ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a specific concept of early childhood education that has been developed in a Japanese kindergarten. It shows that children are expected to experience art and imaginative play as closely related activities. The kindergarten refers to the concept as Hakken to Boken, or Discovery and Adventure. This programme has two characteristics. First, explorative activity in the real and imagined world plays an important role both in children's art and in their imaginative play. Second, the curriculum is designed for children's art and imaginative play to interact productively and enrich each other. In the dominant view of Japanese early childhood education, art is considered a form of self-expression in children. In addition to the art activities, children's imaginative play is central in early childhood education in the Hakken to Boken concept. In Hakken to Boken, children's imaginative play is one of the information resources in which they explore topics and other items for their art activities.
