior classes, the application process and outcomes of these platforms in actual teaching, as well as the reflections and improvement strategies that arise after their implementation. These findings offer valuable practical insights for the digital transformation of preschool education. The details are as follows:

1. Smart Leadership: Clarifying the Direction for Digital Transformation in Education  

(1) Teaching challenges need to be overcome – various problems exist  

1. Imbalance in the distribution of educational resources. Under the traditional education model, high-quality educational resources are often concentrated in kindergartens in developed areas or a few model schools. As a newly established school, our institution generally faces challenges such as low overall teaching standards among new teachers, limited ability to select suitable teachers, or insufficient resources available for the new school. Therefore, it is crucial to identify appropriate animations, teaching materials, and interactive games that suit the cognitive characteristics of children in large classes. Digital transformation provides the possibility for achieving a more balanced distribution of educational resources.  

2. Bottlenecks in teacher professional development. Some older teachers are resistant to digital teaching methods; they are accustomed to traditional teaching methods, believing that they are more effective. However, in traditional teaching methods, children tend to have limited sensory stimulation due to passive listening, which limits the development of visual thinking, and there is little interaction between teachers and children. There are significant individual differences among children in senior classes. Although the platform has the function of collecting data, teachers lack the ability to analyze the data collected from children, making it difficult to identify the difficulties in their learning. As a result, targeted differentiated teaching and individual guidance are not effective. Therefore, the educational resources and concepts offered by the Smart Education Platform not only enable children to experience the learning process more fully, but also help our teachers keep up with current trends and consolidate the learning outcomes after class.  

3. Shortcomings in the application of digital technology. In new schools, teachers generally lack the necessary digital skills, which hinders the implementation of digital teaching methods. Specifically, some teachers are not proficient in using the functions of digital platforms; for example, they use the interactive tools on Xibo whiteboards and VR scenarios less frequently. As a result, there is a disconnect between technology and teaching. Additionally, older teachers are accustomed to traditional teaching methods, and they lack experience in designing digital learning activities that focus on the needs of young children. It is necessary to overcome both conceptual and technical barriers. Therefore, innovative digital classrooms require teachers to possess advanced educational concepts and certain technical skills, as well as knowledge of various teaching tools and software, in order to provide children with a more personalized and diverse learning experience.  

In summary, as teachers, by establishing and properly utilizing the national smart education platform for primary and secondary schools, and integrating it with classroom teaching, we can convey high-quality teaching resources, teaching methods, and educational concepts to every corner of new schools.  

(II) The platform helps solve challenges – multi-dimensional thinking  

1. Creating scenarios stimulates children’s interest. As new young teachers, they can utilize the multimedia features of intelligent education platforms to create realistic teaching scenarios. For example, in the language activity “The Little Rabbit Finds a Friend”, teachers can use the animations and sound effects provided by the platform to create a forest scene. This allows children to feel as if they are in that environment, acting as characters in the story, and actively participating in conversations and interactions. This helps to enhance their language skills and emotional experiences, making teaching more engaging and interesting, rather than being limited to textbooks.  

2. Interactive teaching enhances effectiveness. As new teachers, they can utilize interactive games and online Q&A features on the platform to create favorable conditions for interaction between teachers and children, as well as among children themselves. For example, in the math activity “Understanding Shapes”, teachers can use Smartboard to design interactive games such as shape matching and puzzle competitions. Children can operate the screens by touching them, thereby reinforcing their understanding of shapes through these games. This helps to increase the enthusiasm and participation of children in the senior class, while also fostering a sense of cooperation and competition among them.  

3. Reconstructing concepts to foster new growth. In the face of the deep integration of technology and education, new young teachers can transform from “resource users” into “intelligent instructional designers”. The value of such platforms lies not only in providing resources, but also in creating “exploratory, gamified, and personalized” learning environments through data feedback, interactive tools, and scenario simulations. Therefore, improving teachers’ skills in integrating technology into teaching and designing curricula can be the key to overcoming these challenges.  

In summary, the value of intelligent education platforms lies not only in providing resources, but also in creating “exploratory, gamified, and personalized” learning environments through features such as data feedback, interactive tools, and scenario simulations. Therefore, in the context of the deep integration of technology and education, teachers need to transform from “resource users” into “intelligent instructional designers”. The specific implementation process is as follows.  

II. Practical Results of Digital Transformation in Education  

(1) A new chapter in the integration of disciplines – Platform background  

Firstly, our kindergarten attaches great importance to the study of the “Early Childhood Education” content within the “Teacher Training” module of the National Smart Education Platform for Primary and Secondary Schools. Therefore, our teachers use the “Early Childhood Education” module of the platform as a guide, and in conjunction with the “Guidelines for Learning and Development of Children aged 3–6”, they study the “Early Childhood Education” content available on the platform. The content provided by the platform is very beneficial to us. During this activity, under the guidance and with the help of our teachers, we utilized the rich resources and advantages offered by the National Smart Education Platform. Based on the value orientation in the scientific fields outlined in the “Guidelines”, we designed a digital mathematics exploration activity called “Forest Treasure Hunt”. By using the geometric shapes and orientation recognition games available on the platform, we created a “Forest Treasure Hunt” scenario, allowing children to solve problems such as “identifying directions” and “counting by category” within this virtual environment. Through group teaching sessions, we made use of the resources available on the platform to further help children solve a series of puzzles and interactive games related to animals, through observation, analysis, and reasoning.  

In summary, the high-quality course materials, teaching videos, and other resources available on the platform can provide strong support for early childhood classroom teaching. The real-time data feedback function on the platform also plays an important role in teaching. The “platform” can automatically record the data of children during their activities. For those children who have difficulty understanding, the platform can automatically provide targeted exercises and games, such as number sorting, to stimulate their learning enthusiasm. For children who are already proficient, more challenging tasks are offered to enable personalized teaching, such as improving the accuracy of determining adjacent numbers or the speed of solving problems. Through data analysis in the background, teachers can accurately understand each child’s learning progress. This encourages children to actively use the tools provided by the platform for self-study, while also helping to develop their innovative thinking and collaboration skills. This greatly stimulates children’s interest in learning and improves the efficiency of classroom teaching.  

(II) Defining the direction of three-dimensional goals – Teaching objectives  

The case “Forest Treasure Hunt” makes full use of the rich resources and intelligent functions of the intelligent education platform. It integrates traditional mathematical knowledge with digital technology. Based on the interpretations of the “Guidelines” regarding the “Scientific Inquiry” objective in the “Early Childhood Education and Training” section of the platform, as well as the course resources, teaching objectives are set in a scientific manner. This provides a theoretical foundation for designing the case objectives, enabling children to learn in an interesting context and to appreciate the practical applications of digital technology in daily life.  

Goal 1: Help children accurately distinguish between up and down, front and back, left and right directions, and use the characteristics of geometric shapes to describe the location of the treasure. Goal 2: Through interactive games, children can experience the mathematical thinking process of “problem-solving” and improve their logical thinking skills. Goal 3: Stimulate the interest of children in senior classes in mathematical exploration, and help them understand the application of numerical technologies in daily life.  

(III) The five-ring teaching style shows great care – it embodies the process of implementation  

1. Contextual introduction to stimulate the desire for exploration  

Before the class begins, the teacher plays forest animations on the platform and presents a “Find the Treasure” task, thereby stimulating the children’s desire to explore. Firstly, high-definition, realistic 3D forest animations are shown on the touchscreen screens via the intelligent education platform, using multimedia technology to create a story scenario of “Forest Treasure Hunt” for the children. Secondly, with pleasant bird sounds and water flow sounds, the lively animations and mysterious audio elements attract the children’s attention, making them interested in the activity that will take place. Finally, this encourages the children to think about where the treasure might be hidden, thereby stimulating their curiosity and enthusiasm for participation. This helps the children quickly enter an atmosphere of scientific exploration, sets a relaxed and harmonious environment for the activity, and clarifies the main task of the treasure hunt.  

2. Team collaboration to deepen interactive exploration  

At the beginning of the course, our teachers used the dragging and marking functions of the Xiwo whiteboard to have the children mark locations on a virtual map. Then, through group collaboration, they completed the “Find the Treasure According to the Map” task.  

First, the teacher divides the children into several groups. Each group uses the smart education platform to obtain different clues for the treasure hunt. Examples of such clues include “Plants with special leaves grow near the treasure” or “The treasure is buried under a certain type of soil”. Next, the members of each group are encouraged to conduct group discussions and experiments based on these clues. For instance, by touching and kneading different types of soil, they can feel the differences in its texture; using a magnifying glass, they can observe the size of the soil particles, and they can explore the relationship between soil and plant growth.  

3. Interactive games to enhance knowledge comprehension  

By using the intelligent education platform, interactive game sessions were designed, such as “Soil Knowledge Challenge”. First, a series of questions related to soil properties and plant growth were included in the games. Second, children were encouraged to answer these questions through group cooperation; for each correct answer, they received a treasure-hunt clue. Finally, through these games, children could consolidate what they had learned in a relaxed and enjoyable environment, thereby further improving their scientific knowledge. The details are as follows:  

● Game 1: Orientation exercises are very engaging. The teacher uses the smart education platform to create a virtual forest scene. By utilizing the platform’s interactive features, items in various orientations are marked on the scene, such as “the bird’s nest above” and “the stones on the left”. The children use tablets to move the virtual characters to the appropriate positions. After completing the tasks, the platform rewards them with points, which can be exchanged for “magic stars” stickers. The “orientation command chain” game is also played: the teacher gives a direction command, such as “walk two steps to the right”. The first child uses the tablet to move the virtual character to that position, and then the teacher gives a new direction command to the next child. This process continues, helping to develop the children’s ability to respond to directions and their language skills.  

● Game 2: “Intelligent Graphic Learning”. Teachers display a dynamic library of forest-related graphic images on the intelligent education platform. The geometric shapes in these images blink and emit sounds to describe their characteristics, such as “I am a triangle; I have three sides and three angles”. Children answer questions about the names and characteristics of these graphics either through online quiz functions or through practical activities offline. Those who answer correctly receive virtual badges on the platform. Using the drawing function of the platform, children create images of objects in the forest on tablets: they use circles to draw the sun, and rectangles to draw tree trunks. After completing the drawings, they share them with their classmates in the class display area, thereby further reinforcing their understanding of the different shapes. 

4. Reasoning and treasure hunt; implementing and verifying through practice  

Each group uses the clues and information they have obtained to conduct reasoning and analysis, and determines the location where the treasure is hidden. The teacher guides the children to describe the treasure-hunting path in words, and to apply this knowledge in real-life situations (such as identifying the location of objects in a classroom). The children are also encouraged to “dig up” the “treasure” (simulated treasures prepared in advance). During this process, the children use the knowledge they have learned to determine the type of soil, thereby verifying whether their reasoning is correct. This helps develop their practical skills and scientific thinking. The specific methods are as follows:  

● Method 1: Collaboration enhances the fun of treasure hunting. Children are divided into groups and use shape stickers on a paper map to hide “treasures”. Meanwhile, using tablets on the group discussion section of the smart education platform, they describe the locations of the treasures in voice, text, or images. For example, “The treasure is below the square sticker, and there is also a circular sticker nearby.” The groups exchange maps and platform information with each other, and then search for the “treasures” based on the clues. After finding them, they take pictures and upload them to the platform, where teachers and other groups verify the findings. During area games, children are given enough space to play freely, allowing them to independently design large-scale “forest treasure hunt” maps.  

● Method 2: The mysteries of digital magic are profound. First, multiple virtual treasure clues are set up in the treasure-hunting mini-program on the intelligent education platform. These clues are closely related to geographical locations and graphic information; for example, “The treasure is located above the blue triangular mark, five steps away from the red circular stone.” Then, children are guided to work in groups in a simulated forest environment within the classroom, using the clues from the mini-program to find the virtual treasure. Finally, when the children successfully find the treasure, the mini-program plays enthusiastic applause and fireworks animations, thereby enhancing their sense of achievement.  

5. Enjoy the results and share happy moments together  

Firstly, in the science class, children act as forest explorers through role-playing, which satisfies their desire for exploration and performance. Secondly, during the treasure-hunting activity, I provide them with various clues (such as leaves with special marks or stones with unusual shapes) to enrich their knowledge and experience. I give the children enough time to think about how to use the characteristics of these objects to solve the clues, discuss together to reach a solution, and then let them try on their own to find the treasure based on the clues.  

During the activity, at the moment when the treasures were found, the children felt a sense of accomplishment. Their cheers and excitement turned the tense atmosphere of the class into one of relaxation and joy. The entire class fulfilled the educational goal of allowing children to learn while playing, and to enjoy themselves while learning.  

III. Reach a common understanding; reflection and planning on digital transformation in education  

(1) Reflect on oneself to understand one’s strengths and weaknesses  

In this teaching practice, although certain results were achieved, there were still some shortcomings. For example, the integration of teaching resources and activities was not sufficient, and the full potential of these resources was not utilized. In terms of interactive game design, the difficulty levels of some games were not appropriate, and they failed to meet the learning needs of children at different levels. When teachers use platform data for teaching decisions, the depth and accuracy of their analysis need to be improved. Therefore, after the activity course ended, our kindergarten organized self-evaluations and peer evaluations for the teachers who participated in the activity.  

During the offline self-evaluations, teachers shared their valuable experiences in using the intelligent education platform during activities, as well as the shortcomings in their teaching practices. The teachers present engaged in discussions together, and strategies for improving teaching were developed. This created a positive atmosphere for mutual learning, communication, exploration, and reflection, which further promoted the professional development of the teachers. Finally, our kindergarten actively organized teachers to learn from the high-quality course resources available through the platform-based teaching modules, and explored the “dual-teacher classroom” approach that combines online and offline methods. Through multiple rounds of lesson refinement and discussion, a teaching model that can be used as a reference and applied in other contexts was developed. The details are as follows:  

Before the activity, through home-school collaboration, our kindergarten organized the children’s families to use the “Synchronous Course” on the intelligent education platform to complete the “learning task sheets” for preparation. During the activity, our teachers employed a dual-teacher guidance method; through activities such as “I say, you do” and descriptions of graphic features, they helped students overcome the key points and difficulties in the teaching. After the activity, the head teachers utilized the platform’s resources to organize group investigations, thereby enhancing the interaction and participation in learning, and facilitating the consolidation of knowledge and the extension of learning.  

(2) Implementing multiple strategies to promote development  

In summary, in the teaching practice of “Forest Treasure Hunt”, the integrated use of intelligent education platforms has greatly enhanced the interest and interactivity of teaching. This has enabled children to develop a strong interest in digital learning environments, while their abilities in scientific inquiry and teamwork also improve significantly. Meanwhile, the intelligent platforms provide teachers with a wealth of teaching resources and convenient teaching management tools. This helps teachers to more accurately analyze and optimize their teaching methods, thereby promoting a higher quality of education in kindergartens. The unique benefits of digital education in the preschool stage are also highlighted, as detailed below:  

1. Deepen resource integration. Further explore the resources of the intelligent education platform, and strengthen the selection and integration of these resources. Ensure that the resources are closely aligned with the course content, thereby enriching the curriculum to meet the diverse learning needs of young children.  

2. Optimize game design. Adjust the difficulty of interactive games appropriately based on the individual differences of young children. Design layered game tasks so that each child can grow and improve through the games, thereby stimulating their enthusiasm for learning.  

3. Enhance application capabilities. Strengthen teachers’ training in analyzing platform data, so that they can use this data to accurately understand children’s learning processes and optimize teaching strategies, thereby achieving more precise and personalized teaching methods.  

4. Strengthen teacher training and development. Continue to provide general training for all teachers, as well as personalized training tailored to the needs of individual teachers. By utilizing the resources available in the platform’s teacher training section, the overall quality of teachers can be further improved. Workshops on advanced use of XEVO Whiteboard and the creation of VR/AR teaching scenarios will be offered for young teachers. Special seminars on the integration of technology and gamification in teaching will be organized for older teachers, thereby reducing the skill gaps among teachers.  

5. Promote innovative teaching and research. Establish a “Smart Teaching Experiment Group” to conduct research on platform applications. Develop “math game resources for large-class classrooms”. By integrating platform animations, self-made teaching aids, and parent-child activity sheets, a “Observational Scale for Digital Learning Behaviors of Children” can be created. This will enable a more accurate assessment of the learning outcomes of children during and after activities, thereby facilitating innovative development in teaching practices.  

IV. Co-creating a better tomorrow: New horizons for digital transformation in education  

Our kindergarten utilized the large-class mathematics activity “Forest Treasure Hunt” as a starting point to promote the integration of digital transformation and teaching in various subject areas within kindergartens. This activity demonstrated in detail the application process and significant benefits of smart education platforms in early childhood education, thereby proving the feasibility and effectiveness of digital transformation in scientific education for children. A new smart teaching model was thus established, which has high potential for widespread application.  

Looking to the future, the digital transformation is reshaping the education ecosystem at an unprecedented pace, offering endless possibilities for preschool education. Our kindergarten will continue to explore in depth the applications of digital transformation in other subjects and for different age groups within kindergartens. We will also pay attention to the “digital divide” that may arise during the implementation of digital technologies, and work hard to improve the models of smart educational classrooms. Our goal is to continuously enhance the quality of early childhood education, ensuring that every child can access fair and high-quality digital educational resources. In this digital age, every child can embark on a learning journey full of possibilities.