This is a game in preschool age. Psychological view (PsyVision) - quizzes, educational materials, catalog of psychologists The main unit of the game in preschool age is

Introduction........................................................ ........................................................ ..2

Mental development of a child in preschool age.................................... 3

Neoplasms of preschool age................................................................... ..6

The importance of play for the development of a preschooler’s psyche.................................................. 8

The social nature of a preschooler’s role-playing game.................................................... 10

Units of analysis and psychological characteristics of a preschooler’s role-playing game..................................................... ........................................................ ............................ 13

Development of role play in preschool age.................................................... 18

Types of games and other forms of activity of a preschooler.................................... 21

Conclusion................................................. ............................................... 27

Bibliography................................................ ........................... 29

Preschool age covers the period from 3 to 6 – 7 years. Last year– approximately – preschool age can be considered a transitional period from preschool to primary school age.

Preschool childhood is a very special period of child development. At this age, the child’s entire mental life and his relationship to the world around him are restructured. The essence of this restructuring is that in preschool age, internal mental life and internal regulation of behavior arise. If in early age The child’s behavior is stimulated, directed from the outside - by adults or by the perceived situation, then in preschool the child himself begins to determine his own behavior. The formation of internal mental life and internal self-regulation is associated with a number of new formations in the psyche and consciousness of a preschooler. L.S. Vygotsky believed that the development of consciousness is determined not by an isolated change in individual mental functions (attention, memory, thinking, etc.), but by a change in the relationship between individual functions. At each stage, one or another function comes out on top.

In preschool age, the number of activities that the child masters increases, the content of the child’s communication with the people around him becomes more complex, and the circle of this communication expands. Peers begin to occupy an important place in the child’s life.

In preschool age, consciousness acquires the characteristics of indirectness and generality, and its arbitrariness begins to form. At this age, the child’s personality is mainly formed, i.e. the motivational-need sphere and self-awareness are formed.

At preschool age, elements of work and educational activity also develop. However, the child has not yet fully mastered these types of activities, since the motives typical for a preschooler do not yet correspond to the specifics of work and learning as types of activity. The work of children consists in the fact that they carry out instructions from adults, imitate them, and express interest in the process of activity. Elements of educational activity are manifested in the child’s ability to hear and listen to an adult, to follow his instructions, to act according to a model and according to the rule, in an awareness of how to perform actions. Elements of educational activity initially arise within other types of activity in the form of a child’s desire to learn something. However, children cannot yet separate learning task From a practical point of view, they do not have a special attitude towards an adult as a teaching person.

The breadth of the range of activities of a preschool child shows that he masters a variety of subject content. The sphere of communication with adults is also expanding and becoming more complex. The leading motives for communication are cognitive and personal. The child turns to an adult as a source of knowledge about the natural and social world. The preschooler asks adults questions about the world around him, about people, their relationships and about himself.

Peers play an important role in the life of a preschool child. Children develop relatively stable sympathies and develop joint activities. Communication with a peer is communication with an equal; it gives the child the opportunity to get to know himself.

Typical motives for the behavior of preschoolers are the desire to be like an adult, the desire to establish positive relationships with adults, motives of pride and self-affirmation, and cognitive motives. At preschool age, a system of motives is already formed, i.e. main and subordinate motives are distinguished, and motives of a higher order - socially mediated - begin to come to the fore. An adult makes moral demands on a preschool child. The child begins to master the sphere of morality, both at the level of consciousness and at the level of behavior. Great importance in this process there are emotions and feelings and an emerging assessment of oneself. However, in preschool age, moral behavior lags behind moral consciousness, which indicates the assimilation of moral norms mainly at a known level.

Increasing complexity of activities and communication, expanding the circle of contacts lead to the formation of self-awareness. The child becomes aware of himself, first of all, at the level of the subject of action. He develops a stable positive attitude towards himself, determined by the need for recognition from others. The child recognizes himself as a bearer of individual characteristics - physical appearance and gender, as a person changing over time, having his own past, present and future. Self-esteem of a preschooler appears in special situations that require the child to evaluate himself, but in content it is situational and reflects the assessment given to the child by adults. By the end of preschool age, a specific self-esteem is formed; the child can evaluate himself non-situationally and reasonably.

In preschool age, mechanisms for managing one’s behavior develop: the assimilation and application of norms and rules of behavior, the subordination of motives, the targeted organization of activities, the ability to foresee the consequences of actions. However, these psychological formations do not yet fully perform their regulatory functions, and in this sense, preschool children are attributed to a lack of volitional development. One of its manifestations is the conformity of children in relation to adults and peers, the degree of which noticeably decreases towards the end of preschool age.

During preschool age, significant changes occur in the child’s cognitive sphere. He assimilates sensory standards through which he perceives objects and their properties, which allows him to purposefully and voluntarily examine these objects. The figurative nature of thinking, specific to preschool age, is determined by the fact that the child establishes connections and relationships between objects, primarily on the basis of direct impressions. The use of socially developed means to establish connections and relationships between objects, the assimilation of elementary concepts allows the child to move on to indirect knowledge of the world around him. Mediation allows the child to voluntarily explore the world around him. One of the main lines of development of cognitive processes in preschool age is the transition from involuntary mental processes to voluntary ones.

During preschool age, all functions and types of speech develop. The nominative function of speech reflects the concrete-figurative nature of the child’s thinking; he cannot yet separate the name of an object from its properties. Egocentric speech, which performs a planning function, moves to the internal plane and becomes inner speech. The communicative function is performed by contextual and situational speech, as well as explanatory speech. Speech, in addition, acquires features of arbitrariness; the child uses it depending on the tasks of communication. Written speech arises from visual activity, with the help of which the child depicts the process of speaking.

The result of a child’s development in preschool age is the emergence of fundamental psychological formations: an internal plan of action, volition, imagination, a generalized non-situational attitude towards oneself. The child develops a desire to perform socially significant, socially valued activities. The child is burdened by his position as a preschooler.

At an early age, the main mental function is perception. The most important feature of preschool age, from the point of view of L.S. Vygotsky, is what develops here new system mental functions, the center of which is memory.

The memory of a preschooler is the central mental function that determines other processes. The thinking of a preschool child is largely determined by his memory. For a preschooler, thinking means remembering, i.e. rely on your previous experience or modify it. Thinking never shows such a high correlation with memory as at this age. The task of the mental act for the child is not the logical structure of the concepts themselves, but the specific memory of his experience. For example, when a child answers what a snail is, he says that it is small, slippery, like a spiral with horns, and lives in a shell; if he is asked to say what a bed is, he will answer that it has a soft seat. In such responses, the child gives a brief account of his memories of this object.

The fact that memory becomes the center of the child’s consciousness leads to significant consequences that characterize the mental development of the preschooler. First of all, the child acquires the ability to act in terms of general ideas. His thinking ceases to be visually effective, it is detached from the perceived situation, and, consequently, the opportunity opens up to establish connections between general ideas that are not given in direct sensory experience. The child can establish simple cause-and-effect relationships between events and phenomena. He has a desire to somehow explain and organize the world around him. Thus, the first outline of a holistic child’s worldview appears. From the age of five, the real flowering of the ideas of “little philosophers” begins. When building his picture of the world, the child invents, invents, imagines.

Imagination is one of the most important new formations of preschool age. Imagination has much in common with memory - in both cases the child acts in terms of images and ideas. Memory, in a sense, can also be considered as a “reproducing imagination.” But in addition to reproducing images of past experience, imagination allows the child to build and create something new, original, which was not previously in his experience. And although the elements and prerequisites for the development of imagination are formed at an early age, it reaches its highest flowering precisely in preschool childhood.

Another important new development of this period is the emergence of voluntary behavior. In preschool age, the child’s behavior goes from being impulsive and spontaneous to being mediated by norms and rules of behavior. Here for the first time the question arises of how to behave, that is, a preliminary image of one’s behavior is created, which acts as a regulator. The child begins to master and manage his behavior by comparing it with a model.

This comparison with a model is an awareness of one’s behavior and an attitude towards it from the point of view of this model. Awareness of one's behavior and the beginning of personal self-awareness is one of the main new developments of preschool age. An older preschooler begins to understand what he can do and what he cannot, he knows his limited place in the system of relationships with other people, he is aware not only of his actions, but also of his internal experiences - desires, preferences, moods, etc. In the preschool image, the child goes through the path from “I myself,” from separating oneself from an adult to the discovery of one’s inner life, which constitutes the essence of personal self-awareness.

All the most important new formations originate and initially develop in the leading activity of preschool age - role-playing play. Role-playing play is an activity in which children take on certain functions of adults and, in specially created playful, imaginary conditions, reproduce (or model) the activities of adults and the relationships between them. That is, in a role-playing game, the need to be like an adult is satisfied. Role-playing game is the most complex type of activity that a child masters during preschool age. The main characteristic of the game is the presence of an imaginary situation. Along with the role-playing game, other types of games are also developing, genetically related to the latter.

In the game, all the mental qualities and personality traits of the child are most intensively formed.

Gaming activity influences the formation of voluntary behavior and all mental processes - from elementary to the most complex. Performing a play role, the child subordinates all his momentary, impulsive actions to this task. Children focus better and remember more when playing than when given direct instructions from an adult. The conscious goal - to concentrate, to remember something, to restrain impulsive movement - is most easily identified by a child in play.

The game has a strong influence on mental development preschooler. Acting with substitute objects, the child begins to operate in a conceivable, conventional space. The substitute object becomes a support for thinking. Gradually, play activities are reduced, and the child begins to act internally, mentally. Thus, the game helps the child move on to thinking in terms of images and ideas. In addition, in the game, performing various roles, the child takes on different points of view and begins to see the object from different sides. This promotes the development of the most important human thinking ability, which allows you to imagine a different view and a different point of view.

Role play is critical to developing imagination. Game actions take place in an imaginary, imaginary situation; real objects are used as other, imaginary ones; the child takes on the roles of imaginary characters. This practice of acting in an imaginary space helps children acquire the ability to imagine creatively.

A preschooler’s communication with peers unfolds mainly in the process of playing together. While playing together, children begin to take into account the desires and actions of the other, defend their point of view, build and implement joint plans. Therefore, play has a huge impact on the development of children’s communication during this period.

In the game, other types of child’s activities develop, which then acquire independent significance. Thus, productive activities (drawing, design) are initially closely merged with play. While drawing, the child acts out this or that plot. The construction of cubes is woven into the course of the game. Only by older preschool age does the result of productive activity acquire independent significance, and it is freed from play.

The enormous importance of play for the development of all mental processes and the personality of the child as a whole gives reason to believe that this activity is the leading one in preschool age.

However, this children's activity is very exotic and mysterious for psychologists. In fact, why, how and why do children suddenly take on the roles of adults and begin to live in some kind of imaginary space? At the same time, of course, they remain children and perfectly understand the conventions of their “reincarnation” - they only play at being adults, but this game brings them incomparable pleasure. Defining the essence of a role-playing game is not easy. This activity contains incompatible and contradictory principles. It is both free and strictly regulated, direct and indirect, fantastic and real, emotional and cognitive.

Not a single prominent psychologist could pass by this amazing phenomenon. Many of them tried to create their own concept of a children's game. In Russian psychology, the most prominent theorist and researcher of children's play is D.B. Elkonin, who in his works continued and developed the traditions of L.S. Vygotsky.

According to the views of most foreign psychologists, children's play is the building of their own children's world, separate from adults. Thus, from the position of psychoanalysis, children's play is one of the mechanisms for the release of forbidden drives. Primitive children's play and the highest manifestations of the human spirit (science, culture, art) are only forms of sublimation, “bypassing barriers” that are put up by a society that is initially antagonistic to the child and his natural inclinations. The basis of a child's games, according to Freud, as well as the basis of a neurotic's dreams, is the same tendency towards obsessive repetition of traumatic influences. According to Freud, a child from his very birth is exposed to all sorts of traumatic influences: the trauma of birth, the trauma of weaning, the trauma of “infidelity” of his beloved mother, all kinds of traumas of severity, etc. All these traumas are inflicted by adults on the child, preventing the satisfaction of the child’s sexuality. Therefore, childhood is an extremely difficult and dangerous period, fraught with neurotic deviations. In the light of these provisions, play acts as a natural therapeutic remedy against possible neuroses. By repeating his traumatic experiences in play, the child masters them and overcomes them. From these ideas one gets the impression that the child has as the main content of his life not the world around him, but his deep, sexual desires.

These ideas of Freud had a huge influence on the ideas about the game of J. Piaget. The path of child development, from Piaget’s point of view, in a simplified, primitive form can be presented as follows. First, the child lives in his own, autistic world of dreams and desires, then, under the pressure of the world of adults, two worlds arise - the world of play and the world of reality, and the first is more important for the child. This game world is something like the remnants of the autistic world. The game belongs to the world of dreams, desires unsatisfied in the real world and inexhaustible possibilities. This world is no less real for a child than the other - the world of adults. Finally, under the pressure of the world of reality, these remnants are also repressed, and then only real world with repressed desires, acquiring the character of dreams and daydreams.

Thus, in preschool age, according to Piaget, a child lives simultaneously in two worlds - in his own, children's world of play and the world of adult reality. The struggle of these spheres is an expression of the struggle of the child’s innate asociality, his autistic isolation, “eternally childish” with the social, logical, causally determined adult world imposed from the outside.

As you can see, the concepts of Freud and Piaget, despite their fundamental differences, have significant similarities, which lies in the initial antagonism of the child and society. If for psychoanalysts the child runs away from difficult reality into the world of play, then for Piaget the world of play is the remnants of the child’s original own world, which has not yet been supplanted by adults. However, in both cases, the world of adults and the world of the child confront each other as hostile forces. Adults repress and suppress the child’s own world, who resists this whenever possible, and the way of such resistance is to withdraw into his own world of play. Built on fundamentally different foundations, these two worlds are alien to each other and irreconcilable. Between them only relations of opposition and repression are possible.

But the world of a small child is, first of all, mom, dad, i.e. a close person who satisfies all his biological and psychological needs. Only through communication and relationships with adults does a child acquire his own, subjective world. Even in cases of confrontation and opposition to an adult, this adult is absolutely necessary for the child, since it is he who makes it possible to feel his autonomy and independence. The child does not live in an imaginary dream world, but in the company of people and the environment of human objects. They are the main content of the child’s world. The specificity of this children's world lies not in hostility to the adult world, but in the special ways of existing in it and mastering it. From this point of view, children's play is not a departure from the adult world, but a way of entering it.

According to the concept of children's play by D.B. Elkonin's role-playing game is an expression of the child's growing connection with society - a special connection characteristic of preschool age.

Role-playing expresses the child’s desire to participate in the life of adults, which cannot be realized directly due to the complexity of the tools and their inaccessibility to the child. Elkonin's research has shown that in more primitive societies, where children can take part in the work activities of adults very early, there are no objective conditions for the emergence of role-playing games. The child’s desire for independence and participation in the life of adults is satisfied there directly and directly - starting from the age of 3-4, children master the tools of labor or work together with adults, rather than play. These facts allowed D.B. Elkonin has an important conclusion: role play arises in the course of the historical development of society as a result of a change in the child’s place in the system of social relations. It is therefore social in its origin and nature. Its occurrence is not associated with the action of some internal, innate instinctive forces, but with the very specific conditions of a child’s life in society.

The central point of role play is the role that the child takes on. At the same time, he does not just call himself the name of the corresponding adult (“I am an astronaut”, “I am a mother”, “I am a doctor”), but, what is most important, he acts as an adult, whose role he has taken upon himself and This is how he identifies himself with him. Through the fulfillment of a play role, the child’s connection with the world of adults is realized. It is the playing role that in concentrated form embodies the child’s connection with society. Therefore, Elkonin proposed to consider the role as the basic, indecomposable unit of the developed form of play. It presents the affective-motivational and operational-technical aspects of a child’s activity in indissoluble unity.

The most characteristic point of the role is that it cannot be carried out outside of practical game action. Game action is a way of fulfilling a role. It is impossible to imagine a child who, having taken on the role of an adult, would remain inactive and act only on the mental plane - in ideas and imagination. The role of a rider, a doctor or a driver cannot be performed only in the mind, without real, practical game actions.

There is a close relationship and contradictory unity between the role and the game actions corresponding to it. The more generalized and abbreviated the game actions, the more deeply the system of relations between the recreated activities of adults is reflected in the game. And vice versa - the more specific and developed the game actions are, the more the relationships between people fade into the background and the more the substantive content of the recreated activity comes to the fore.

What constitutes the main content of the roles that children take on and which they realize through play actions?

When analyzing a game, it is necessary to distinguish between its plot and content. The plot of the game is the area of ​​social reality that is reproduced by children in the game (hospital, family, war, store, etc.). The plots of the games reflect the specific living conditions of the child. They change depending on these specific conditions, along with the expansion of the child's horizons and his familiarity with the environment. In different historical eras, depending on social, everyday and family conditions, children play games with different plots. Main source role playing games is to introduce the child to the life and activities of adults. If children are new to the human world around them, they play little, their games are monotonous and limited. Recently, educators and psychologists have noted a decrease in the level of role-playing games in preschoolers. Children play less than 20-30 years ago; their role-playing games are more primitive and monotonous. This is apparently due to the fact that children are increasingly moving away from adults, they do not see or understand the activities of adults, and are poorly acquainted with their work and personal relationships. As a result, despite the abundance of wonderful toys, they lack material for play. At the same time, it was noticed that modern preschoolers They prefer to reproduce in their games plots borrowed from television series, and take on not production or professional roles of adults (doctor, driver, cook, etc.), but the roles of television characters. These observations may indicate that our preschoolers, who spend too much time watching television, are more familiar with the lives and relationships of foreign film characters than with the real adults around them. However, this does not change the essence of the game: despite all the variety of plots, they hide fundamentally the same content - the activities of people, their actions and relationships.

The content of the game is what is reproduced by the child as a central point in human relationships. The content of the game expresses the child’s more or less deep penetration into the relationships and activities of people. It can reflect only the external side of human behavior - only what and how a person acts, or a person’s relationships with other people, or the meaning of human activity. The specific nature of the relationships between people that children recreate in the game can be different and depend on the relationships of real adults surrounding the child. Indeed, a game with the same plot (for example, playing with a family) can have completely different content: one “mother” will beat and scold her “children”, another will put on makeup in front of the mirror and rush to visit, a third will constantly wash and cook, the fourth - read books to children and study with them, etc. All these options reflect what “flows” into the child from the surrounding life. The social conditions in which a child lives determine not only the plots, but, above all, the content of children's games. Thus, play arises from the conditions of a child’s life in society and reflects and reproduces these conditions. The content of the game changes with the age of the children. For younger preschoolers, the main content of the game is the objective actions of people; in middle preschool age, relationships between people come to the fore; in older preschoolers, the implementation of the rules governing the behavior and relationships of people comes to the fore.

Almost all researchers who have studied play unanimously noted that play is the most free, relaxed, and most enjoyable activity for a preschool child. In the game he does only what he wants. The relaxed nature of the game is expressed not only in the fact that the child freely chooses the plot of the game, but also in the fact that his actions with objects are completely free from their usual, “correct” use.

The emotional intensity of the game is so strong and obvious that it is this point that is often highlighted when considering the game as an instinctive source of pleasure. But the paradox is that it is precisely in this activity, which is maximally free from any coercion, seemingly entirely in the power of emotions, that the child first of all learns to control his behavior and regulate it in accordance with generally accepted rules. The essence of children's play lies precisely in this contradiction. How does this become possible?

In order for a child to take on the role of some other person, it is necessary to identify in this person the characteristic features inherent only to him, the rules and way of his behavior. Only when these rules, reflecting this person’s attitude towards things and other people, stand out clearly enough in front of the child, can the role be taken and fulfilled by the child in the game. If we want children to take on the roles of doctors, pilots or teachers, we need, first of all, for them to identify for themselves the rules and ways of behavior of these characters. If this is not the case, if this or that person is simply attractive to the child, but his functions, his relationships with others and the rules of his behavior are not clear, the role cannot be fulfilled.

By taking on the role of an adult, the child thereby begins to follow a certain, understandable way of behavior inherent in this adult.

But the child takes on the role of an adult in the game only conditionally, “for fun.” Perhaps the fulfillment of the rules by which he must behave is also conditional and one can handle them completely freely, changing them at will?

The question of the conditionality of following the rules in the game, of the child’s freedom in relation to the role taken on, was specially studied in one of the works of D.B. Elkonina.

The sequence of actions of the role that the child takes upon himself has for him, as it were, the force of a law to which he must subordinate his actions. Any attempt to break this sequence or introduce an element of convention (for example, to make the mice catch the cats or have the driver sell tickets and the cashier drive the bus) causes a violent protest from the children, and sometimes even leads to the destruction of the game. By taking on a role in the game, the child thereby accepts a system of strict necessity to perform certain actions in a certain sequence. So freedom in the game is relative - it exists only within the limits of the role taken on.

But the whole point is that the child takes on these restrictions voluntarily, of his own free will. Moreover, it is precisely this obedience to the accepted law that gives the child maximum pleasure. According to L.S. Vygotsky, play is “a rule that has become an affect” or “a concept that has turned into a passion.” Usually the child, obeying the rule, refuses what he wants. In a game, obeying the rule and refusing to act on an immediate impulse brings maximum pleasure. The game continually creates situations that require action not according to immediate impulse, but along the line of greatest resistance. The specific pleasure of play is associated precisely with overcoming immediate impulses, with submission to the rule contained in the role. This is why Vygotsky believed that play gives the child “a new form of desire.” In the game, he begins to correlate his desires with the “idea”, with the image of an ideal adult. A child can cry like a patient in a game (it’s difficult to show how you cry) and rejoice like a player.

Many researchers considered play to be a free activity precisely because it does not have a clearly defined goal and result. But the considerations of Vygotsky and Elkonin expressed above reject this assumption. In the creative, role-playing game of a preschooler, there is both a goal and a result. The goal of the game is to fulfill the role you have taken on. The outcome of the game is how that role is played. Conflicts that arise during the game, as well as the pleasure of the game itself, are determined by how well the result corresponds to the goal. If there is no such correspondence, the rules of the game are often violated, and instead of pleasure, children experience disappointment and boredom.

However, the playing role in a developed form does not arise immediately and simultaneously. In preschool age, she goes through a significant developmental path. With the same plot, the content of the game at different stages of preschool age is completely different. In general terms, the line of development of a child’s play can be represented as a transition from the operational scheme of a single action to its meaning, which always lies in another person. The evolution of action (according to D.B. Elkonin) goes the following way. First, the child eats himself with a spoon. Then he spoon feeds it to someone else. He then spoon feeds the doll like a baby. Then he feeds the doll with a spoon, like a mother feeds a child. Thus, it is the relationship of one person to another (in this case, mother to child) that becomes the main content of the game and sets the meaning of the game activity.

The main content of play for younger preschoolers is to perform certain actions with toys. They repeatedly repeat the same actions with the same toys: “rubbing carrots,” “cutting bread,” “washing dishes.” At the same time, the result of the action is not used by children - no one eats sliced ​​bread, and washed dishes are not placed on the table. The actions themselves are fully expanded; they cannot be abbreviated and cannot be replaced by words. In fact, there are roles, but they themselves are determined by the nature of the action, and do not determine it. As a rule, children do not call themselves by the names of the persons whose roles they have assumed. These roles exist in actions rather than in the child's mind.

In the middle of preschool childhood, the game with the same plot plays out differently. The main content of the game is the relationships between people, the roles that children have taken on. Roles are clearly defined and highlighted. Children name them before the game starts. Game actions are highlighted that convey relationships to other participants in the game: if porridge is put into plates, if bread is sliced, then all this is given to the “children” for lunch. The actions performed by the child become shorter, are not repeated, and one action is replaced by another. Actions are no longer performed for their own sake, but for the sake of realizing a certain relationship with another player in accordance with the role taken on.

The content of the game for older preschoolers is the fulfillment of the rules arising from the role taken on. Children 6-7 years old are extremely picky about following the rules. While playing this or that role, they carefully monitor how much their actions and the actions of their partners correspond to generally accepted rules of behavior - it happens or doesn’t happen: “Moms don’t do that,” “They don’t serve soup after the second.”

Changes in the content of games with the same plot among preschoolers of different ages are revealed not only in the nature of the actions, but also in how the game begins and what causes children’s conflicts. For younger preschoolers, the role is suggested by the object itself: if a child has a saucepan in his hands, he is a mother, if a spoon, he is a child. The main conflicts arise due to the possession of the object with which the game action must be performed. Therefore, often two “drivers” drive a car, and several “mothers” prepare lunch. For children of middle preschool age, the role is formed before the game begins. The main quarrels are over roles - who will be who. Finally, for older preschoolers, play begins with an agreement, with joint planning on how to play, and the main debates are around “whether it happens or not.”

In one of the studies by D.B. Elkonin, the question of the conditions for the emergence of role-playing games and its features at different stages of preschool childhood was resolved. Children of different ages were offered to play “at themselves”, at one of their well-known comrades and adults (mother or teacher). Children of all ages refused to play “at themselves.” The younger children could not motivate their refusals in any way, while the older ones directly pointed out: “They don’t play like that, it’s not a game” or “How can I play Nina if I’m already Nina.” By this, the children showed that without a role, i.e. Without reproducing the actions of some other person, there can be no game. Younger preschoolers also refused to play the roles of other specific children, since they could not identify typical actions and activities or behavioral traits for their comrades. Older preschoolers, already able to do this, took on such difficult roles. The role was easier for the child, the more obvious to him were the behavioral features of the character portrayed and the differences from his own. Therefore, all children willingly took on the role of adults.

Playing the role of a teacher showed that for younger children, being a teacher means feeding the kids, putting them to bed and walking with them. In the play of middle-aged and older children, the role of the teacher is increasingly concentrated around the teacher-children relationship. Indications appear on the nature of the relationship between children, norms and methods of behavior.

Thus, the content of games in preschool age changes: from the objective actions of people to the relationships between them, and then to the implementation of rules governing the behavior and relationships of people.

It was noted above that every role presupposes certain rules of behavior, i.e. dictates what can and cannot be done. At the same time, every rule has some role behind it, for example, the role of escaping and catching up, the role of seeking and hiding, etc. So the division into role-playing games and games with rules is quite arbitrary. But in role-playing games, the rule is, as it were, hidden behind the role; it is not specifically spoken out and is felt rather than realized by the child. In games with rules, it’s the other way around—the rule must be open, i.e. clearly understood and formulated by all participants, while the role may be hidden. The development of play in preschool age occurs from games with an open role and a hidden rule to games with an open rule and a hidden role.

In addition to the role-playing game, which is the main and leading activity of a preschooler, there are other types of games, among which are usually director's games, dramatization games, games with rules - mobile and board games.

Directed play is very close to role-playing play, but differs from it in that it happens not with other people (adults or peers), but with toys depicting various characters. The child himself gives roles to these toys, as if animating them, he himself speaks for them in different voices, acts with them and for them. Dolls, toy bears, bunnies or soldiers become the protagonists of the child’s play, and he himself acts as a director, managing and directing the actions of his “actors”. Therefore, such a game was called director's.

In contrast, in a dramatization game the actors are the children themselves, who take on the roles of some literary or theatrical characters. Children do not invent the script and plot of such a game themselves, but borrow it from fairy tales, films or plays. The task of such a game is to, without deviating from the well-known plot, reproduce the role of the character taken on as best and as accurately as possible.

Games with rules do not imply any specific role. The child’s actions and his relationships with other participants in the game are determined here by rules that must be followed by everyone. Typical examples of outdoor games with rules are the well-known hide and seek, tag, hopscotch, jump rope, etc. Printed board games, which are now widespread, are also games with rules. All of these games are usually competitive in nature - unlike role-playing games, there are winners and losers. The main task of such games is to strictly follow the rules. Therefore, they require a high degree of voluntary behavior and, in turn, shape it. Such games are typical mainly for older preschoolers.

Particular mention should be made of didactic games, which are created and organized by adults and are aimed at developing certain qualities of the child. These games are widely used in kindergartens as a means of teaching and educating preschoolers.

But play is not the only activity in preschool age. During this period, various forms of productive activity of children arise. The child draws, sculpts, builds with cubes, and cuts out. What all these types of activities have in common is that they are aimed at creating one or another result, a product - a drawing, construction, application. Each of these types of activities requires mastering a special way of acting, special skills and, most importantly, ideas about what you want to do.

Children's drawings attract special attention from psychologists and teachers. The visual activity of adults and children differs significantly. If the main thing for an adult is to get results, i.e. to depict something, then for the child the result is of secondary importance, and the process of creating the drawing itself comes to the fore. Children draw with great enthusiasm, talk and gesture a lot, but often throw away their drawings as soon as they are finished. In addition, children do not remember what exactly they drew. If after 2 days you show a child his own drawing of a jumping girl and ask what it is, he may answer that it is a fence.

Another important difference between children's drawings is that they reflect not only visual perception, but the entire sensory (mainly motor-tactile) experience of the child and his ideas about the subject. Therefore, sometimes it is very difficult to guess what the baby is drawing. For example, he can depict sharp corners in the form of spines extending from an oval, or the soft fur of a cat in the form of sweeping lines. The nature of the images of children is determined by what the child distinguishes for himself in the subject and what he knows about it. Therefore, the clothes of the person depicted may be “transparent” because the child knows that there are arms and legs underneath, and some parts of the body that seem unimportant (ears, hair, fingers and even the torso) may be completely absent. Younger preschoolers draw a person in the form of a “cephalopod”, whose arms and legs grow directly from his head. This means that in the image of an adult, the main thing for him is the face and limbs, and everything else special significance does not have.

A child, as a rule, has no need to observe nature (he hardly looks at the object he is drawing), so his drawing can be defined as drawing from an idea. Gradually, children's drawings become more and more similar to the reality depicted. But as rightly noted by V.S. Mukhina, children's drawings have a clear tendency to consolidate traditional graphic images, which quickly turn into templates. Common patterns are images of houses, trees, flowers, etc. Such patterns have amazing vitality and are passed on from generation to generation. Fixing graphic images and turning them into patterns poses a great danger to the development of children's drawing. A child may never learn to draw anything other than a few learned diagrams of individual objects. Therefore, the tasks of teaching drawing should include the destruction of frozen patterns and stimulation of children’s own creativity.

Another form of productive activity of a preschooler is design - a purposeful process of creating a certain result. In preschool age, these are usually buildings made of cubes or various kinds designers. Constructive activity requires its own methods and techniques, i.e. special operational and technical means. During the design process, the child learns to correlate the size and shape of various parts and determines their structural properties.

The following three types of constructive activity of a child are distinguished:

1. design based on a model - the most elementary type. The child is shown a sample of the future building or how it should be built and asked to reproduce the given pattern. Such activity does not require special mental and creative effort, but requires attention, concentration and, most importantly, acceptance of the task itself of “acting according to the model.”

2. design according to conditions. In this case, the child begins to build his structure not on the basis of a model, but on the basis of conditions that are put forward by the tasks of the game or by adults. For example, a child needs to build and fence two houses - for geese and for fox. When performing this task, he needs to comply with at least two conditions: firstly, the fox's house must be larger, and secondly, the geese's house must be surrounded by a high fence so that the fox does not penetrate into it.

3. design by design. Here nothing limits the imagination of the child and the building material itself. This type of construction is usually required by play: here you can build not only from special building material, but also from any surrounding objects: furniture, sticks, umbrellas, pieces of fabric, etc. Children build houses, ships, cars, rockets, etc. Children strive to make a building so that it corresponds to the concept of the game.

These three types of construction are not stages that successively replace each other. They coexist and alternate with each other depending on the task and situation. But each type of construction develops certain abilities.

In addition to playful and productive activities, certain prerequisites for a child’s educational activity appear in preschool childhood. And although in its developed form this activity takes shape only outside of preschool age, some of its elements are already appearing now. The main feature of educational activity and its difference from productive activity is that it is aimed not at obtaining an external result, but at purposefully changing oneself - at acquiring new knowledge and methods of action. From the first months of life, a child learns to operate with objects, walk, talk, etc. At an early age, he learns, as it were, according to his own program, which subjectively does not yet exist for him as an educational one. At school age, he is already able to study according to the program of adults - educators and teachers. Preschool age occupies an intermediate position in this regard. During this period, a child can study according to a certain program, but only to the extent that it is his own program, i.e. if it is close and understandable to him. According to L.S. Vygotsky, a preschool education program must satisfy two main requirements: firstly, it must bring the child closer to learning according to the school curriculum, expanding his horizons and preparing him for subject learning, and secondly, it must also be a program for the child himself, i.e. meet his interests and needs.

In preschool age, it becomes possible (and widely practiced in our country) for children to have targeted learning in the classroom. But it is effective only if it meets the interests and needs of the children themselves. One of the most common methods of incorporating educational material into the interests of children is the use of games (in particular, didactic games) as a means of teaching preschoolers. The relationship between play and learning activities of children is a large independent problem of preschool pedagogy, to which a lot of research has been devoted.

Thus, in preschool age, new types of child activities appear. However, the leading and most specific for this period is the role-playing game, in which all other forms of activity of the preschooler arise and initially develop.

In preschool childhood, the most important mental new formations take shape. In the structure of mental functions, memory begins to occupy a central place. Thinking acquires the ability to act in terms of general ideas. The child’s cognitive interests expand and an outline of the child’s worldview takes shape. The imagination is formed and begins to work intensively. The child’s voluntary behavior and personal self-awareness develop.

Role-playing play is the leading activity of a preschooler, since it develops the main mental new formations of this age.

In addition to the role-playing game, among the games of preschoolers, role-playing, directing, dramatization games, games with rules, and didactic games stand out. In preschool age, productive forms of activity appear. At preschool age, elements of educational activity arise. But the main and leading activity during this period is role-playing game.

The result of a child’s development in preschool age is the emergence of fundamental psychological formations: an internal plan of action, volition, imagination, a generalized non-situational attitude towards oneself. The child develops a desire to perform socially significant, socially valued activities. The child is burdened by his position as a preschooler. The game is losing its leading position. All these facts indicate that the child is going through a seven-year crisis. The formation of an internal position in relation to schooling, focus on the future, cognitive interests, readiness to learn sign systems, a sufficient level of cognitive and emotional-volitional development constitute the content of psychological readiness for schooling.

1. Valitova I.E. Psychology of development of a preschool child. Minsk, 1997.

2. Nemov R.S. Psychology. M., VLADOS, book 1, 2003.

3. Smirnova E.O. Child psychology. M., VLADOS, 2006.

4. Feldshtein D.I. Social development in the space-time of childhood. M., Moscow Psychosocial Institute/Flint, 1997.

PLAY IN PRESCHOOL AGE

Play occupies a special place in the life of a preschooler. Games are used in classes, in free time children enthusiastically play games they have invented. Independent forms of play are of the greatest importance in pedagogy for the development of a child. In such games, the child’s personality is most fully manifested, therefore the game is a means of all-round development (mental, aesthetic, moral, physical). In theory, the game is viewed from different positions. From the point of view of a philosophical approach, a child’s play is the main way of mastering the world, which she passes through the prism of her subjectivity. A person who plays is a person who creates his own world, which means he is a creative person. From the perspective of psychology, the influence of the game on the general mental development of the child is noted: on the formation of his perception, memory, imagination, thinking; to the development of its arbitrariness. The social aspect is manifested in the fact that play is a form of assimilation of social experience; its development occurs under the influence of the adults around children.

K. D. Ushinsky defined play as a feasible way for a child to enter into all the complexity of the adult world around him. Through imitation, the child reproduces in play attractive, but so far inaccessible to him, forms of behavior and activity of adults. By creating a game situation, preschoolers learn the basic aspects of human relationships that will be realized later. The pedagogical aspect of the game is associated with understanding it as a form of organizing the life and activities of children. The basis of gaming activity, according to D.V. Mendzheritskaya, is the following: the game is designed to solve general educational problems, the first priority among which is the development of moral and social qualities; the game should be developmental in nature and take place under the close attention of the teacher; The peculiarity of play as a form of life for children is its penetration into various types of activities (work, study, everyday life).

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

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

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

Role-playing game

The child’s plot-role-playing game in its development goes through several stages, successively replacing each other: introductory game, display game, plot-display game, plot-role-playing game, dramatization game. Along with the game, the child himself develops: at first, his actions with a toy object are manipulative in nature, then he learns various ways of acting with objects, which reflect his ideas about their essential properties.

At the stage of plot-reflective play, a young child directs his actions to fulfill a conditional goal, that is, instead of a real result, an imaginary one appears (heal a doll, transport a load by car). The appearance of generalized actions in the game, the use of substitute objects, the combination of objective actions into a single plot, the child calling himself by the name of the hero, the enrichment of the content of the game - all this indicates a transition to plot-role play, which begins to gradually develop from the second junior group These games begin to reflect human relationships, norms of behavior, and social contacts.

Researchers identify various structural elements of the game - primary and secondary: plot, content, game situation, design, role, role-playing action, role-playing behavior, role-playing interaction, rules.

The plot (theme) of the game is, according to D. B. Elkonin, the sphere of reality that is reflected in the game. Content is what is specifically reflected in the game.

A game (imaginary, imaginary) situation is a set of game circumstances that do not really exist, but are created by the imagination.

A plan is a plan of action conceived by the players.

A role is an image of a creature (person, animal) or object that a child portrays in a game.

Role-playing (play) action is the child’s activity in a role. A certain combination and sequence of role-playing actions characterize role-playing behavior in the game.

Role-playing (play) interaction involves the implementation of relationships with a play partner (partners), dictated by the role, since a child who has taken on a role must take into account the role of his play partner, coordinating his actions with him.

Rules are the order, the prescription of actions in the game. The structural elements of the game are closely interconnected, subject to mutual influence, and can be correlated differently in different types of games.

The plot reflects the events of surrounding life, so it depends on social experience children and their degree of understanding of human relationships. The plot determines the direction of the game actions, the variety of game content (with the same plot - different game content).

The idea of ​​the game, according to A.P. Usova, is not the fruit of the abstract imagination of children, but the result of their observation of what is happening around them. The idea of ​​the game in younger children is directed by the game object environment, a new storyline is built through the introduction of additional game material. The child goes from action to thought, while in older children, on the contrary, the idea ensures the creation of the environment for action ( baby is coming from thought to action).

In carrying out the plan, the child acts according to certain rules. These rules can be created by the children themselves, based on the general design of the game, or set by adults. The rules regulate the gaming behavior of the participants, organizing their relationships in the game, and coordinating the content of the game.

The content of the game is determined by the age characteristics of the children. If the content of children’s play reflects actions with toy objects, then the games of older preschoolers reflect relationships between people, showing the depth of children’s penetration into the meanings of these relationships. The content of the game of older preschoolers depends on the interpretation of the role, building the role-playing behavior of the participants in the game, developing a specific game situation, established rules, and the direction of role-playing actions.

Role-playing (game) action is a way of realizing a role, a means of embodying the plot and, when enriched, leads to the emergence of new roles. A role can exist only due to the presence of role-playing actions, since they give it significance, and is the center of the game. The role and the actions associated with it, as D. B. Elkonin puts it, represent an indecomposable unit of the developed form of the game.

Researchers consider role-playing play to be a creative activity. In it, children reproduce everything that they see around them. According to D. B. Elkonin, the very fact of taking on a role and the ability to act in an imaginary situation is an act of creativity: the child creates, creating a plan, unfolding the plot of the game. Children's creativity manifests itself in role-playing behavior in accordance with the vision of the role and at the same time is restrained by the presence of game rules. Scientists associate the development of gaming creativity primarily with the gradual enrichment of the content of the game.

Researchers emphasize the important role of independent role-playing games in the development of children's creativity. It is the amateur play of children (that is, “I do it myself”) that constitutes the essence of education. In creative amateur play, the child does not just capture what he sees. In it, according to A.P. Usova, creative processing, transformation and assimilation of everything that he takes from life takes place. Pedagogical guidance of children's creative play from the point of view of its preservation and further development in a preschool institution is of great importance.

Currently, scientists are concerned about the state of play activities in kindergarten. The game goes to the sidelines of children’s life in the educational process kindergarten. V.V. Davydov, V.A. Nedospasova, N.Ya. Mikhailenko and others see a dangerous trend of turning a kindergarten into a mini-school, negating the primary importance of play in a preschool institution (children do not have time to play fully and freely due to the oversaturation of scheduled time with additional classes and regulated activities). The weakening of attention to role-playing play also occurs due to a lack of understanding among practitioners of the role of play in the mental development of a child, and a lack of professional knowledge and skills in the field of children’s play activities.

In order to return fully developing amateur role-playing games to kindergarten, it is necessary, first of all, to understand well what the pedagogical possibilities of role-playing games are in relation to the child, to determine the content and goals of pedagogical work on the development of the game.

The teacher must remember that enriching the content of the game largely depends on how children’s observation of the life and activities of adults and communication with them is organized. Excursions around the kindergarten and beyond, meetings and conversations with representatives of different professions, and reading relevant literature will help with this.

Great importance is attached to the emergence of a plan in the game. The teacher, taking charge of the game, in younger groups acts as a participant in the game, and in older groups he often acts as an adviser and partner.

Improving gaming skills (creating a plan, inventing a plot, determining the content of the game, distributing roles, etc.) occurs in joint play, when children and the teacher are partners. Interaction in role-playing dialogue teaches children to plan their role-playing actions, and at a later stage of mastering play skills, to act more freely and improvisationally.

Approaching play creatively means teaching children to create the necessary play environment: surround themselves with toy objects and substitutes, use and design play areas and corners (stationary, temporary). In the older group, in parallel with the role-playing game, a director's game enters the child's life, in which he simultaneously controls all the characters and the action. This is an individual game in which the preschooler learns to plan, creating a plan (hone the game actions for all the characters), and satisfies his need to be an organizer, a manager of the game. The child transfers the positive qualities brought up in director's play into a collective game. A.P. Usova writes that, meeting every day in kindergarten, children actively communicate in collective games; Based on relationships, they form the habit of acting together and develop a sense of community.

Preschoolers include various contents in role-playing games. There is no strict division of games into classes, but the following types of role-playing games are the most typical:

1. games that reflect the professional activities of people (sailors, builders, astronauts, etc.);
2. family games;

Games inspired by literary and artistic works (heroic, labor, historical themes). Relationships between adults and children in role-playing games are built on the basis of a person-oriented approach, in compliance with the principles of partnership interaction, activity in building an object-based play environment, and the creative nature of play actions.

The main specific methods of pedagogical guidance of children's creative role-playing games are: the method of dialogic communication, the creation of problem situations that allow stimulating the creative manifestations of children in finding a solution to the problem.

General methods of guiding children's creative role-playing games are direct and indirect influences on the game and the players.

Experts advise conducting role-playing games in the morning and evening hours, finding time for individual and group games in between classes, setting up play areas on walking areas together with children, and specially setting aside time for role-playing games after naps, giving children the opportunity Fully enjoy the free gaming activity. The teacher must plan his work on the role-playing game, outlining its specific content, planning the topic, goals, objectives, and exemplary roles; constantly analyze the game, outlining ways to further improve the gaming activity of preschoolers.

Theatrical game

Role-playing play is important in the development of a special kind of play in children - theatrical play. The peculiarity of theatrical play is that over time, children are no longer satisfied in their games only with the depiction of the activities of adults; they begin to be captivated by games inspired by literary ones. Such games are transitional, they contain elements of dramatization, but the text is used here more freely than in a theatrical game; children are more fascinated by the plot itself, its truthful depiction, than by the expressiveness of the roles performed. Thus, it is the plot-role-playing game that is a kind of springboard on which theatrical play receives its further development. Both types of play develop in parallel, but plot-role play reaches its peak in children 5-6 years old, and theatrical play - in children 6-7 years old. Both games are accompanied by director's acting, which is distinguished by its individual character. The individual director's play is reflected both in the role-playing game with its heroic and everyday plots, and in the theatrical play.

Researchers note the closeness of role-playing and theatrical games based on the commonality of their structural components (the presence of an imaginary situation, imaginary action, plot, role, content, etc.). In the role-playing game, as in the theatrical game, elements of dramatization can be traced. These games can exist as an independent activity for children and belong to the category of creative games. In a role-playing game, children reflect impressions received from life, and in a theatrical role-playing game, children reflect impressions received from a ready-made source (literary and artistic). In a role-playing game, children's initiative is aimed at creating a plot, and in a theatrical game - at the expressiveness of the roles played. The activity of children in a role-playing game is indicative, does not have its own product in the full sense of the word and cannot be presented to the viewer, but in a theatrical game the action can be shown to the audience: children, parents.

In the older group, theatrical activities begin to develop intensively. It is at the age of 5-7 years, according to researchers, that children acquire the ability to show an image in development, to convey various states character and his behavior in the circumstances required by the game. This does not mean that only older preschoolers need to be involved in theatrical play. Children of younger groups are also interested in games that are in one way or another connected with playing a role (showing performances of puppet and drama theaters by adults or older children, involvement in fun games with character toys, playing out simple plots by the children themselves, etc.).

Currently, in science there is no single view on the essence of the concepts “theatrical game” and “dramatization game”. Some scientists completely identify theatrical play and dramatization play, while others believe that dramatization play is a type of theatrical play. According to L. S. Vygotsky, every drama is connected with a game, therefore, in every game there is the possibility of dramatization. In dramatization play, the child strives to explore his own capabilities in transformation, in the search for something new, and in combinations of the familiar. This reveals the peculiarity of dramatization games as a creative activity. With appropriate design, a dramatization game can become a performance both for the child himself and for the audience, then its motive shifts from the process of the game itself to the result, and it becomes a theatrical performance.

L. S. Furmina believes that theatrical games are performance games in which a literary work is played out in faces using such expressive means as intonation, facial expressions, gesture, posture and gait, that is, specific images are recreated. According to the researcher, in a preschool institution, children's theatrical and play activities take two forms: when the characters are certain objects (toys, dolls) and when the children themselves, in the image of the character, play the role they have taken on. Object games constitute the first type of theatrical games, which include games with dolls in various types of puppet theater (tabletop, screen), and non-object games constitute the second type of games, which include dramatizations.

An important point that determines the creative artistic and aesthetic development of children is a personality-oriented approach to teaching and upbringing. This means that the teacher and the child are partners in terms of their cooperation.

We have identified the stages of formation of children's creative activity in the process of theatrical activities: accumulation of artistic and imaginative impressions through the perception of theatrical art, active involvement in artistic and play activities, search and interpretation of behavior in a role, creation and evaluation by children of products of joint and individual creativity.

It is advisable to begin work on the formation of theatrical activities of preschoolers with the accumulation of emotional and sensory experience; develop interest and an emotionally positive attitude towards theatrical activities. Introducing children to theatrical art begins with watching performances performed by adults: first, puppet productions that are close to the child’s emotional mood, then dramatic performances. In the future, alternating viewings of puppet and drama theater performances allows preschoolers to gradually master the laws of the genre. The accumulated impressions help them in playing the simplest roles and understanding the basics of transformation. By mastering methods of action, the child begins to feel more and more free in creative play. In the process of joint discussions, children evaluate each other's capabilities; this helps them realize their strengths in artistic creativity. Children notice successful discoveries in the art of transformation, in the development of a joint project (design, staging, etc.).

To successfully develop children’s creative activity in theatrical activities, a number of conditions must be met.

Additional training of teachers should be carried out using theatrical pedagogy so that they can be a model of creative behavior for their students. This can be achieved by creating a pedagogical theater group of like-minded people in a preschool institution, united by a common desire to introduce children to theatrical art and educate the basics of theatrical culture. Additional training of teachers using theater pedagogy methods should take place directly within the walls of the kindergarten. As a result of such training, carried out by the music director, who is a kind of coordinator of all musical and pedagogical work in kindergarten, the teacher’s creative capabilities are revealed, and children, imitating him, learn creative behavior.

Most often in preschool institutions we encounter unorganized theatrical activities of adults: they have to stage children's plays without fully mastering the art of theater. Single, spontaneous puppet theater performances, rare performances by the teacher as a character or presenter at a festival do not contribute to the development of children's theatrical activities due to the lack of systematic perception of full-fledged performing arts. Thus, there is an obvious lack of preparation of the majority of teachers to guide the creative theatrical activities of children. In addition, today it is almost impossible for children to have organized trips to the theater. The pedagogical theater of adults should take upon itself the introduction of children to theatrical art and the cultivation of their creative qualities under the influence of the charm of the creatively active, artistic personality of the teacher who masters the art of transformation.

To successfully master the methods of creative action in theatrical play, it is necessary to provide children with the opportunity to express themselves in their creativity (in composing, acting out and designing their own and the author’s stories). You can only learn creativity with the support of the adults around you, so systematic work with parents is an important point.

The teacher must consciously choose works of art for work. The selection criteria are the artistic value of the work, the pedagogical expediency of its use, compliance with the life and artistic and creative experience of the child, vivid imagery and expressiveness of intonation (musical, verbal, visual).

The main specific methods of work to improve the creative activity of children in theatrical play are:

1. method of modeling situations (involves creating together with children plot-models, situations-models, sketches in which they will master methods of artistic and creative activity);
2. creative conversation method (involves introducing children to an artistic image through a special formulation of a question and dialogue tactics);
3. method of associations (makes it possible to awaken the child’s imagination and thinking through associative comparisons and then, based on emerging associations, create new images in the mind). It should be noted that the general methods of directing theatrical play are direct (the teacher shows the methods of action) and indirect (the teacher encourages the child to act independently) techniques.

Theatrical play can be used by the teacher in any type of children’s activity, in any class. The greatest value of the game is manifested in children’s independent activity reflecting impressions from the performances they watched, the literary works they read (folk, original), and other artistic sources (paintings, musical plays, etc.).

To design children's performances, special work should be organized, as a result of which children are united in creative groups (“costume designers”, “directors”, “artists”, etc.). Parents need to be involved in activities that are inaccessible to children (technical set-up of the stage, making costumes).

Didactic game

Didactic games are widespread in the system preschool education; 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 children playing, for whom the gaming task comes to the fore. In an effort to realize it, they perform game actions and follow the rules of the game. A didactic game has a certain structure and includes educational and game tasks, game action, game rules.

The 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 imagination, auditory perception, etc.), to consolidate knowledge, abilities, skills and ideas (for example, the ability to identify features of objects, the skill of playing a musical instrument, ideas about the composition of numbers, etc.).

The educational task is presented to children in the form of a game task, which has the nature of practical tasks (look at a picture and find inconsistencies, find an oval-shaped object among a group of objects, etc.).

Game action allows children to realize the task assigned to them and is a way of behavior and activity in the game (for example, they select pictures, look for various items, 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 (select pictures, correctly naming the objects depicted on them; look for objects, sorting them by size; make riddles riddles only about those objects that are in the room, etc.).

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 game action is of great interest to children. At first, children are attracted to the didactic game by the process of the game itself, and starting from the age of 5-6, children are interested in its result. Game action can be varied if it has already been mastered in multiple games. To maintain interest, the game becomes more complicated: new objects are introduced (there were cubes, and then balls were added), additional tasks are introduced (not only to assemble the pyramid correctly, but also to name the size of the ring), actions (select objects of different shapes), conditions (moving the game action to street), rules (the one who finds a pair faster wins).

The nature of the game action is influenced by the didactic material and the didactic toy. Children learn the method of play action by practicing with insert toys (matryoshka dolls), prefabricated toys (pyramids, turrets), the structure of which itself suggests the correct order of action; It’s more difficult to work with available materials (bars, balls, strips). The teacher must control the development of play activities, gradually diversify them, coming up with new interesting twists in the game (they played while standing in a circle, and then stood in a line). To develop play activities, it is necessary to set new tasks for children every time, encouraging them to learn new rules and actions.

Game rules force children to remember them well and think about their implementation. Failure to comply with the rules entails loss and penalties on the part of the presenter. Children of younger groups can completely ignore the rules, showing increased interest in objects or toys brought in by the teacher for play. The ability to strictly follow the rules of the game at an older age earns the respect of comrades, develops skills of voluntary behavior, forms logical thinking, and brings satisfaction in the game.

In order for a didactic game to be complete, all of the above components must be present in its structure, otherwise it turns into didactic exercise, the purpose of which is to hone various skills, actions, operations. Such training in itself also has an important role in the mental and practical development of children in the case when it is necessary to practice something (assemble a nesting doll, count to ten, etc.).

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. First of all, the teacher must explain the game well to the children: clearly set the didactic task, introduce them to the objects used in the game, and talk about the rules of the game. If in younger groups the teacher is actively involved in the game, then in older groups he limits the share of his direct participation and acts as an assistant, adviser, observer. At the end of the game, the teacher highlights its positive aspects; in the younger groups, she thanks all the children for their participation, and in the older groups, she notes the achievements of each participant (“Lena was a demanding leader, Sasha managed to rally her comrades, Galya finished the game the fastest”), focusing on the degree of independence and moral behavior in the game.

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 of the game, determine the composition of the players), 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.

The didactic game is considered in scientific and methodological literature from different angles: it is used as a means (for example, moral, aesthetic education, development of sensory and intellectual abilities); as a form of organizing activities (a game form of conducting training sessions); as a method and technique for managing children's play (for example, a method of introducing new knowledge, a technique of making riddles and guessing); as a type of activity (verbal, desktop-printing, subject).

Scientists note the role of didactic games in the mental, sensory education of children. In early childhood, a child comprehends reality through sensory perception and sensation in the course of actions with objects. In the process of specially organized activities, he learns to analyze, compare, and generalize objects. The teacher forms in children ideas about sensory standards and methods of examining objects. The main form of training is classes in which didactic games are used. In didactic games, children quietly gain knowledge, and the main motivator for this is interest of a playful nature. Group games develop organizational skills necessary for independent didactic games.

Independent didactic games are games that are played in free time. The leading role in them belongs to the teacher if children do not show initiative or it is necessary to consolidate any knowledge and skills. If games arise at the request of the children, then the teacher plays the role of observer and adviser and, possibly, participant in the game.

The main specific methods for guiding children's didactic games are the examination method, which involves mastering the ability to perceive and identify the properties of objects, and the method of using sensory standards, which gives children the opportunity to understand the variety of properties of objects.

Experts distinguish the following types of didactic games: assignment games, hiding games, riddle and guessing games, role-playing didactic games, competition games, forfeits games. There is still no consensus in science about what a didactic game actually is: a means, form, method or type of activity. The main thing, as we see it, is what opportunities the didactic game opens up in the upbringing and development of children, what riches of knowledge it conceals, what new prospects in the development of gaming technologies it indicates.

The prerequisites for play are laid in early childhood (the child has already mastered the sign function of consciousness; uses substitute objects; can rename himself in accordance with the role; can consciously imitate an adult, reflecting their actions and relationships).

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Game in preschool age

Main activities of a preschooler: game, productive activity (drawing, modeling, appliqué, design), work activity, educational activity.

The prerequisites for play are laid in early childhood (the child has already mastered the sign function of consciousness; uses substitute objects; can rename himself in accordance with the role; can consciously imitate an adult, reflecting their actions and relationships).

Game Features : children learn the properties of objects and actions with them, and relationships between people; individual mental processes are formed and developed, the child’s position in relation to the world around him changes, the motivational-need sphere develops, the arbitrariness of mental functions develops, the ability for empathy develops and collectivist qualities are formed, the need for recognition (status role) and the implementation of self-knowledge and reflection are satisfied.

Structural Components of a Story Game:

PLOT that the child takes from life (everyday, social);

The ROLES acquired by the child are varied (emotionally attractive; significant for play, unattractive for the child);

RULES are determined during the game by the children themselves;

GAME ACTIONS are mandatory components of the game (can be expressed symbolically);

TOYS used in the game are varied (ready-made, homemade, substitute items; they can play without toys, using their imagination).

Features of relationships in children's games:

1.GAME RELATIONSHIPS– reflect the relationship between children in terms of plot and role (the daughter listens to her mother in the game).

2. REAL RELATIONSHIPS- reflect the relationship of children as partners, comrades performing a common task, arise when roles are distributed, during the game, if the rules established by the children themselves are not followed.

Relationships in play among preschoolers are built gradually:the rules and distribution of game material and actions with them are learned; the means of influencing a partner and reflection of oneself as a subject of common activity are acquired; the space of interaction, self-expression and resolving the issue of compatibility is mastered; means of implementing interactions are being worked out (adjusting to the partner’s position, coordinating actions with him, helping if necessary, etc.).

Features of children's play activitiesreflected in the table

Number of roles		7-10
Number of players		1-2 and 10-15
Subjects	household	household and public
Rules	are not realized	install themselves, complex
Game actions	monotonous (1-8)	folded, unfolded, gesture, word (many)
Enabling andGame Situations	Under the guidance of an adult	alone and under the guidance of an adult
emergence of new game situations	with the help of an adult	with the help of an adult and independently
combining games	impossible	Maybe
use of objects, toys	ready	household and homemade, substitutes in terms of imagination
Game duration	short-term	up to several days
pre-planning	No	There is
end of the game	suddenly	foreseen

The most typical games for children of different ages (according to D. B. Elkonin):

1. Fun game- a game in which there is no plot at all. Its goal is to entertain and amuse the participants.

2. Exercise game- there is no plot, physical actions predominate, with the same action repeated several times in a row.

3. Story game - there are game actions and an imaginary situation, although in a rudimentary form.

4. Process-imitative game- reproduction of actions or situations that the child is observing at the moment; imitative and plot play are close to each other.

5. Traditional game - one that is passed down from generation to generation, adults and children play it, it has rules, but there is no imaginary situation in it.

Game theories

In child psychology, there are various theories of play.

So, according to K. Gross , the essence of the game is that it serves as preparation for further serious activity; In play, the child, by practicing, improves his abilities.

The main advantage of this theory is that it connects play with development and seeks its meaning in the role it plays in development.

The main drawback of the theory is that it indicates only the “meaning” of the game, and not its source, and does not reveal the reasons that cause the game, the motives that motivate it. The explanation of the game, based only on the result to which it leads, transformed into the goal towards which it is directed, takes on a purely teleological character in Gross; teleology in it eliminates causality. Since Gross is trying to indicate the sources of play, he, while explaining human games in the same way as animal games, mistakenly reduces them entirely to a biological factor, to instinct.

Revealing the significance of play for development, Gross's theory is essentially ahistorical.

In turn, G. Spencer sees the source of play in excess strength: excess strength not spent in life, in work, finds an outlet in play.

But the presence of a reserve of unspent forces cannot explain the direction in which they are spent, why they pour out into the game, and not into some other activity; Moreover, a tired person also plays, turning to the game as a form of relaxation.

The interpretation of play as the expenditure or realization of accumulated forces is formalist, since it takes the dynamic aspect of the game in isolation from its content. That is why such a theory is not able to explain games.

K. Bühler believes that the main motive of the game is to have fun. The theory correctly notes some features of the game: what is important in it is not the practical result of an action in the sense of influencing an object, but the activity itself; Play is not a duty, but a pleasure.

There is no doubt that such a theory is generally unsatisfactory. The theory of play as an activity generated by pleasure is a particular expression of the hedonic theory of activity, i.e. a theory which holds that human activity is governed by the principle of pleasure or enjoyment, and suffers from the same general defect as this latter. The motives of human activity are as diverse as it itself; this or that emotional coloring is only a reflection and derivative side of genuine real motivation. This hedonic theory loses sight of the real content of the action, which contains its true motive, reflected in one or another emotional and affective coloring.

Recognizing functional pleasure, or pleasure from functioning, as the determining factor for play, this theory sees in play only a functional function of the organism. This understanding of the game, being fundamentally incorrect, is in fact unsatisfactory, because it could be applied, in any case, only to the earliest “functional” games and inevitably excludes its higher forms.

Followers of Freudian theories see in the game the realization of desires repressed from life, since in the game they often play out and experience what cannot be realized in life; the game reveals the inferiority of the subject, running away from a life with which he is unable to cope.

Thus, the circle is closed: from a manifestation of creative activity that embodies the beauty and charm of life, the game turns into a dump for what is repressed from life; from a product and a factor of development, it becomes an expression of insufficiency and inferiority; from a preparation for life, it turns into an escape from it.

L.S. Vygotsky considers the initial thing that determines the game to be that the child, while playing, creates for himself an imaginary situation instead of a real one and acts in it, fulfilling a certain role, in accordance with the figurative meanings that he attaches to surrounding objects.

The transition of action into an imaginary situation is indeed characteristic of the development of specific forms of play. However, the creation of an imaginary situation and the transfer of meaning cannot be the basis for understanding the game.

The main attention in the theory is focused on the structure of the game situation, without revealing the sources of the game. The transfer of meanings, the transition to an imaginary situation is not the source of the game. An attempt to interpret the transition from a real situation to an imaginary one as a source of play could only be understood as a response to the psychoanalytic theory of play.

The interpretation of the game situation as arising as a result of the transfer of meaning, and even more so the attempt to derive the game from the need to play with meanings, is purely intellectualistic.

Transforming, although essential for high forms of play, a derivative fact of action into an imaginary one, i.e. imaginary, situation into the initial and therefore obligatory for any game, this theory, wrongfully narrowing the concept of play, arbitrarily excludes from it those early forms of play in which the child, without creating any imaginary situation, acts out some action directly extracted from the real situation (opening and closing the door, going to bed, etc.). By excluding such early forms of play, this theory does not allow us to describe play as it developed.

D.N. Uznadze sees in the game the result of a trend of action functions that have already matured and have not yet received application in real life. Again, as in the theory of the game of excess strength, the game acts as a plus, not a minus. It is presented as a product of development, moreover, outstripping the needs of practical life.

The disadvantage of this theory is that it considers play as an action from within mature functions, as a function of the body, and not as an activity born in relationships with the outside world. The game thus turns into a formal activity, not related to the specific content with which it is somehow externally filled. This explanation of the “essence” of the game cannot explain real game in its specific manifestations.

Bibliography:

1. Volkov B.S., Volkova N.V. Child psychology. Mental development of a child before entering school / Scientific. ed. B. S. Volkov. – 3rd ed., rev. and additional – M.: Pedagogical Society of Russia, 2000.

2. Mukhina V.S. Developmental psychology: phenomenology of development, childhood, adolescence: Textbook for students. Universities. – 5th ed., stereotype. – M.: Publishing Center “Academy”, 2000.

3. Obukhova L.F. Developmental psychology of development. – M.: “Rospedagenstvo”, 1989.

4. Elkonin D.B. Psychology of play in preschool age: Psychology of personality and activity of a preschool child / Ed. A.V. Zaporozhets and D.B. Elkonina. – M., 1965.

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State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education “Chuvash State Pedagogical University named after. AND I. Yakovlev"

Faculty of Psychology and Education

Department of Pedagogy of Primary Education

Test

in academic discipline: Developmental and educational psychology

on the topic: Play is the leading activity in preschool age

Performed:

Korotkova Ekaterina Sergeevna,

2nd year student of the correspondence department, gr. PiMNO

Checked:

Ivanova Iraida Pavlovna

Cheboksary 2012

Introduction

1. Concept and essence of the game

2. Types of games

3. Game structure and levels of development

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Preschool age is a period of learning about the world of human relations, various types of activities and social functions of people. The child feels a desire to be involved in adult life and actively participate in it, which is not yet available to him. During preschool childhood, the child strives no less strongly for independence. From this contradiction a role-playing game is born - an independent activity of preschool children that simulates the life of adults.

In the domestic psychological and pedagogical literature, play is considered as an activity that is very important for the development of a preschool child: it involves orientation in relationships between people, mastering the initial skills of cooperation (A.V. Zaporozhets, A.N. Leontiev, D.B. Elkonin, L.A. Wenger, A.P. Usova, etc.). At the same time, today researchers (R.A. Ivankova, N.Ya. Mikhailenko, N.A. Korotkova) note that in kindergarten there is a “displacement” of play training sessions, studio and group work. Children's games, especially role-playing games, are poor in content and theme; they feature multiple repetitions of plots and a predominance of manipulation over figurative representation of reality. In a modern kindergarten, much attention is often paid to the material equipment of the game, rather than to the development of the game actions themselves and the formation of play as an activity in children. In order to carry out adequate pedagogical influences in relation to the role-playing game of children, educators need to have a good understanding of its nature, have an idea about the specifics of its development during preschool age, and also take into account the characteristics of this period of child development.

These features are pointed out by G.S. Abramov, emphasizing the increased sensitivity of preschool children to existential experiences, sensitivity. During this period, the boundaries of the self-concept are designated through the establishment of a distance with other people, the formation of a generalized concept of another person. All this makes children very vulnerable to any influences from other people. It is the protected environment that is the resource for the development of preschool children.

1. Concept and essence of the game

Game is a multifaceted phenomenon; it can be considered as a special form of existence of all aspects of the life of a group without exception. The word "game" is not a scientific concept in the strict sense of the word. It may be precisely because a number of researchers have tried to find something in common between the most diverse and different-quality actions designated by the word “game,” and we still do not have a satisfactory distinction between these activities and an objective explanation of the different forms of play.

The historical development of the game does not repeat itself. In ontogenesis, chronologically the first is role-playing play, which serves as the main source of the formation of the child’s social consciousness in preschool age. Psychologists have long been studying the games of children and adults, looking for their functions, specific content, and comparing them with other types of activities. The game can be caused by the need for leadership and competition. Play can also be considered as a compensatory activity, which in symbolic form makes it possible to satisfy unfulfilled desires. Play is an activity that differs from everyday everyday activities. Mankind again and again creates its own invented world, a new being that exists next to the natural world, the natural world. The ties that connect play and beauty are very close and diverse. Every game is, first of all, a free, voluntary activity.

The game takes place for its own sake, for the sake of satisfaction, which arises in the very process of performing the game action.

A game is an activity that depicts the individual’s relationship to the world that surrounds him. It is in the world that the need to influence the environment, the need to change the environment, is first formed. When a person has a desire that cannot be immediately realized, the preconditions for gaming activity are created.

A child’s independence in the middle of a game plot is limitless; she can return to the past, look into the future, repeat the same action over and over again, which brings satisfaction and makes it possible to feel significant, omnipotent, and desired. In the game, the child does not learn to live, but lives his true, independent life. The game is the most emotional and colorful for preschoolers. The famous researcher of children's play, D. B. Elkonin, very correctly emphasized that in play the intellect is directed towards an emotionally effective experience, the functions of an adult are perceived, first of all, emotionally, and a primarily emotional and effective orientation in the content of human activity occurs.

The importance of the game for the formation of personality cannot be overestimated. It is no coincidence that L.S. Vygotsky calls play “the ninth wave of child development.”

In play, as the leading activity of a preschooler, those actions are carried out that he will be capable of in real behavior only after some time.

When performing an action, even if this action loses, the child does not know a new experience that is associated with the fulfillment of an emotional impulse that was immediately realized in the action of this action.

The preface of the game is the ability to transfer some functions of an object to others. It begins when thoughts are separated from things, when the child is freed from the cruel field of perception.

Playing in an imaginary situation frees you from situational connections. In play, the child learns to act in a situation that requires cognition, and not just directly experienced. Action in an imaginary situation leads to the fact that the child learns to manage not only the perception of an object or real circumstances, but also the meaning of the situation, its meaning. A new quality of a person’s relationship to the world arises: the child already sees the surrounding reality, which not only has a variety of colors, a variety of forms, but also knowledge and meaning.

A random object that a child splits into a specific thing and its imaginary meaning, imaginary function becomes a symbol. A child can recreate any object into anything; it becomes the first material for imagination. It is very difficult for a preschooler to tear his thought away from a thing, so he must have support in another thing; in order to imagine a horse, he needs to find a stick as a support point. In this symbolizing action, mutual penetration, experience and fantasy occur.

The child's consciousness separates the image of a real stick, which requires real actions with it. However, the motivation of a game action is completely independent of the objective result.

Main motive classic game lies not in the result of the action, but in the process itself, in the action that brings pleasure to the child.

The stick has a certain meaning, which in a new action acquires a new, special play content for the child. Children's fantasy is born in play, which stimulates this creative path, the creation of their own special reality, their own life world.

In the early stages of development, play is very close to practical activity. In the practical basis of actions with surrounding objects, when the child comprehends that she is feeding the doll with an empty spoon, the imagination already takes part, although a detailed playful transformation of objects is not yet observed.

For preschoolers, the main line of development lies in the formation of non-objective actions, and play arises as a suspended process.

Over the years, when these types of activities change places, the game becomes the leading, dominant form of building one’s own world.

Not to win, but to play - this is the general formula, the motivation for children's play. (O.M. Leontyev)

A child can master a wide range of reality that is directly inaccessible to him only in play, in game form. In this process of mastering the past world through game actions in this world, both game consciousness and the game unknown are included.

Play is a creative activity, and like any real creativity, it cannot be carried out without intuition.

In the game, all aspects of the child’s personality are formed, a significant change occurs in his psyche, preparing him for the transition to a new, higher stage of development. This explains the enormous educational potential of play, which psychologists consider the leading activity of preschoolers.

A special place is occupied by games that are created by children themselves - they are called creative, or plot-role-playing. In these games, preschoolers reproduce in roles everything that they see around them in the life and activities of adults. Creative play most fully shapes the child’s personality, therefore it is an important means of education.

The game is a reflection of life. Everything here is “as if”, “make-believe”, but in this conditional environment, which is created by the child’s imagination, there is a lot of reality: the actions of the players are always real, their feelings and experiences are genuine and sincere. The child knows that the doll and the bear are just toys, but he loves them as if they were alive, he understands that he is not a “true” pilot or sailor, but he feels like a brave pilot, a brave sailor who is not afraid of danger, and is truly proud of his victory .

Imitating adults in play is associated with the work of the imagination. The child does not copy reality; he combines different impressions of life with personal experience.

Children's creativity is manifested in the concept of the game and the search for means to implement it. How much imagination is required to decide what trip to go on, what kind of ship or plane to build, what equipment to prepare! In the game, children simultaneously act as playwrights, prop makers, decorators, and actors. However, they do not hatch their idea and do not prepare for a long time to perform the role as actors. They play for themselves, expressing their own dreams and aspirations, thoughts and feelings that possess them at the moment.

Therefore, the game is always improvisation.

Play is an independent activity in which children first interact with peers. They are united by a common goal, joint efforts to achieve it, common interests and experiences.

Children choose the game themselves and organize it themselves. But at the same time, in no other activity there are such strict rules, such conditioning of behavior as here. Therefore, the game teaches children to subordinate their actions and thoughts to a specific goal and helps to cultivate purposefulness.

In play, the child begins to feel like a member of a team and fairly evaluates the actions and actions of his comrades and his own. The teacher’s task is to focus the attention of the players on goals that would evoke a commonality of feelings and actions, and to promote the establishment of relationships between children based on friendship, justice, and mutual responsibility.

The first position that determines the essence of the game is that the motives of the game lie in diverse experiences that are significant to the aspects of reality for the player. Play, like any non-game human activity, is motivated by an attitude toward goals that are meaningful to the individual.

In the game, only actions are performed whose goals are significant for the individual in terms of their own internal content. This is the main feature of gaming activity and this is its main charm.

The second characteristic feature of the game is that the game action implements the diverse motives of human activity, without being bound in the implementation of the goals arising from them by the means or modes of action by which these actions are carried out in a non-game practical plan.

Play is an activity in which the contradiction between the rapid growth of the child’s needs and demands, which determines the motivation of his activity, and the limitations of his operational capabilities are resolved. Play is a way to realize the needs and requests of a child within the limits of his capabilities.

Next, outwardly most striking distinctive feature games, in fact, derived from the above-mentioned internal features of play activity, the opportunity, which is also a necessity for the child, to replace, within the limits determined by the meaning of the game, objects that function in the corresponding non-play practical action with others capable of serving to perform the play action (stick - horse, chair - car, etc.). The ability to creatively transform reality is first formed in the game. This ability is the main meaning of the game.

Does this mean that the game, moving into an imaginary situation, is a departure from reality? Yes and no. In the game there is a departure from reality, but there is also penetration into it. Therefore, there is no escape, no escape from reality into a seemingly special, imaginary, fictitious, unreal world. Everything that the game lives by and that it embodies in action, it draws from reality. The game goes beyond the boundaries of one situation, is distracted from some aspects of reality in order to reveal others even more deeply and is a resource for the development of preschool children.

2. Types of games

Intellectual games like “Lucky chance”, “What? Where? When?" etc. Data is important component educational, but, above all, extracurricular work of a cognitive nature.

At the end of early childhood, play with a plot emerges from object-manipulative activities. Initially, the child was absorbed in the object and actions with it. When he mastered the actions woven into joint activities with an adult, he began to realize that he was acting on his own and acting like an adult. Actually, he acted like an adult before, imitating him, but did not notice it. As D.B. writes Elkonin, he looked at the object through an adult, “like through glass.” In preschool age, affect is transferred from an object to a person, due to which the adult and his actions become a model for the child not only objectively, but also subjectively.

In addition to the required level of development of objective actions, for the emergence of role-playing games, a radical change in the child’s relationship with adults is necessary. Play cannot develop without frequent, full-fledged communication with adults and without those varied impressions of the world around us, which the child also acquires thanks to adults. The child also needs various toys, including unformed objects that do not have a clear function, which he could easily use as substitutes for others. D.B. Elkonin emphasized: you cannot throw away bars, pieces of iron, and other unnecessary, from the mother’s point of view, garbage that children bring into the house. Then the child will have the opportunity to play more interestingly, developing his imagination. L.S. Vygotsky wrote: “... if in preschool age we did not have the ripening of needs that cannot be immediately realized, then we would not have play.” The game, he wrote, “must be understood as an imaginary, illusory realization of unrealized desires.” At the same time, it is emphasized that the basis of play is not individual affective reactions, but enriched, although not consciously realized by the child, affective aspirations.

Preschool children have an inherent desire to imitate all the complex forms of adult activity, his actions, and his relationships with other people. However, in reality the child is not yet able to fulfill his desire. As L.I. points out. Bozhovich, this is precisely what explains the flourishing of creative role-playing games during preschool age, in which the child reproduces various situations from the lives of adults, takes on the role of an adult and, in an imaginary way, carries out his behavior and activities.

Creative role-playing becomes, according to L.S.'s definition. Vygotsky’s “leading activity of a preschooler,” in which many of his psychological characteristics are formed, among which the most important is the ability to be guided by ethical authorities. Role-playing play is an activity in which children take on the roles of adults and, in a generalized form, in play conditions, reproduce the activities of adults and the relationships between them. When playing a role, the child’s creativity takes on the character of transformation. Its success is directly related to the personal experience of the player, the degree of development of his feelings, imagination, and interests. Play with a plot first appears at the border between early and preschool childhood. This is a director's game in which the objects used by the child are endowed with a playful meaning (a cube, carried along the table with a growl, turns into a machine in the child's eyes). Director's games are characterized by the primitiveness of the plot and the monotony of the actions performed. Later, an imaginative role-playing game appears, in which the child imagines himself to be anyone and anything and acts accordingly. But a prerequisite for the development of such a game is a vivid, intense experience: the child was struck by the picture he saw, and he himself, in his play actions, reproduces the image that evoked a strong emotional response in him.

Directing and figurative role-playing become sources of plot-role-playing play, which reaches its developed form by the middle of preschool age. Later, games with rules emerge from it. As I.Yu. points out. Kulagin, the emergence of new types of games does not completely cancel the old, already mastered ones - they are all preserved and continue to be improved. In role-playing games, children reproduce their own human roles and relationships. Children play with each other or with a doll as an ideal partner, who is also given a role. In games with rules, the role fades into the background and the main thing is strict adherence to the rules of the game; Usually a competitive motive, personal or team gain appears here (in most outdoor, sports and printed games).

Having undergone various changes, every role-playing game turns into a game according to the rules. This game gives the child two necessary abilities. Firstly, following the rules in a game is always associated with their comprehension and reproduction of an imaginary situation. Imagination is also connected with meaning and, moreover, for its development it requires special tasks for comprehension. Secondly, playing with rules teaches you to communicate. After all, most games with rules are collective games. There are two kinds of relationships in them. These are relationships of a competitive type - between teams, between partners who have exactly the opposite goal (if one wins, then the other will lose), and relationships of true cooperation - between members of the same team. Such cooperation and participation in collective activities helps the child to “get out” of the situation and analyze it as if from the outside. It is very important. For example, a child plays “sorcerers”. He runs away from the “sorcerer” and, in addition, can “unsettle” or “revive” someone who has already been bewitched. It can be scary for a child to do this: he might be bewitched. But if you look at the situation from the outside, it turns out that if he disenchantes his comrade, then he will then be able to disenchant him himself. The ability to look at a situation from the outside is directly related to the most important component of imagination - a special internal position. After all, it is this position that gives the child the opportunity to bring meaning to the situation, to make the bad good, the terrible funny.

Thus, games with rules - necessary condition for the development of imagination in preschool age.

3. Game structure and levels of development

Each game has its own playing conditions - children participating in it, toys, and other objects. Their selection and combination significantly changes play in early preschool age; play at this time mainly consists of monotonously repeating actions reminiscent of manipulating objects. For example, a three-year-old child “cooks dinner” and manipulates plates and cubes. If the game conditions include another person (a doll or a child) and thereby lead to the appearance of a corresponding image, the manipulations have a certain meaning. The child plays with preparing lunch, even if he forgets, then feed it to the doll sitting next to him. But if the child is left alone and the toys that suggest this plot are removed, he continues manipulations that have lost their original meaning. Rearranging objects, arranging them by size or shape, he explains that he plays “with cubes,” “so simple.” Lunch disappeared from the child’s imagination along with the change in playing conditions.

The plot is the sphere of reality that is reflected in the game. At first, the child is limited to the family, so his games are connected mainly with family and everyday problems. As the child masters new areas of life, he begins to use more complex plots - industrial, military, etc. The forms of games based on old stories (“mother-daughter”) are also becoming more diverse. Playing with the same plot becomes more stable and longer. If at 3-4 years old a child can devote only 10-15 minutes to it, and then he needs to switch to something else, then at 4-5 years old one game can already last 40-50 minutes. Older preschoolers are able to play the same thing for several hours in a row, and some games last for several days.

Those moments in the activities and relationships of adults that are reproduced by the child constitute the content of the game. Younger preschoolers imitate objective activities - cutting bread, washing dishes. They are absorbed in the very process of performing actions and sometimes forget about the result - why they did it, the actions of different children are not consistent with each other, duplication and sudden changes in roles during the game are possible. For middle preschoolers, relationships between people are important; they perform play actions not for the sake of the actions themselves, but for the sake of the relationships behind them. Therefore, a five-year-old child will never forget to place the “sliced” bread in front of the dolls and will never confuse the sequence of actions - first lunch, then washing the dishes, and not vice versa. Parallel roles are also excluded, for example, the same bear will not be examined by two doctors at the same time, two drivers will not drive the same train. Children included in the general system of relationships distribute roles among themselves before the game begins. For older preschoolers, it is important to obey the rules arising from the role, and the correctness of their implementation of these rules is strictly controlled.

The plot and content of the game are embodied in roles. The development of game actions, roles and rules of the game occurs throughout preschool childhood along the following lines: from games with an expanded system of actions and hidden roles and rules behind them - to games with a collapsed system of actions, with clearly defined roles, but hidden rules - and, finally , to games with open rules and hidden roles behind them. For older preschoolers, role-playing merges with games according to the rules.

Thus, the game changes and reaches a high level of development by the end of preschool age. There are two main phases or stages in the development of the game:

Summarizing his research, A.P. Usova writes: “As a result of the study, we can state the following: “plot content” as a characteristic feature of creative games, that is, games invented by the children themselves, is already inherent in the games of children in the junior group of kindergarten at the age of 3; 2-3; 4. These plots are fragmentary, illogical, and unstable. At an older age, the plot of a game represents the logical development of a theme in images, actions and relationships: the origin of “plot” in games should apparently be attributed to pre-preschool age.

The development of the plot goes from the performance of role-playing actions to role-images, in which the child uses many means of representation: speech, action, facial expressions, gestures and an attitude corresponding to the role.” “The child’s activity in the game develops in the direction of depicting various actions (swims, washes, cooks, etc.).

Considering some issues of managing children's games, A.P. Usova points out a number of features of the development of games, from which one should proceed when organizing them.

She notes that “children’s games already at the age of three are of a plot nature, and in this direction the game develops intensively until the age of 7”; establishes that “the driving principles that determine the game... consist in the child’s gradual mastery of the role played in a group of children.”

Play is the leading activity in preschool age; it has a significant impact on the development of the child. First of all, in the game children learn to fully communicate with each other. Younger preschoolers do not yet know how to truly communicate with peers and, as D.B. Elkonina, younger preschoolers“they play side by side, not together.”

Gradually, communication between children becomes more productive and intense. In middle and older preschool age, children, despite their inherent egocentrism, negotiate with each other, pre-distributing roles, as well as during the game itself. A meaningful discussion of issues related to roles and control over the implementation of the rules of the game becomes possible due to the inclusion of children in a common, emotionally rich activity for them. If for some serious reason the joint game breaks down, the communication process also breaks down.

The game contributes to the development of not only communication with peers, but also the child’s voluntary behavior. The mechanism for controlling one's behavior - obedience to the rules - develops precisely in the game, then manifests itself in other types of activities. Arbitrariness presupposes the presence of a pattern of behavior that the child follows and control. In the game, the model is not moral standards or other requirements of adults, but the image of another person whose behavior the child copies. Self-control only appears towards the end of preschool age, so initially the child needs external control - from playmates. External control gradually falls out of the process of behavior management, and the image begins to regulate the child’s behavior directly. By the age of 7, the child begins to increasingly focus on the norms and rules governing his behavior; the patterns become more generalized (as opposed to the image of a specific character in the game). With the most favorable development options for children, by the time they enter school, they are able to manage their behavior as a whole, and not just individual actions.

The game develops the motivational-need sphere of the child. New motives for activity and goals associated with them arise. But not only the range of motives is expanding. The emerging arbitrariness of behavior facilitates the transition from motives that have the form of affectively colored immediate desires to motives-intentions that stand on the verge of consciousness

Developed role-playing provides a means for conveying feelings and resolving conflicts. “Toys equip the child with appropriate tools because they are the environment in which the child can express himself. In free play he can express what he wants to do. When he plays freely, he releases feelings and attitudes that have persistently sought to break free."

Feelings and attitudes that a child may be afraid to express openly can be safely projected onto a toy chosen at their own discretion. “Instead of expressing thoughts and feelings in words, a child may bury or shoot a dragon in the sand, or spank a baby brother doll.” Most children face problems in life that seem insoluble. But by playing them the way he wants, the child can gradually learn to cope with them. He often does this, using symbols that he himself cannot always understand - this is how he reacts to processes occurring in the internal plane.

The role of play in the development of a child’s psyche.

1) In the game, the child learns to fully communicate with peers.

2) Learns to subordinate your impulsive desires to the rules of the game. A subordination of motives appears - “I want” begins to be subordinated to “impossible” or “must”.

3) In the game, all mental processes intensively develop, the first moral feelings are formed (what is bad and what is good).

4) New motives and needs are formed (competitive, gaming motives, the need for independence).

5) New types of productive activities arise in the game (drawing, modeling, appliqué)

game preschooler development intelligence personality

4. Characteristics and functions of games for preschoolers

The first manifestations of children's games appear at an early age, having a sensorimotor nature ("catch-up", fussing games, etc.). At the turn of early and preschool age, director's play arises (the use of toys as substitute objects, the symbolic performance of a certain action). Subsequently, the child becomes able to organize figurative role-playing play, in which he imagines himself in a certain image (of a person or object) and acts accordingly. A necessary condition for such a game is vivid, intense experiences: the child was amazed by the situation he saw, and the emotions and impressions he experienced are reproduced in play actions.

The next achievement of a preschooler is his ability to organize a role-playing game (“daughters-mothers,” “school,” “shop,” etc.), which reaches its most developed form in middle preschool age. In role-playing games, children directly reproduce human roles and relationships.

Children play with each other, or with a doll, as with an imaginary partner, who is also assigned a role. One of the most difficult games for children of this age is playing with rules (“blind man’s buff”, “tag”). In these games, the main thing is to strictly follow the rules of the game; motives of cooperation or competition usually appear here.

The emergence of new types of games does not negate pre-existing ones, which the child continues to play.

Dynamics of play in preschool age:

1. sensorimotor play;

2. director's acting;

3. figurative role-playing;

4. playing by the rules

Complications of the types of games that a child learns during the preschool period determine the formation of progressive mental changes. Being the leading activity of this age, play provides a number of functions for the mental development of preschoolers:

Functions of the game for the mental development of preschoolers:

Adaptation to future life - achieving emotional satisfaction and relaxation;

Accumulation of communicative experience - stimulation of intellectual development;

Enrichment of intellectual and moral experience - stimulation of intellectual development.

So, being an outwardly unproductive activity (there are no obvious immediate results, such as the assimilation of knowledge during training or the production of certain things in labor), the game is aimed at the physical and mental improvement of children.

Modeling, drawing, and design most contribute to a child’s sensory development.

It is from preschool age that the phenomenon of childhood amnesia begins - a person forgets the events of the first 3-4 years of life

Enriching the cognitive sphere of a preschool child is based on play and active cognitive communication with an adult. A preschooler, under the influence of training and upbringing, experiences intensive development of all cognitive processes, including sensations and perceptions.

With age, children's sensory thresholds decrease, visual acuity and color differentiation increase, phonemic and pitch hearing develops, and the accuracy of estimating the weight of objects increases significantly. In preschool age, the assimilation of sensory standards continues, the most accessible of which are geometric shapes (square, triangle, circle) and colors of the spectrum. Sensory standards are successfully formed in the child’s activities.

With the expansion of cognitive experience, the child masters perceptual actions and becomes capable of examining objects and identifying their most characteristic properties. The process of perception at the end of the preschool period, according to L.A. Wenger achieves interiorization.

However, children's perception is characterized by errors in assessing the spatial properties of objects, perception of time and images of objects.

All the baby’s memory processes are actively functioning. Memorization occurs better if it is based on the child’s interest and comprehension. In a small preschooler, recognition plays a significant role in the development of memory, but with age, reproduction becomes more active. In older preschool age, fairly complete representations of memory appear and acquire a systematic, meaningful and controllable character. Intensive development of figurative memory continues. Based on play and learning, by the end of the preschool period the child masters the initial forms of managing his own mnemonic activity, that is, the preschooler develops voluntary memory, the development of which begins with the appearance of random reproduction.

During preschool age, significant changes in the child’s thinking occur. Thus, thinking develops from visual-effective to figurative-speech. If a preschooler thinks while performing objective actions, then the preschooler’s mental unit is already an image, and subsequently a word. Consequently, the development of a child’s thinking is closely related to language. Preschoolers, with the help of speech, begin to mentally operate with objects, accompanied by an expansion of the range of mental operations - analysis, synthesis, comparison, simple generalization. Accordingly, the scope of forms of thinking is enriched - at this age this is the use of reasoning, judgment, simple but logical conclusions.

Conclusion

Preschool childhood is a period in which there is an active development of higher mental functions and the entire personality as a whole. Speech develops rapidly, creative imagination, a special logic of thinking, subject to the dynamics of figurative representations. This is the time of the initial formation of personality. The emergence of emotional anticipation of the consequences of one’s behavior, self-esteem, the complication and awareness of experiences, the enrichment of new feelings and motives of the emotional-need sphere, and finally, the emergence of the first essential connections with the world and the foundations of the future structure of the life world - these are the main features personal development preschooler.

A game for preschool children is a source of global experiences of the dynamism of one’s own self, a test of the power of self-influence. The child masters his own psychological space and the possibility of living in it, which gives impetus to the development of the entire personality as a whole.

There are several groups of games that develop a child’s intelligence and cognitive activity.

Group I - object games, such as manipulations with toys and objects. Through toys - objects - children learn shape, color, volume, material, the animal world, the human world, etc.

Group II - creative, role-playing games, in which the plot is a form of intellectual activity.

D.B. Elkonin identified individual components of games characteristic of preschool age. The components of the game include: game conditions, plot and content of the game.

There are two main phases or stages in the development of the game:

1. Children 3-5 years old. Reproducing the logic of real people's actions. The content of the game is objective actions.

2. Children 5-7 years old. Simulation of real relationships between people. The content of the game becomes social relationships, the social meaning of an adult’s activity.

Bibliography

Abramova, G.S. Developmental psychology: Textbook / G.S. Abramova. - M.: Academic project, 2001

Bozhovich, L.I. Personality and its formation in childhood / L.I. Bozovic. - Peter, 2009

Vygotsky, L.S. Thinking and speech / L.S. Vygotsky. - M., 1999

Kulagina, I.Yu. Age-related psychology. Human development from birth to late maturity / I.Yu. Kulagina.- M., Sphere: Yurayt, 2001

Smirnova, E.O., Ryabkova, I.A. Structure and options for a preschooler’s plot game // Psychological Science and Education. 2010. No. 3

Usova, A.P. On the organization of education for preschool children / A.P. Usova.- M., 2003

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What do children love most when they are alone? Of course, play! In different games, with different partners, with fantastic and varied attributes.

Game is a special type of activity. What is the power of this activity? Why is it so attractive to individual children, groups, and large children's formations? We have to find answers to these questions in the discussions proposed below.

Before school, a child’s play activity is considered to be the leading one.. Yes and in primary school For a long time, educational activities are combined with play.

The meaning of the game for a preschool child

➤ The game has powerful developmental characteristics. It affects the development of all cognitive processes: thinking, attention, memory and, of course, imagination.

➤ Play organizes the child’s feelings and influences his actions. The game reproduces the norms of life in society, rules of behavior, and simulates situations close to the life experience of the child.

➤ From an emotional point of view, the technology of the game is phenomenal and unlike other educational technologies. It offers children pleasure, a variety of entertainment, and at the same time forms models of moral behavior necessary for life in society.

➤. By mastering the knowledge gained during the game, the child becomes familiar with the culture of the country in which he lives and the culture of the world.

➤ Play helps the child to assimilate social experience and turn it into personal property. In addition, during the game the child actively communicates with peers. This greatly enhances his communication skills.

➤ It is in play that the child’s will develops, since the child, mastering some new method of action during play activities, learns to overcome difficulties.

➤ During the game, the child’s mental activity develops. After all, the game requires solving new, ever more complex problems. The child, following the rules of the game, must quickly figure out what action the participants in the game expect from him. Moreover, he understands that his actions must satisfy the other participants in the game.

Types of games for child development

Types of games for children:

✏ outdoor games,

✏ role-playing games,

✏ Board games,

✏ didactic games,

✏ business games etc.

Outdoor games for children. The importance of outdoor games for a child

Outdoor games enter a child’s life very early. A growing body constantly requires active movements. All children, without exception, love to play with a ball, a jump rope, or any objects that they can adapt to the game. All outdoor games develop both the child’s physical health and his intellectual abilities. The modern child is constantly on the verge of stress. This is especially true for children living in megacities. The busyness of parents, their social fatigue, the lack of helpers in raising children, or an excessive number of them, all this burdens children, disfiguring their psyche and physical health. The worldwide decline in physical activity has not spared children either. The modern child is unhealthy. He has scoliosis, gastritis, nervous diseases and chronic fatigue from the demands of adults. This condition leads to neuropsychic and general somatic weakness, which in turn causes excessive fatigue and decreased performance of the child. This is where outdoor games come in handy. In addition to being of interest to the child, they also provide health benefits and emotional and mental release. It strengthens different groups muscles, trains the vestibular apparatus, improves your posture, relieves fatigue and increases performance. In addition, outdoor games teach children initiative and independence, overcoming difficulties - developing reflection and will in them.

Thus, the specificity of outdoor games is that their use gives not only physical, but also emotional satisfaction. These games create great opportunities for children to show initiative and creativity, since in addition to the richness and variety of movements provided for by the rules, children have the freedom to use them in various game situations.

Role-playing games. The importance of role-playing games for a child

Role-playing games are an excellent training ground for preparing a child for life in society. In each game, regardless of whether the child plays alone or with other participants in the game, he performs certain roles. While playing, the child takes on a certain role and performs the actions of the hero of the game, carrying out actions inherent in this character.

The value of role-playing games lies in the fact that children repeat in games the types of behavior observed by adults and the possibilities for solving life conflicts.

In the game, it is necessary to ensure that arrogance does not appear, and the power of team roles does not appear to be excessive over secondary ones. Insubordination in a game can ruin the game. It is necessary to ensure that the role has an action. A role without action is dead; the child will leave the game if he has nothing to do. The most convincing game can become uninteresting for those guys who find themselves out of work. Interest is determined by the opportunities that are provided to the child in playing a role. You cannot use negative roles in the game; they are acceptable only in humorous situations.

The distribution of roles is very important for a child. When assigning team roles, you should ensure that the role helps children solve individual problems. Such problems include the following difficulties that children experience. Poorly expressed ability to organize one’s activities; lack of authority among peers, indiscipline and much more.

Playing out all sorts of roles will help children cope with difficulties. How older child, the more carefully he monitors the fair distribution of roles, the more purposefully he chooses roles for himself. In conflict situations, when claims for roles collide with children, they can already analyze how this or that applicant played the role, correctly assess their personal capabilities for playing the desired role, and correlate their understanding of the role and its actual loss by another member of the play group. Children use counting rhymes, taking turns in using an attractive role.

Speaking about roles, it is necessary to note their gender. The child, as a rule, takes on roles corresponding to his gender.

If he plays alone, then these roles express the type of adult behavior seen by the child. If it is a boy, then he drives a car, builds a house, comes home from work, etc. If a girl plays, then she chooses the role of mother, doctor, teacher. If we're talking about about group games, then a three-year-old child does not particularly share the gender of the play role and the boy happily plays the role of mother or teacher.

The relationships between children in play can be playful or non-playful, real. These two types should not be confused. Play relationships are expressed in the fact that the child plays a role in accordance with the rules. If the role requires him to take some positive actions towards another child, this does not mean at all that after the game his attitude, given by the role, will continue. On the contrary, it can be diametrically opposed. It is important to understand this and not place unnecessary hopes on the game. One should not assume that the game will automatically educate a child and instill in him the whole range of vital values, correct his behavior and generally teach him about life. Adults play a large role in solving these problems. It is they who will have to teach the baby to solve practical problems during the game, which will help him master a variety of living spaces.

Didactic games and their meaning for a child

Didactic games are intended for children who participate in the educational process. They are used by teachers as a means of teaching and education. When a child arrives at school, he still “holds on” to the game, as a familiar action that helps him enter the world of adults. Let us note that didactic games are, in our opinion, not only the prerogative of teachers. Parents can also use this type of games in their parenting practice. To do this, you need to know a few important things. Such knowledge includes the reasons for using didactic games in a child’s activities and the technology of their use.

Considering the fact that the didactic game is aimed primarily at the mental development of the child, we must not forget that its benefits depend on how much joy its solution brings to the child.

How should an adult behave in play activities in which a child is involved?

This is a special conversation. The extent to which a child discovers new things through play largely depends on the behavior of adults. life situations. While playing, an adult introduces into the world of play the necessary norms of social life necessary to enhance the child’s social experience. It is in play, together with adults, that a child acquires useful skills necessary for life in society.