Abstract:
To study the utilization of natural materials in art activity organization for preschoolers in Bangkok. The samples of this study were 210 preschool teachers by simple random sampling from the schools under the Private Education Commission, the Basic Education Commission, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and the Higher Education Commission, and 12 preschool teachers who used natural materials to organize art activities for preschoolers, by purposive sampling. The research instruments included a set of questionnaire and interview. The data collected in this research were analyzed by means of percentage, frequency and standard deviation. Content analysis technique was used. The results of the research were found that: 1. Preschool teachers practice levels, according to the questionnaire, were highly perform in natural materials such as stone, soil and sand (x-bar = 3.24) and natural materials from plants (x-bar = 3.17). The lowest level was natural materials from animals (x-bar = 2.97). For the art activity organization from natural materials, printmaking was the highest level (x-bar = 4.24), followed by collage (x-bar = 4.20). Sculpture was rated the lowest (x-bar = 2.97). 2. Preschool teachers who used natural materials to organize art activities for preschoolers, according to the interview, the teachers mostly used natural materials from plants, particularly, leaves in all of the schools. The sticks and flowers were the second (11 schools). The natural materials from animals that they mostly used were shells (10 schools), followed by eggshells (9 schools). For other natural materials, clay and sand were mostly used (9 schools). The art activities using natural materials that the preschool teachers mostly did were printmaking from leaves (7 schools), painting with colors made from leaves and flowers (7 schools), collage from seeds (7 schools), and clay works (7 schools). 3. Additional suggestions from preschool teachers: using natural materials in art activities for preschoolers were useful, and most of preschool teachers needed further training or seminar concerning using natural materials in art activities in order to develop their knowledge.