Features of play activities of senior preschool age

Features of play activities of senior preschool age

At this stage of development of the game, word and deed come together, and role-playing behavior becomes a model of relationships between people that are meaningful to children. The stage of the actual role-playing game begins, in which the players simulate the labor and social relations of people familiar to them.

A scientific understanding of the stage-by-stage development of play activity makes it possible to develop clearer, systematized recommendations for guiding the play activities of children in different age groups.

In order to achieve a genuine, emotionally rich game, including an intellectual solution to a game problem, the teacher needs to comprehensively guide the formation, namely: purposefully enrich the child’s practical experience, gradually transferring it into a conventional game plan, and during independent games, encourage the preschooler to creatively reflect reality.

The game is dynamic where the management is aimed at its gradual formation, taking into account those factors that ensure the timely development of gaming activity at all age levels. Here it is very important to rely on the child’s personal experience. Game actions formed on its basis acquire a special emotional overtones. Otherwise, learning to play becomes mechanical. Emotions cement the game, make it exciting, create a favorable climate for relationships, increase the tone that every child needs - a share of his mental comfort, and this, in turn, becomes a condition for the preschooler’s receptivity to educational actions and joint activities with peers.

All components of a comprehensive guide to the formation of play are interconnected and equally important when working with children. As children grow older, the organization of their practical experience also changes, which is aimed at actively learning the real relationships between people in the process of joint activities. In this regard, the content of educational games and the conditions of the subject-game environment are updated. The emphasis of activating communication between adults and children shifts: it becomes businesslike, aimed at achieving joint goals. Adults act as one of the participants in the game, encouraging children to engage in joint discussions, statements, disputes, conversations, and contribute to the collective solution of game problems that reflect the joint social and labor activities of people.

So, the formation of play activities creates the necessary psychological conditions and favorable soil for the comprehensive development of the child. Comprehensive education of children, taking into account their age characteristics, requires systematization of the games used in practice, the establishment of connections between different forms of independent play and non-play activities that take place in a playful form. As you know, any activity is determined by its motive, that is, by what this activity is aimed at. Play is an activity whose motive lies within itself. This means that the child plays because he wants to play, and not for the sake of obtaining some specific result, which is typical for everyday life, work and any other productive activity.

MAGAZINE Preschooler.RF

The game is a unique phenomenon of universal human culture. It is this that is the unique social practice of the child. Children's play is understood as a special cultural formation developed in society in the course of its historical development. This type of activity serves as a means of realizing children’s desire to participate in the lives of adults. On the one hand, the game is an accessory of the preschool period, on the other hand, it is an element of the education system, with the help of which many problems of educational work in preschool educational institutions are solved.

Traditionally, the educational, educational and developmental significance of the game, as the leading type of activity in preschool age, was emphasized first of all. Thus, in the studies of L.A. Wenger, A.V. Zaporozhets, R.S. Bure shows the role of various types of games in the socialization of a child, his mental development and social development. A.P. Usov, T.A. Repina, A.A. Royak determined the importance of play in the formation of collective relationships among preschoolers and in the development of a “children’s society.” The works of L.S. Vygotsky, J. Piaget, D.B. Elkonin revealed the role of creative games and games with rules in the mental development of a child. The development of voluntary behavior through play is shown in the studies of Z.V. Mikhailenko.

Play is an effective means of cognitive, social, physical and mental development, forming the foundations of a universal human culture in a child.

It is well known from “folk pedagogy” that a “child who has not played enough” quickly loses interest in studying. Therefore, play at the preschool stage is of particular value: it contributes to the development of a child’s curiosity and desire to acquire new knowledge. In games with rules, didactic and active, children develop their voluntary behavior. The child learns to subordinate his actions to a model, which can be the behavior, opinion and assessment of others. By the end of the preschool period, the child acquires the ability to control his behavior, obey rules and requirements. It is the game that allows children to form their first ethical and moral guidelines when they begin to evaluate their own and others’ actions.

Observations show that modern preschoolers do not know how to organize their activities and fill them with meaning. Preschool age is the optimal period for personality formation, so you should not be under the illusion that these abilities will develop on their own in adulthood.

Conventionally, games can be divided into two main groups: plot-role-playing (creative) games and games with rules.

Role-playing games are games on everyday themes, with production themes, construction games, games with natural materials, theatrical games, fun games, and entertainment.

Games with rules - these include didactic games (games with objects and toys, verbal didactic, board-printed, musical-didactic games) and outdoor games (story-based, plotless, with elements of sports)

I will dwell in more detail on didactic games .

Didactic games are widespread in the preschool education system: they are known as games of an educational nature or games with rules, but the educational task in them does not appear directly, but is hidden from the playing children, for whom the gaming task is in the foreground. In an effort to realize it, children perform game actions and follow the rules of the game. A didactic game has a certain structure and includes educational and gaming tasks, game actions, and game rules.

An educational (didactic) task allows the teacher to achieve specific results in the game, focused on the development of certain qualities of children (the formation of sensory abilities, the development of auditory perception, etc.), to clarify knowledge, abilities, skills and ideas (for example, the ability to highlight signs of objects).

The educational task is presented to children in the form of a game task, which has the nature of practical tasks (look at the picture and find inconsistencies).

Game action allows children to realize the task assigned to them and is a way of behavior and activity in the game (they select pictures, make riddles).

The game action is aimed at fulfilling the game rule, which, in turn, limits the manifestation of children’s activity in the game, indicates how the game actions should be performed (make riddles only about those objects that are in the room).

The didactic task, game action and game rules are closely interrelated. Each structural component of a didactic game directly depends on the teaching task and is subordinate to it: the game action cannot be determined without knowing the task; game rules contribute to solving the learning task, but the more restrictions in the game, the more difficult it is to solve the task.

The content of didactic games and the order of setting didactic tasks are determined by the program. Didactic games can contain several educational tasks at once (for example, in a word game: to develop children’s auditory perception, to activate speech, to teach how to coordinate words and actions).

The didactic game is planned and introduced into the lesson by the teacher, so it depends on him what tasks will be set, how the game will be played, and what results can be expected. The teacher must plan the game in a timely manner, determine its place in the structure of the lesson, prepare for the game (select didactic materials, arrange the place, think over the methodology for conducting the game, determine the composition of the players), and conduct a subsequent analysis of the game. When conducting games, special attention should be paid to creating an atmosphere of enthusiasm, the feasibility of the didactic task, and the pace of the game.

Scientists note the role of didactic games in the mental and sensory development of children. In early childhood, a child comprehends reality through sensory perception and sensations during actions with objects. In the process of specially organized activities, he learns to analyze and compare. generalize objects. The main form of learning is games-activities, which are based on didactic games.

There is no consensus in science about what a didactic game actually is: a means, form, method or type of activity. The main thing is what opportunities the didactic game opens up in the education and development of children, what new prospects in the development of gaming technologies it indicates.

In children aged 6-7 years, personal mechanisms of behavior begin to develop, in which the main place is occupied by awareness and indirectness of their own behavior. Involuntary behavior is replaced by voluntary behavior. The child begins to recognize himself as a member of the adult community.

In older preschool age, intellectual activity effectively develops in games with rules. The peculiarity of a didactic game is that older preschoolers will play it if it is entertaining and emotionally exciting. Then there will be perseverance, some restraint in performing game actions.

In games, children of the preparatory group strive to get ahead of their playmates, when all team members have the opportunity to become first. The final stage of the game is no less important, when the results are summed up and the teams’ work is assessed. The collective nature of creativity, manifested in collective play, encourages children to reason, compare, exchange opinions, argue, support each other, respect other people's opinions, ask for advice and help. The result of collaboration significantly exceeds the potential capabilities of each participant.

In the games of children in the preparatory group, the didactic material that the teacher offers them in the form of maps, drawings, drawings, diagrams and visual spatial models becomes significantly more complex. In the process of working with models, children learn the relationship between the part and the whole, the essential features of the models being studied. They are interested in both individual and collective forms of learning. The teacher varies the tasks, and the children show increasing independence, introducing new content into the game, performing roles that are new to them.

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Subject development environment in preschool institutions

In the 1990s, in the works of V.A. Petrovsky, L.M. Klarina, L.A. Smyvina, L.P. Strelkova, N.Yu. Kuznetsova, V.V. Mikhailenko, N.A. Korotkova, E.I. Rzayeva and other scientists raised the question of a subject-development environment. The term "development environment" has become very popular for quite some time. However, the term "environment" does not have a clear definition in science. The term "development environment" can be considered in a broad and narrow sense.

In the broadest sense, a developing educational environment is a sociocultural space in which the process of personal development occurs spontaneously or with varying degrees of organization. From the point of view of psychologists such as L.S. Vygotsky, P.Ya. Galperin, V.V. Davydov, L.V. Zankov, A.N. Leontyev, D.B. Elkonin, a developmental environment is a certain ordered educational space in which developmental learning takes place. Most experts use the concept of Doctor of Psychological Sciences S.L. Novoselova: “A developing subject environment is a system of material objects of a child’s activity, which functionally modernizes the content of the development of his mental and physical figure. An enriched developmental environment presupposes the unity of social and natural means of ensuring a child’s varied activities.”

Meanwhile, in domestic preschool pedagogy and psychology, extensive experience has been accumulated in working on the problem of upbringing and teaching preschool children through play activities (L.S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonin, A.V. Zaporozhets, S.A. Novoselova, E.V. Zvorygina, N.Ya. Mikhailenko, N.A. Korotkova, N.V. Nishcheva, etc.) A feature of these studies is the emphasis on building an object-based play environment, which involves the search for new approaches to organization in a preschool institution, work in a new environment - within the framework of a person-oriented approach. In a preschool educational institution, it is possible to organize such an environment aimed at “harmonizing the quantity, diversity, originality, variability, degree of influence on the child’s personality” (R.B. Sterkina) of all its components, which contributes to the development of the preschooler’s personality, becomes a source of his knowledge and social experience , including gaming.

It can be seen that an important task of modern preschool education is to improve the pedagogical process and improve the quality of work with children through the proper organization of the play environment, where the child can show his own activity and fully realize himself. The subject-development environment created in the group provides high-quality preschool education, ensuring the protection and strengthening of the physical and mental health of pupils, promoting high moral development and upbringing of children.

In accordance with the recommendations of federal state educational standards, educational work with children is carried out in the process of organizing various types of children's activities: games, communication, labor, cognitive and research activities, productive activities, musical and artistic activities, which helps to meet the needs of children.

The thematic building environment of the senior group should be based on the following principles:

1. Informative, providing a variety of topics for children's activities, materials and equipment used by children in the process of activity;
2. Variability due to the content of regional education, national, cultural and artistic traditions of the region;
3. Multifunctionality, which provides not only options for the different use of certain components of the subject-development environment depending on the subject of the activity, but also consistent lines between all components of the educational process;
4. Expediency, providing the subject-developmental environment of the group with the necessary and sufficient content, which gives children opportunities for self-expression, contributes to the individual well-being and emotional well-being of each child;
5. Transformability, which implies the possibility of changing the subject-development environment depending on the types of activities being solved and educational tasks.

“Features of role-playing games in preschool age”

In middle preschool age, playing a role becomes a significant motive for play activity: the child develops a desire not just to play, but to fulfill one or another role. The point of the game for a 4-5 year old preschooler is the relationships between the characters. Therefore, the child willingly takes on those roles in which the relationships are clear to him (the teacher takes care of the children, the captain leads the ship, etc.). The child depicts these relationships in play using speech, facial expressions, and gestures. At this age, role-playing speech becomes a means of interaction. Since children develop a selective attitude towards certain roles, their distribution before the start of the game is a rather emotional process. The teacher's help is necessary.

In older preschool age, the meaning of the game lies in the typical relationships of the person whose role is played by the child with other persons whose roles are taken on by other children. In games, role-playing dialogues appear, with the help of which the relationships between characters are expressed and game interaction is established. For the quality of role performance, the child’s attitude towards it is important. Therefore, it should be borne in mind that older preschoolers are reluctant to perform roles that, in their opinion, do not correspond to their gender. Thus, boys refuse to play the role of a teacher, the head of a preschool institution, and in the game of school they agree to be only a physical education teacher. When performing a role, the child takes into account not so much the external logic, the sequence of actions, but the meaning of social relations.

Characteristics of role-playing games as a creative activity.

Creativity is defined as human activity that creates new material and spiritual values ​​that have novelty and social significance, that is, as a result of creativity, something new is created that did not exist before.

Psychological and pedagogical research, as well as the practice of our kindergartens, prove that the beginning of the development of children's creative abilities falls on preschool age, when the nature of their activities changes compared to early childhood. The imagination of older preschoolers becomes more and more active, and they develop the ability for creative activity. A deep and complex process of transformation and assimilation of life impressions occurs in games. The creative principle is also manifested in the idea - the choice of the theme of the game, the drawing, in finding ways to implement the plan, and in the fact that children do not copy what they see, but with great sincerity and spontaneity, without caring about the audience and listeners, they convey their attitude towards what is depicted, their thoughts and feelings. Unlike adults, children are not able to think through the upcoming work or game in all details; they outline only a general plan that is implemented in the process of activity. The teacher’s task is to develop the child’s creative abilities, purposeful imagination, and encourage him to move from thought to action in any activity. Children's creativity is based on imitation, which serves as an important factor in the development of the child, in particular his artistic abilities. The teacher’s task is, based on children’s tendency to imitate, to instill in them the skills and abilities without which creative activity is impossible, to cultivate in them independence, activity in the application of this knowledge and skills, to form critical thinking and focus. Education plays a huge role in the “reasonable creative activity” of a child. With proper training, children's creativity reaches a relatively high level. Thus, in preschool age, the foundations of a child’s creative activity are laid, which are manifested in the development of the ability to conceive and implement it, in the ability to combine their knowledge and ideas, in the sincere transmission of their feelings. The child’s creative imagination is especially clearly manifested and developed in play, concretized in a purposeful game plan.