Computational thinking (CT) can be defined as a mode of thinking that involves formulating problems, decomposing them, and structuring and communicating their solutions in ways that can be understood by humans and processed by machines (Wing, 2006). In the modern era, computational thinking (CT) has emerged as a crucial skill that is closely associated with critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving abilities (Nouri et al., 2020). It is no longer limited to computer scientists alone but is considered essential for everyone, much like fundamental skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic (Wing, 2006). Over the past few years, K-12 educators have been increasingly focusing on integrating CT into their teaching practices, particularly through both plugged and unplugged programming activities (Kirçali & Özdener, 2023). However, most CT studies have focused on older children and adults (Román-González et al., 2018). Complementary research on young children’s CT development will enhance our understanding of how computers may—not only instrumentally but also in more essential, conceptual ways—influence how young children think and solve problems both in and out of school contexts (Papert, 1980).

There is a growing understanding that teaching computational thinking (CT) extends beyond the boundaries of computer science (CS). Scholars have advocated for introducing CT to children as early as kindergarten, specifically targeting the age group of 3 to 6 years (Sullivan & Bers, 2016). Papert (1980) has already emphasized that children have the ability to enhance their procedural thinking skills across various academic disciplines. In educational settings, scholars have argued that digital devices can support children’s learning in different areas, including literacy (Marsh, 2012), arts (Terreni, 2011), and mathematics (Jowett et al., 2012). Meanwhile, studies in early childhood education have provided evidence for children’s positive uses of digital devices in a range of design activities, such as digital book creation (Flewitt et al., 2015), filmmaking, music creation, and photography (Dezuanni et al., 2015). This aligns with Kotsopoulos et al.’s (2017) proposal for a pedagogical framework for CT, which includes four pedagogical experiences in sequence (i.e., unplugged, tinkering, making, and remixing). Building on this frame, this study examined one such pedagogical sequence in which young children were engaged in creating animation art while at the same time developing CT competencies through problem-solving and design activities.

The curriculum guide for local kindergartens in Hong Kong has outlined six learning domains, but it does not currently include any learning and teaching related to computational thinking (CT) content (Curriculum Development Council, 2017). To introduce CT concepts to children without the use of computers, unplugged activities have proven to be an effective approach. These activities primarily involve physical materials and movements, allowing children to grasp CT concepts (Zapata-Cáceres et al., 2020). This study aimed to conduct animation art activities as unplugged activities using geometric paperboards as materials, with the objective of observing the development of children's CT skills. The following research questions guided this study:

  1. 1.

    What computational concepts did children acquire through a series of digital arts activities?

  2. 2.

    How did kindergarten children at different levels (K1, K2 and K3) develop and perform CT during the digital arts activities?

  3. 3.

    How did teachers reflect on their scaffolding behaviors and children’s understanding of CT concepts during the digital arts activities?

Computational Thinking of Young Children

CT was initially introduced by Papert in his book in 1980 (Papert, 1980), and later Wing provided a definition for CT in 2006 (Wing, 2006), drawing the attention of researchers worldwide to the concept. While CT has been explored in numerous studies in recent years, its definition has varied across different studies, lacking a standardized definition thus far (Shute et al., 2017). In 2012, researchers proposed a new CT framework that includes three essential dimensions for studying the development of young learners: (1) computational concepts, (2) computational practices, and (3) computational perspectives (Brennan & Resnick, 2012). In 2018, Moreno-Leon et al. (2018) highlighted CT as a versatile problem-solving tool.

CT holds significant importance as a competency for young children, necessitating a thoughtful approach that aligns with their cognitive developmental characteristics. Many educators and governments advocate for the introduction of CT education during early childhood. For instance, Gibson (2012) proposes that teaching CT at an earlier age is crucial for effectively promoting children's cognitive development, as it may be too late to start in secondary school. In Hong Kong, the Education Bureau (2016) highlighted the significance of CT skills for students in its 2016 report. According to Piaget's cognitive development theory, kindergarten children typically find themselves in the preoperational stage, characterized by concrete, self-centered thinking and reliance on personal perceptions to solve problems (Piaget, 1971). These developmental considerations must be taken into account when designing educational programs for teaching CT to young children. Research indicates that certain complex CT concepts may surpass the grasp of young children (Saxena et al., 2020). Hence, it is vital to tailor CT frameworks for children's learning to align with their age and cognitive development.

Theoretical Framework for Understanding Children’s CT

Papert's constructionism (1980) is derived from Piaget's constructivism (1957), which posits that children actively construct knowledge through hands-on experiences of creating tangible products (i.e., learning by making). According to the constructionism framework, children can achieve deep learning by engaging in meaningful individual projects and reflecting on the learning process (Kafai & Resnick, 1996; Papert, 1980). Constructionism theories are commonly employed in arts education and CT education. For instance, Peppler (2010) conducted a study exploring media arts education for adolescents based on constructionism theory and Dewey's theories of arts and aesthetics. In a qualitative study by Butler and Leahy (2021), they focused on pre-service teachers' understanding of CT within a constructionist framework for digital learning. Bers et al. (2014) emphasize that a constructionist teaching approach enables children to freely explore their interests using technology, while engaging in domain-specific learning and enhancing metacognitive, problem-solving, and reasoning skills.

Social constructivism, proposed by Vygotsky, is a learning theory that highlights the role of communication and interaction with the environment, peers, and teachers in knowledge construction (Vygotsky, 1962). Social constructivism can be implemented in various ways in the classroom, such as group work, brainstorming, problem-based learning, and instructional interactions (Amineh & Asl, 2015). Vygotsky (1962) also introduced the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which refers to the area of learning where individuals acquire higher-level skills with the assistance of teachers or peers, utilizing scaffolding in the learning process. In the mentioned study, the animation-making activities draw on powerful ideas from the field of digital arts. Children construct CT knowledge through unplugged digital arts activities facilitated by the research teams, offering guidance and interaction.

Materials and Methods

Participants

The current study recruited 27 children (aged 3–4 K1: 6 girls and 4 boys; aged 4–5 K2: 5 girls and 3 boys; aged 5–6 K3: 5 girls and 4 boys) from a local full-day nursery school in the New Territories, Hong Kong. The sample was gathered based on a non-randomized convenience sampling strategy (Johnson & Christensen, 2016).

Procedures

We developed an unplugged activity aimed at fostering children's problem-solving and computer-aided computing skills through the creation of animated art. The activity involved a series of algorithmic design tasks. The participating children, divided into six groups across three classes, each had the opportunity to create their own piece of animation work during three 30-min sessions. A problem-solving situation was created for each kindergarten grade level to engage the children in CT through animation making. The K1 class design activity was about a grandmother who has given a magical seed to her grandson and the K1 children were invited to help plant it and then return the grown-up tree as a gift to others. The K2 class design activity came from the popular Disney movie Frozen. There is a snowman named Olaf who needs a snowman friend to travel the world with. The children agreed to create a snowman for Olaf, so he would not be lonely. The K3 class design activity started with the classic story The Three Little Pigs. The research team told the children that one of the pigs was seeking the children’s help because a wolf had destroyed their house. Therefore, the children were to construct a house for them.

This activity is designed to assess children's computational thinking (CT) skills by incorporating computer science concepts such as algorithms, debugging, and decomposition. Children were provided with a worksheet to draw and record the quantities of materials, specifically geometric paperboards, used during the activity. The objective was to observe how children engage in CT throughout the process. The children then had to use their storyboards to build models for their sequences that would be photographed using stop-motion techniques. Table 1 offers a more detailed description of the activities for the three age groups. The main sessions were conducted by the researcher, with three assistants helping to record and assist with the children's practices. The research team were all qualified kindergarten teachers with bachelor's degrees in early childhood education.

Table 1 Activity Design of This Study
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Data Collection and Analysis

The primary data sources for this study include the videotape capturing the children's activity process, as well as the completed worksheets and final products. The classroom was equipped with a camera to record the entire 90-min session, while an assistant held another camera to capture the children's actions, dialogues, and works of art. The video recordings were conducted following the principle of naturalistic observation, minimizing intervention in the activity. Additionally, the research team maintained reflective journals to document the children's CT performance, dialogues, and embodied behaviors at different age levels observed during the activities. The use of multiple data sources allows for data triangulation to ensure robust findings.

Content analysis was used in this study (Patton, 2002). Content analysis is regarded as “a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts (or other meaningful matter) to the context of their use” (Krippendorff, 2004, p. 18). Numerous examples support the use of content analysis for qualitative studies in the field of early childhood education (e.g., Garvis et al., 2013; Park & Peterson, 2006).

To address the research questions, activity videos featuring children from three different grade levels were carefully reviewed, and specific episodes were selected as representative examples for in-depth analysis of the children's CT skill development. Specifically, Bers’s (2018) seven powerful ideas for CT were adapted as an analytical framework because of their relevance to CT learning and the age group involved in the study. In an effort to provide a developmentally appropriate framework for teaching coding and other CT concepts to children aged 4–9 years, Bers (2018) described seven powerful ideas for CT. This framework is based on experience with a variety of coding initiatives for children, including Scratch (Brennan & Resnick, 2012) and the KIBO robotics kit (Sullivan & Bers, 2016). The seven powerful ideas in question identify child-friendly CT concepts within the following domains: design process, representation, control structures, debugging, algorithm design, modularity, and hardware/software. Table 2 shows how these seven ideas apply to computer programming in more detail. These concepts were used as units of analysis to enable us to describe the occurrence of the CT learning behaviors. It should be noted that by examining children’s CT in the light of Bers (2018), this study contributes toward understanding how CT concepts can be explicated in young children’s unplugged activities, especially in animation art contexts.

Table 2 The Analytical Framework Used in the Study
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This study was carried out in full compliance with ethical guidelines, as approved by the institutional research ethics committee of the university. Two weeks prior to the workshop's start date, a cover letter and an informed consent form were sent to the guardians of the participating children. These documents provided comprehensive information regarding the study's objectives, procedures, as well as the confidentiality, anonymity, and data storage protocols. The guardians reviewed the materials, signed the forms, and returned them, thereby indicating their consent and agreement with the specified arrangements. Participation in the study was entirely voluntary, and children had the right to withdraw from the activity at any time if they felt uncomfortable or unwilling to continue. The research adhered to strict ethical guidelines concerning the collection, management, and storage of the gathered data. All collected data will be securely stored in a password-protected file and computer, with only the researcher having access to them.

Results

We report results of the study in seven sub-sections to provide in-depth analyses of each of the seven powerful ideas as proposed by Bers (2018). From the episodes analyzed, we also describe the developmental trajectories of Hong Kong kindergarten children in animation art activities. Based on the seven ideas categories, children's activity videos, artwork, and research’s reflective journals were viewed and analyzed separately by the research team, followed by a discussion about where the child's different behaviors fit into the categories.

Design Process

We observe that the children engaged in designing processes when formulating their solutions to the given problems. At each level, the animation art activity began with a given problem, in which the children were to engage in brainstorming solutions to the problem. While doing so, they were invited to record their working ideas on the worksheets, which facilitated their communication of their design processes. The following episodes illustrate the children’s development in design processes. While the K1 children were able to complete all parts of the design process, they needed close guidance and showed inconsistency in their design process. We take Child D as an example:

[At the beginning of the design process when Child D is preparing the worksheet]

Teacher: What kind of tree do you wish to grow?

Child D: I wish to grow something yellow.

Teacher: What kind of yellow food would you like to eat?

Child D: Potato chips!

Teacher: Then let us grow a potato-chip tree!

[During the photo-taking part of the animation session]

Teacher: Your tree looks very nice. What kind of tree is it?

Child D: It is a mango tree!

[During the sharing session at the end of the activity]

Teacher: What do the yellow circles stand for on your tree?

Child D: They are beans!

In the above episode, Child D changed his design from a “potato chip” to “mango” and later “beans” over the course of the activity. He could not complete the tasks based on his initial ideas. Likewise, the K2 children changed some of their designs when they communicated their working ideas from the start and at the end of the activity. Besides, their design process was influenced by their peers, as they imitated each other’s ideas in the process. As such, the outcomes of the animations were inconsistent with the original designs on the storyboards. We illustrate the K2 children’s design in the following episode:

[The teacher is asking Child H about his work, see Fig. 1]

Fig. 1
figure 1

Olaf’s Friend for Child H (K2) and Child G (K2)

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Teacher: What is it [the snowman] able to do?

Child H: It is able to carry the heaviest things.

Teacher: Which hand is able to do this?

Child H: This thicker one.

Teacher: And how about this brown hand?

Child H: For holding hands with Olaf.

Teacher: Right. Good friends will hold hands.

[Child G is sitting next to Child H during the design process after the dialogue of Child H with the teacher.]

Teacher: What is the purpose of this long hand?

Child G: [Pointing to the left hand, see Figure 1] Holds hand with Olaf, and [pointing to the right hand] this one carries heavy things.

[Child I also gives similar responses upon Child H and Child G sharing their ideas at the same table.]

Teacher: Is your snowman very tall?

Child I: Yes!

Teacher: Is it taller than Olaf?

Child I: Yes!

Teacher: What special things can your snowman do?

Child I: One hand carries huge objects; the other hand holds Olaf’s hand.

As opposed to imitating each other’s designs as shown above, the K3 children were able to think of their own unique and original solutions to solve the problem. Moreover, they demonstrated the ability to engage in conversation with one another to come up with ideas to solve the problem. For instance, the children participated actively a dialogue with the instructor and the pig character from the story in an enacted FaceTime call (Fig. 2). Overall, we observe that all the K3 children were able to express their intentions, rationales, and features when designing the houses for the pigs. Compared with the K1 and K2 children, they demonstrated more consistency in their planning process.

Fig. 2
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Children Participating in a Distance Call from the Pig Seeking their Help (a Problem-solving Situation)

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Teacher: Where do the three little pigs live? This or that one?

Child R: This one.

Teacher: Then who will live in this one?

Child R: The wolf.

Teacher: Oh, the wolf lives just next to the three little pigs? It sounds dangerous. What should they do to stop the wolf from coming nearby?

Teacher: [Pointing at the little green circle on the right-hand side of the picture] Wow, you have a lock here!

Child R: The little pigs should not go into this building. It is dangerous for them.

Teacher: So, you lock up the wolf but not the little pigs, who can go in and out freely.

Child R: The three little pigs have the key for their house. The key for the wolf’s house is taken away.

Teacher: The wolf does not have the key.

Child R: The three little pigs get his key, and they flush it down the toilet!

Teacher: So the wolf can never get out again.

As shown in the following episode, Child R claimed that she needed to build a house for the pigs to ensure their safety in the activity. She created two buildings; the one at left was to lock the wolf inside, while she had “flush the key down the toilet” so “the wolf can never get out again”, and the one at right was for the three pigs, who had a key so that they could access freely (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
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Child R (K3) Explaining Her Reasons for Designing Two Towers for the Wolf and the Pigs

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Representation

We observe that the children use different polygons to build the designated objects (e.g., using a triangle to represent the meaning of a rooftop), thereby recognizing geometric patterns and representing them symbolically. The children in the three class levels demonstrated a range of ability to symbolize meanings to form representations. The K1 children were able to match common fruits (e.g., apples and grapes) to the colored polygons (see Fig. 4), but they could not use the same colored polygons to represent other less common fruits (e.g., pitaya and kiwi). During the group discussions, the K2 children were able to provide multiple meanings for a single geometric figure. For example, a rectangle could represent a neck, scarf, or tie. In the below episode, Child F symbolized various objects with the same polygon, i.e., rectangle, which suggests that they could grasp and work with representations as a CT concept.

Fig. 4
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Child C (K1) Matches Apples to the Red and Green Circles

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Teacher:What does this orange rectangle stand for?

Child F:It is a scarf.

Teacher:You want a pair of hands, right? What do hands look like?

Child F:I need a rectangle... Where is its mouth?

Teacher:What shape do you want for the mouth?

Child F:I need a rectangle . . . this one!

The K3 children used different polygons to build the designated objects. The processes used by the children in selecting the different shapes revealed their development in shape recognition and meaning-making of symbols. They worked with representations fluently as a CT concept. As shown in Fig. 5, Child S used a series of four squares, rectangles, triangles, and parallelograms to form a house for the pigs. She also explained that the three different colors of the walls (light green, green, and pink) each represented the different bedrooms of the three pigs.

Fig. 5
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Child S (K3) Uses Different Polygons to Arrange Three Rooms for the Pigs

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Control Structures

In the context of the current animation art activity, they must determine which (and how) blocks should be moved and which should be kept in place before they could construct their storyboards. That is, the children demonstrated controlling structures as a CT concept, by creating and utilizing a series of static and moving blocks to build the designated animation. The K1 children chose the material appropriately, by controlling for the relative size of the materials for modelling a tree with two components. For example, they picked small green circles as leaves and large brown triangles as tree stems. The K2 children were able to control the desired sizes of a shape to be the same as another in order to create symmetrical figures, such as the arms of a snowman (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6
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Child J (K2) Makes a Mini-sized Snowman and Cuts the Paper into Short-sized Pieces

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The K3 children determined which units should be moved or kept in place using a relatively complex model. For example, to extend a house horizontally, one child chose similar shapes to build the different parts from left to right (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7
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Child T (K3) Moves Away the Incorrectly Sized Polygons and Keeps Those of Similar Shape to Extend the House Horizontally

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Debugging

The children put forward an idea of which object they want to create, and they worked back-and-forth using the given materials to test their working artefacts before the final product emerges. Sometimes, the idea they put forward initially might not be the same as their created at the end because they had decomposed the geometric figures incorrectly. In the case of K1, a triangle (a tree stem) and a circle (the leaves) were printed on the worksheet for the K1 children as the default image as the first two frames, but the children were unable to create that image upon determining the number of polygons that should be used. The debugging process for K1 children is exemplified in the episode below.

Teacher: Please circle the number of circles we used. How many circles did we use?

Child B: Four.

Teacher: How about this big circle? . . . So, how many circles did we use? Let’s count again.

Child B: (Pointing to the circles on the worksheet) 1, 2, 3, 4.

Teacher: Total is?

Child B: Four.

In the above episode, Child B missed the big circle printed on the worksheet and failed to count the total number of circles correctly. When recounting the number as suggested by the teacher, the child could not find his/her error. Therefore, Child B did not debug his/her artefact successfully. In the K1 class level, the teacher needed to guide the children by asking them to point to and count the numbers through one-to-one correspondences. Some of the K2 children faced similar difficulties in recognizing unfamiliar polygons and counting numbers. By contrast, the K3 children adopted a trial-and-error debugging strategy to compare their initial idea with their working artefact in order to find and resolve possible discrepancy. As a result, all K3 children could draw the designated object on the worksheet and then decompose the house into precise numbers of various geometric figures.

Algorithms

Different from a programming context, the children did not need to make programs by writing algorithms. However, we did observe children’s algorithmic thinking in the current unplugged activity when the children completed the storyboards by drawing or coloring in the content in a logical order. The storyboards show the sequence of actions for video-making, which can be considered an algorithm for solving the given problems. In planning a sequence for the animation work, the K1 children filled in the colors of every slide. Under close instruction, they demonstrated the concept of sequential order. Moreover, some of them could perform the concept independently. In the following episode, Child A used the color pink to draw a circle to remind herself of some areas that should remain unfilled (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8
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Child A (K1) Shows Her Awareness of the Sequence that She Plans in Her Work

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Teacher: You can color in the leaves now, but be careful not to color in the fruits.

Child A: Yes.

Teacher: Why are there so many pink circles?

Child A: Yes, many pink circles.

Teacher: Why? Do they have any purpose?

Child A: Not to use color.

Teacher: So you only color in the space outside the circles? Or inside the circles? Do you use color here?

Child A: No.

With guidance, the K2 children could draw the sequential order using a four-slide storyboard (Fig. 9). All the K3 children completed their six-frame storyboards by drawing the content logically. They wrote the number of figures on the worksheet and then collected the colored sheets based on what they had planned. The storyboards showed the sequence of actions for the video making (Fig. 10).

Fig. 9
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Child K (K2) Completes the Four-frame Storyboards for Making an Animation

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Fig. 10
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Child T (K3) Completes the Six-frame Storyboards for Making an Animation

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Modularity

Modularity refers to “building something large by putting together collections of smaller parts” (Brennan & Resnick, 2012, p. 9). We observe children’s modularizing when they put together a series of photo slides into a video artefact through stop-motion techniques. In terms of how their performance in modularizing, the K1 children could directly break down the circles (referring to fruits and other objects) into four frames with close teacher guidance. The K2 children designed a combination of new objects appearing in each new frame. For example, one child combined a face, eyes, and a hat together in one frame (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11
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Child E (K2) Demonstrates a Collection of Polygons (i.e., Small Parts) in Each Frame

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Overall, the K3 children broke down the designated objects into different photo slides by following their storyboards. For instance, one child designed different parts of the house and then grouped them into one form. He built his tall house by duplicating five similar rectangles of similar sizes. However, some of the children needed more facilitation from the teacher, as they could not figure out the sequence by referring to their hand-drawn forms in the storyboard.

Hardware/Software

The K1 children could tell that cellphones have a photo-taking purpose, but they did not hold and operate them very well. Most of the K2 children had experienced photo taking using smartphones. All the K3 children showed their ability to operate a smartphone and take pictures with targeted objects/people in the activity. At the end of the session, most of the K3 children explored the stop-motion setting so that it corresponded with the photo frames. One of the teachers in the research team helped the children in the three class levels to press the camera buttons. They then placed the colored sheets according to the sequence they had designed and completed a stop-motion animation (Fig. 12). We present Table 3 as a synthesis of the developmental trajectories of children’s CT in connection to animation making.

Fig. 12
figure 12

A Final Work of an Animation from Child P (K3)

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Table 3 Developmental Trajectories of Children’s CT in connection to Animation Making
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The reflective journals documented by the research team also captured noteworthy dialogues and engagements between the teachers and children, as well as the scaffolding support provided by the teachers to facilitate the children's learning process. In one instance, Teacher A reflected on the K2 children's impressive ability to skillfully manipulate the structures to successfully create the designated objects they had planned:

“The most impressive moment was when the child couldn’t find items of her desired size, so she asked for my help. She was making a mini-sized snowman, so the existing materials were way too large for her snowman. She asked for my help in cutting the paper into short-sized pieces”.

Teacher B shared her views regarding the K1 children’s CT when planning their animation work sequences:

“A child accidentally colored in some of the elements that were supposed not to be colored in. He asked me whether he was doing it wrong. He seemed worried that he had done something incorrect in the sequence he planned”.

Teacher C wrote that a K3 child showed advanced thinking in modularity while working with the components in six frames to create an animation:

“A child’s house design was complicated and contained three or four identical pieces. At first, he wanted to place a small part in each frame, but I told him that we did not have enough frames to build the house in that case. So, he decided to decompose the steps into different parts. He was absolutely brilliant because I only mentioned that we only had six frames. He understood the rules and changed his mind”.

Discussion

Discovering Children’s CT Developmental Trajectories

CT can be facilitated from infancy onward by using statistical patterns and modelling to develop young children’s language expression, mathematical reasoning, and social responses (Papert, 1980). From this study, it can be seen that CT in children’s behaviors has become embedded in their developmental pathways. The findings indicated the changes in quality and quantity in the CT concepts and practices of a group of children (aged 3–6 years) in a Hong Kong kindergarten. These were linked with the seven powerful ideas suggested by Bers et al. (2014) to establish the children’s developmental trajectories. In terms of their CT concepts and practices, older children who participated in this study showed a more complex mind structure and a sophisticated competency in dealing with the dimensions of reasoning, numbering, sequences, and symbolic meanings of colors. The different performances from the three grades was discovered in how the children planned their designs, symbolized the colors and polygons, controlled the components, decomposed the designated objects into shapes and numbers, created the sequences, broke these down into combinations, and operated the digital functions of the camera. This study revealed that CT in digital arts shares strong ties with cognition and language in areas such as early literacy, mathematics, and scientific thinking, which supports the development of children’s learning skills across multiple developmental areas (Campana et al., 2020).

While there has been an increase in CT educational initiatives and professional development programs for children and teachers (Tang et al., 2020), studies related to digital arts and young children’s CT development are rare in Hong Kong. In particular, scholars have argued that one of the greatest challenges to integrating CT into early childhood education is the lack of validated, developmentally appropriate assessments to measure young children’s CT skills in classroom settings (Román-González et al., 2019). The framework provided by this study, which reveals the behavioral indicators associated with facilitating children’s CT through digital arts, could be used to generate learning and assessment tools for young children’s technology education. The findings also contribute new academic insights regarding the professional and curricular development of children’s CT in early childhood education in Hong Kong.

Animation Arts as a Constructivist Pathway for Integrating CT

International studies have shown that arts exploration positively impacts children’s learning (Menzer, 2015). This study, which sought to bring a fresh perspective, had the goal of expanding pedagogies from fine arts to digital arts (Stephen & Plowman, 2014), with a particular focus on integrating animation arts into CT for children. In addition, following Zapata-Cáceres et al. (2020), it sought to use unplugged activities and the application of coding-free instruments to develop children’s CT skills without programming. The use of animation arts as an unplugged activity, involving the manipulation of geometric paperboards, offered valuable and hands-on experiences that held personal significance for the children (Bers et al., 2014; Saxena et al., 2020).

In our activity, we followed the CT pedagogical framework proposed by Kotsopoulos (2017), which involved children engaging in unplugged, tinkering, making, and remixing activities. To be more specific, we used unplugged materials throughout the activity. During the tinkering phase, children took apart the displayed pictures and rearranged them using different geometric shapes. Then, they utilized paperboards to construct a tree, a snowman, and a house during the making phase. In the remixing process, the final product was divided into four or six frames and captured on camera to create an animation. Drawing on Vygotsky's theory of social constructivism and the Zone of Proximal Development, the interactions between children and teachers played a vital role in constructing CT knowledge. With appropriate guidance from teachers acting as scaffolds, the children's abilities were further enhanced. Thus, animation arts, as a kind of domain-specific learning, acted as a constructivist pathway, allowing the children to freely explore and express their interests in CT and produce shareable artifacts through learning by making (Papert, 1980).

Conclusion

As the introduction of CT activities in early childhood settings becomes more prevalent, it is crucial to employ developmentally appropriate technologies and pedagogical approaches that consider the cognitive maturity and abilities of young children, alongside the scaffolding provided by teachers. Therefore, there are some suggestions for educators to consider when implementing CT education in kindergartens: 1) Kindergartens should prioritize early CT education by offering CT training and resources to teachers. This will help equip them with the necessary knowledge and teaching practices related to CT; 2) Teachers can integrate CT with visual arts or other activities commonly found in kindergartens. By creating an unplugged environment, children can engage in hands-on experiences that promote the development of their CT skills.

This study contributes empirical evidence regarding the CT elements observed in children's engagement with animation art. While traditional elements of fine arts education in kindergarten classrooms include drawing, painting, paper cut-outs, and tactile crafts, this study reveals the unique advantages of digital art in fostering children's CT abilities. It also illuminates how CT can be effectively integrated into visual arts to enhance children's learning experiences. The results emphasize the value of CT and the potential for interdisciplinary learning within the early childhood curriculum. Furthermore, the findings and framework of the study offer insights into the developmental progressions associated with facilitating children's CT through digital arts. These findings can serve as valuable evidence and provide practical guidance for integrating CT components into visual arts activities for young children. The newly identified behavioral indicators within the framework can also be utilized to develop learning and assessment tools for digital education tailored to the needs of young children.