Features of the initiative of preschoolers
Irina Terentyeva
Features of the initiative of preschoolers
The current situation in Russian education is characterized by an intensive search for ways to form an initiative , responsible person who is ready to make decisions independently in a situation of choice. Initiative is one of the main components of the development of a child’s active personality. Children's initiative is manifested in the free activity of children according to their choice and interests. The opportunity to play, draw, design, compose, etc., in accordance with one’s own interests. Support for the initiative is also a condition necessary for creating a social situation for the development of children.
The volitional qualities of a person are the core side of a person’s character, and serious attention should be paid to their upbringing. A very important volitional quality necessary for a child’s future activities is independence. Independence is a complex human character trait. It concerns all aspects of his life and activity, where initiative plays one of the most important roles in the formation of a full-fledged personality. Interest in the problems of formation and development of initiative today is quite natural. initiative are increasingly being raised , which, in fact, is the task of the state and society (T. S. Borisova, M. S. Govorov, T. F. Ignatenko, S. A. Petukhov, I. E. Plotnik, etc.).
Beginning the study of the concept of “ initiative ”
Pedagogy was founded on the work of the Czech humanist thinker J. A. Komensky, the creator of
the “Great Didactics
,” who believed that “it is possible to achieve a comprehensive knowledge of things, mastery and use of them only through the medium of the new.”
And also the founder of scientific pedagogy in Russia, K. D. Ushinsky, who emphasized the need to develop and support originality as an individual’s desire to show personal initiative in his activities. A. S. Makarenko in his pedagogical writings named the defining feature of initiative - the readiness to take action on one’s own initiative.
Preschool childhood is an important period of human development. initiative is most actively developed in preschool age . Starting with the three-year crisis and the emergence of the “I myself”
, the most favorable period established by nature itself is the age from 3 to 5 years.
An initiative personality develops through activity. And since the leading activity of preschool age is play , the higher the level of development of creative initiative , the more varied the play activity, and, consequently, the more dynamic the development of the individual.
The initiative of children at this age finds a way out in various games and physical activities. Initiative is manifested in the desire to act on an internal impulse; this is a very important quality; it determines the level of development of children, especially in early preschool age . Just like independence, this component is visible during communication, play activities, and creativity. Initiative in childhood is equal to curiosity, ingenuity, and an inquisitive mind. Suppression of children's initiative leads to the fact that preschoolers develop fear of the world around them, lack of confidence in their abilities, and sometimes laziness. He knows in advance that he will not be able to get dressed or brush his teeth without his mother’s help. The performance of dependent children at school is significantly lower than that of their peers who are accustomed to greater independence.
One of the basic principles of preschool education is to support children in various activities, including play, which is the leading activity throughout the entire period of preschool childhood . Supporting the initiative is also very important for creating a social situation for the development of children. At the stage of completion of preschool education, one of the targets of the Federal State Educational Standard for Preschool Education provides for one of the age characteristics of children’s capabilities - “show initiative and independence in various types of activities - play, etc.” [23]. As we know, the game has no obvious product. The game is about playing, not winning. Therefore, the task arises of finding forms of activity that are productive. Here you can turn to visual and constructive activities. Initiative is most clearly manifested in games with rules. According to A. N. Leontyev, mastering a rule means mastering one’s behavior. Therefore, the teacher’s task is to motivate children’s play actions by directly participating and emotionally becoming involved in children’s games. In the role of the organizer of the game, the teacher introduces rules into the child’s life, and in the role of a detached observer, he analyzes and controls the children’s actions. Only the combination of these roles can ensure the development of will, arbitrariness and initiative in preschoolers . In a preschool setting, the distribution of different types of games by type of activity during the day can be organized as follows.
• Direct educational activities will include a variety of didactic games in accordance with the content of educational work in relevant areas.
• Educational activities during the day involve the organization of leisure, active, theatrical games, games with rules, as well as the organization of story-based games together with the teacher, which help enrich the gaming experience of children.
• Free activity is accompanied by the organization of pedagogical support for amateur children's games (role-playing, directorial, experimental games, as well as games with rules, active, leisure, folk organized on the initiative of the children themselves. This creates conditions for the formation of age-related new formations.
The content of work on the development and pedagogical support of initiative in the game should correspond to the age of the students.
Independence is manifested in the desire and desire to make efforts to solve problems in everyday activities, while being as independent as possible from an adult, based on one’s experience and knowledge, engaging in search activities until the problem is completely resolved. This quality is a sign of readiness for school.
Uniting children into a playing group of different ages allows teachers to solve a number of the most important problems in the development of children, since such games are of great importance not only for the formation and development of the game of preschoolers , but also for the favorable emotional and personal development of preschoolers , for whom the game is no longer leading, but predominant activities. The application of the above provisions will allow, while maintaining the enormous developmental potential of children's play, to develop the initiative of preschoolers , while adequately using the capabilities of the game as a pedagogical form.
An enterprising child must be able to realize his or her activities creatively and demonstrate cognitive activity. The novelty of the product of children's activity is subjective, but extremely important for the development of the child's personality.
The conditions necessary to create a social situation for the development of children corresponding to the specifics of preschool age (clause 3.2.5) are called:
— creating conditions for children to freely choose activities and participants in joint activities;
— support for children’s initiative and independence in various types of activities (play, research, project, cognitive, etc.)
;
— supporting children’s spontaneous play, enriching it, providing play time and space.
This is the most important part of the work of teachers, the implementation of which determines the successful development of the child, and therefore the successful formation of target guidelines, that is, the actual implementation of the Federal State Educational Standard for Education. Thus, work on mastering the content of educational areas should be based on or include a sufficient range of games organized on the initiative of an adult , as well as traditional games with content of a corresponding focus. In parallel, special work must be organized to develop children’s initiative in play , which ensures the formation of target guidelines. From the above it follows that it is necessary to develop in preschoolers the two most important qualities for life, first of all, during play, as well as creative activities. In addition, there are many non-standard techniques that form a highly developed personality.
Independence and initiative play a huge role in preparing students for their future life and work, regardless of the area in which they will realize themselves.
Development of independence and initiative in preschool children
The Constitution of the Russian Federation, the “Concept for the Modernization of Russian Education”, the Law of the Russian Federation “On Education in the Russian Federation” and other regulatory documents of the Russian Federation formulate the state’s social order for the education system: the education of an initiative, responsible person who is ready to make independent decisions in a situation of choice. This social order is not accidental; it is explained by the peculiarities of the economic situation in the country. Today we have a labor market. What does it mean? This means that everyone is responsible for how they present themselves in this labor market and whether they will be in demand. Considering that scientific progress is developing very quickly today; and what we knew yesterday and today, in a year, and maybe even earlier, will be outdated, then the main thing for today is to constantly develop. Therefore, the main goal of today's standards is to teach learning. That is, the knowledge model that we had must degenerate into a competence model.
Let me remind you that in the state standards of preschool education at the stage of its completion, one of the targets provides for the age characteristics of children’s capabilities - “to be able to show initiative and independence in various types of activities - play, productive activity, communication.”
That is, you and I also received a social order from the state - to raise an independent, proactive preschooler.
What is independence, and when should you start developing it?
M. Montessori considered independence as a biological quality of a person. She believed that nature gave people the opportunity to develop it to form all the necessary skills, realize abilities, and master knowledge. All steps of a child’s development - from acquired skill in movements, in learning to roll over, sit, crawl, walk, to the formation of social and communicative reactions and skills (gestures, speech, intonation, behavioral aspects...) - are a child’s step towards independence from adults.
In modern pedagogy, independence is considered as one of the qualities of a socially competent person, as the basis for the formation of other significant social qualities, such as, for example, subjective activity, creative initiative, self-knowledge, self-perception, self-change, self-development. By and large, a child’s independence is the basis for the formation of all key competencies. The child’s inability to engage in independent active activity leads to his inability to acquire general cultural, cognitive, and personal competencies, that is, it leads to social immaturity. It is through active activity and independent trial and error that a child gains experience in various areas of life, including social.
Three stages can be outlined in the development of independence:
- The first stage is when the child acts independently in the conditions that are normal for him, in which basic habits were developed, without reminders, encouragement and help from an adult (he removes the building material after playing; he himself goes to wash his hands when he is called to the table; he himself says “ please" and "thank you" when asking for something or thanking for help).
- The second stage—the child independently uses familiar methods of action in new, unusual, but close and homogeneous situations. For example, having learned to clean her room, Masha, without prompting from adults, swept her grandmother’s room herself and put the dishes in an unfamiliar closet. Without my mother’s request, she brought a chair from the room into the kitchen and invited the neighbor, who came to see her mother, to sit down. In kindergarten she was taught to offer a chair to guests.
- At the third stage, a further transfer is possible. The mastered rule acquires a generalized character and becomes a criterion for the child to determine his behavior in any conditions.
Thus, independence is always a product of submission to the demands of adults and at the same time the child’s own initiative. And the better, deeper, and more meaningfully a child has mastered the rules of behavior, the greater his ability to proactively and independently apply them in new, diverse living conditions.
Each activity has a unique impact on the development of different components of independence.
1. Thus, the game contributes to the development of activity and initiative , because it creates a positive emotional background against which all mental processes occur most actively. (S.A. Marutyan, N.Ya. Mikhailenko, D.B. Elkonin).
Despite the fact that gaming activity is leading in preschool age, its importance does not decrease subsequently. L.S. Vygotsky noted that in preschool age, play and activities, play and work, form two main channels along which the activities of preschoolers flow. Vygotsky L.S. I saw in play an inexhaustible source of personal development, a sphere that defines the “zone of proximal development.”
2. Work activity provides favorable opportunities for developing purposefulness and awareness of actions, and perseverance in achieving results . (M.V. Krulekht, V.I. Loginova, D.V. Sergeeva). Already a young child has a desire to independently perform actions with objects related to the world of adults (wash dishes, set the table, vacuum, etc.). This desire can be in demand and developed in various types of household work. The formation of household work skills is necessary, first of all, for the development of independence.
3. Productive activities develop the child’s independence from adults and the desire to find adequate means of self-expression .
4. Communication. At preschool age, in addition to communication with adults, communication with peers is differentiated and reaches an expanded form. By the age of five to seven, a peer acquires individuality in the child’s eyes. An older preschooler shows a keen interest in his friends, which manifests itself in the form of active imitation and a desire for competition .
5. And the highest stage of development of independence - Self-organization - activity aimed at searching and creative transformation of reality, high adaptability, active mobilization of the individual’s internal resources. In psychology, human activity is considered as internal (mental) and external (motor) activity, regulated by a conscious goal.
Based on the above, independence is presented as the initial basis. The launching pad for the formation of self-organization as a whole, which is closely related to the subjective activity of the individual.
Indicators of independence of an older preschooler are:
- the desire to solve problems of activity without help from other people: the ability to perform work on one’s own initiative, to notice the need for certain actions (water flowers if the ground is dry; when you see a mess, eliminate it);
- the ability to set a goal for an activity: awareness of actions; the ability to perform work without outside help, without the constant supervision of an adult;
- carry out basic planning: the ability to understand the purpose of the work, anticipate its result;
- implement your plans and get a result adequate to the goal: the ability to give a fairly adequate assessment of your work, exercise basic self-control;
- as well as the ability to show initiative and creativity in solving emerging problems: the ability to transfer known methods of action to new conditions.
These are the skills we need to teach children.
The development of independence in self-service has the goal of consolidating and bringing acquired skills to a certain level of automatism. The ability to independently monitor appearance is an important responsibility of a preschooler. Evidence of the successful development of independence of older preschoolers in self-care is the quality of self-service processes, sufficient speed of execution, the ability to look after oneself without reminders, put oneself in order, the ability to notice a disorder in the appearance of a peer, point out it, and help eliminate it. The habit of self-service contributes to the formation of elements of self-control and self-organization. It disciplines children, allows them to reduce the time spent on routine processes, freeing them up for a variety of activities.
The highest level in the development of independence of preschool children is the ability to independently organize and participate in collective activities. It further improves the skills of each of the children and masters new skills and methods of collective cooperation. A low level of skills and poor performance do not allow the child to take a worthy place in collective activities and cope well with the assigned role. This reduces the interest of peers in him, prevents him from believing in himself, and inhibits the desire for independence. Therefore, the development of individual independence in various types of activities, the systematic accumulation of experience is a prerequisite for the development of independence in collective affairs.
Independence is a generalized personality trait, manifested in initiative, criticality, adequate self-esteem and a sense of personal responsibility for one’s activities and behavior. Independence is fostered when children perform responsibilities to serve themselves and loved ones; the level of independence is associated with the development of social experience of work activity, the possibility of a child demonstrating a subjective position in work. The independence of children unfolds from independence of a reproductive nature to independence with elements of creativity, with a steady increase in the role of children's consciousness, self-control and self-esteem in the implementation of activities.
“Independence” is a very multifaceted and psychologically complex phenomenon; it is rather a meaning-forming, qualitative characteristic of any sphere of activity and personality, which has its own specific criteria.
The final touch in the portrait of independence is persistence in achieving results, when failure does not become a reason to abandon what was planned. In this regard, I would like to talk about the educational aspects of instilling independence. Developing willpower, patience and responsibility is very important. The role of the educator is to stimulate actions that bring the work started to completion. It is especially valuable if the child thinks of joining forces with someone around him. In our case, a teacher.
The main principles that can be followed when developing independence and initiative are the following:
1. Make sure that the child has the opportunity to see the annoying consequences of what he was once too lazy to do. For example, if he discovers that the markers have dried out because he forgot to put caps on them, he should not rush to give him new ones. Let him draw for a week or two with pencils or paints. Every time a child hints with a sigh that it would be nice to change the markers, in response he will express doubts: what if the new markers won’t last long? In the future, memories of this difficult period of creativity will motivate the child to monitor the condition of his things, treat them with care and, most importantly, understand that he has to be responsible for every action.
2. The principle of expediency. For example, you shouldn’t ask your child to put toys back in their place immediately after playing. Preschoolers do one thing for 15-20 minutes, and if they clean up after each such interval, they will simply get tired and lose interest in the game, being preoccupied not so much with the game itself as with cleaning up after the game. The request to put everything in its place after the end of the game, so as not to trip over the toys, will be more understandable to the child.
3. The most specific and understandable wording of the request. For example: “After dinner, you need to clear your plate from the table to help Anna Petrovna,” and not “you need to clean up after yourself!”
4. It is important to explain to the child the meaning and ultimate goal of the actions he performs. Statements that “all children dress themselves” or “people will laugh if they see adults helping you” are bad arguments. The child will not pay attention to these words, believing that he can tolerate other people’s ridicule for the sake of convenience. It’s better to talk about how many interesting things you can do in the time saved if you dress or undress yourself, without waiting for help: we’ll have time to catch a car with groceries or play longer in the sandbox; Let's quickly undress, have time to play with the construction set or finish reading our fairy tale.
5. In a situation where we organize children for something, and one of them is lazy and categorically refuses to leave his cozy place, you can ask him to tell about his future plans. This request will make the child think about what he can do. Sometimes a little trick helps to drive a sloth away. Express your joy that he is sitting and not disturbing anyone. Then ask him to sit there for another two hours so that we can work with the rest of the children (sculpting an animal, drawing an airplane, etc.). As a rule, within a few minutes the question is asked: “Can I come with you too?”
Initiative is a special case of independence, the desire for initiative, a change in forms of activity or way of life. This motivational quality is also considered as a volitional characteristic of human behavior.
Initiative is manifested in all types of activities, but most clearly in communication, objective activity, play, and experimentation. This is the most important indicator of children's intelligence and development. Initiative is an indispensable condition for improving all cognitive activities of a child, but especially creative ones. An initiative child strives to organize games, productive activities, meaningful communication, he knows how to find an activity that suits his own desires; join the conversation, offer an interesting activity to other children. In preschool age, initiative is associated with the manifestation of curiosity, an inquisitive mind, and ingenuity. An initiative child is distinguished by meaningful interests.
The concept of “creative initiative” deserves special attention. Creative initiative should be understood as the child’s involvement in a story-based game as the main activity of a preschooler. There are three levels of creative initiative:
1st level
Actively deploys several semantically related conditional actions (role in action), the content of which depends on the existing game environment; actively uses substitute items, giving the same item different in-game meanings; enthusiastically repeatedly reproduces the favorite conventional game action (chain of actions) with minor variations.
2nd level
Has an initial concept (“I want to play hospital”, “I am a driver”, etc.); actively searches for or modifies the existing gaming environment; accepts and designates playing roles in speech; develops individual plot episodes (within the usual sequences of events), actively using not only conventional actions, but also role-playing speech, various role-playing dialogues; during the game he can move from one plot episode to another (from one role to another), without caring about their coherence.
3rd level
Has a variety of game plans; actively creates the subject environment “according to the plan”; combines (links) different plot episodes into a new whole during the game, building an original plot; can consciously use role reversal; the plan also tends to be embodied primarily in speech (verbal inventing of stories) or in an object model of an imaginary “world” (with small toys-characters), and can be recorded in plot compositions in drawing, modeling, and design.
A necessary condition for the development of proactive behavior is its upbringing in conditions of developmental , non-authoritarian communication!
An initiative personality develops through activity. And since the leading activity of preschool age is play, the higher the level of development of creative initiative, the more varied the play activities, and, consequently, the more dynamic the development of the individual.
Gradually, independence of a reproductive nature is replaced by initiative with elements of creativity, the level of awareness, self-control, and self-esteem of the child in the process of the type of activity he carries out increases.
So, an initiative person is characterized by: arbitrariness of behavior; independence; developed emotional-volitional sphere; initiative in various activities; desire for self-realization; sociability; creative approach to activities; high level of mental abilities; cognitive activity.
How exactly can a preschooler’s initiative manifest itself?
- in creating stories and organizing joint games,
- in the ability to carry out significant instructions from adults (parents and teachers),
- the ability to adequately assess one’s own activities and behavior, as well as the activities and behavior of other children.
How can an adult help the development of children's initiative when organizing children's play? The heyday of s/r play occurs in middle preschool age. The teacher’s task in working with children of the 5th year of life is to transfer them to more complex role-playing behavior in the game: to develop the ability to change their behavior in accordance with the different roles of partners, the ability to change the game role and indicate their role for partners in the process of unfolding the game. These skills are the key to future creative and coordinated development of play with peers; they provide flexibility in role behavior.
There are two ways to prepare children to take on roles:
- organized observations of professional activities by adults;
- episodic targeted interventions on children’s independent play.
As for organized observations, everything is clear: these are our targeted walks, excursions, conversations about the work of adults, etc. But episodic targeted influences involve joint play between the teacher and the children, where the adult is not a leader, but a participant, a partner of the children in this creative process. The game should unfold in a special way, so that the child “opens up” the need to correlate his role with various other roles, as well as the possibility of changing the role during the game, in order to develop an interesting plot.
This is possible if the teacher meets two conditions:
1. The use of multi-personal plots with a specific role structure, where one of the roles is included in direct connections with all the others. For example, not just a doctor, but a chief doctor, who can contact the m/s with an assignment, interact with the patient, and ask the doctor at an appointment with a question. Or: a car repairman can “talk” with a “colleague”, and with the person who fills the car with gasoline, and look into the cash register for some business.
2. Refusal to unequivocally correspond the number of characters (roles) in the plot to the number of participants in the game: there should be more characters than participants.
You can enrich role behavior by:
- by introducing new attributes into children's play;
- You can use the “parallel game – role” technique. This is specially organized play communication, where an adult takes on the same role that the child is currently playing, influences the child’s play in a hidden way, and enriches him with new play skills and goals. The teacher can present a new role to the children and unobtrusively encourage the children to engage in parallel play. Or the game is structured in such a way that the child has the main role in the plot; and the adult consistently changes his roles during the game. At the same time, the plot of the game is not told to the children in advance, and the game begins immediately after the child is offered the main role, which, in the opinion of the teacher, must definitely attract the child.
Initiative is also most clearly manifested in games with rules. According to A. N. Leontyev, mastering a rule means mastering one’s behavior. Therefore, the teacher’s task is to motivate children’s play actions by directly participating and emotionally becoming involved in children’s games. In the role of the organizer of the game, the teacher introduces rules into the child’s life, and in the role of a detached observer, he analyzes and controls the children’s actions. Only the combination of these roles can ensure the development of will, arbitrariness and initiative in preschoolers.
An enterprising child must be able to realize his or her activities creatively and demonstrate cognitive activity. The novelty of the product of children's activity is subjective, but extremely important for the development of the child's personality. The development of creativity depends on the level of development of the cognitive sphere, the level of development of creative initiative, arbitrariness of activity and behavior, freedom of activity provided to the child, as well as the breadth of his orientation in the world around him and his awareness.
For full development, a preschool child needs amateur, spontaneous play that arises and develops on his own initiative. This game represents the child's leading activity. The game, as a pedagogical form (organized by the teacher), contributes to the solution of educational and educational problems, but in isolation from amateur play, it cannot ensure development. Using the game only as a means of implementing the Program will lead to the fact that children will not have the necessary target guidelines; such a child, despite active work with him, will actually be unprepared for further education at school.
Therefore, only with the support of spontaneous play, its enrichment, and provision of play time and space is it possible to develop children’s initiative, and therefore the formation of target guidelines.
Initiative of older preschoolers in various activities
Initiative of older preschoolers
in various activities
Senior preschoolers are characterized by the need for self-affirmation and recognition of their capabilities by adults. The formation of initiative in preschoolers has already been recognized as an important educational task. What characteristics are necessary for the successful implementation of independence? For a teacher, practice looks like this: I would like the child to be able to ask questions when he doesn’t understand something, to show interest in new things, and to be able to interact with children and adults. Therefore, one of the requirements for the conditions for implementing an educational program for children of senior preschool age is to support the individuality and initiative of children. At the same time, it is necessary: to create conditions for children to freely choose activities and participants in joint activities; children making decisions, expressing their feelings and thoughts, as well as supporting children’s initiative and independence in various types of activities (play, research, design, cognitive, etc.) The development of independence is facilitated by children mastering the ability to set a goal (or accept it from a teacher ), think about the path to achieving it, implement your plan, evaluate the result from the position of the goal. In general, this means that when faced with an obstacle in achieving a goal or when a deficit in knowledge is detected, the child does not stop his activities, but looks for opportunities to overcome the obstacle or ignorance. Of course, such behavior is impossible without initiative as a personality trait.
Initiative is an action aimed at overcoming a current situation in accordance with one’s own plan. Relying on this definition on the works of L. S. Vygotsky on children’s imagination, V. A. Petrovsky on maladaptive activity, we find confirmation in the works of E. Erikson and E. O. Smirnova on the tasks of preschool age. Initiative action is always conscious, purposeful and takes into account social frameworks. A game is a space where all the characteristics of proactive action are present as if in a natural way. In play activities, the child easily creates a plan and implements it. Thanks to imagination, new plots, heroes and properties of heroes appear. The space is transformed in accordance with the plan. Items are transformed into what is needed, regardless of their actual characteristics. Rules appear in the game, which are first discussed and then regulate the actions of the participants. With full-fledged play, the preschooler has experience of voluntary behavior and experience of overcoming the current situation. The highest form of independence for children is creativity, and this is facilitated by the creation of creative situations in play, theater, artistic and visual creative activities.
During role-playing games, children take on various roles in accordance with the plot of the game, use attributes that they make themselves, construction sets, building materials and substitute items. The role of the teacher in role-playing games is to regulate positive relationships aimed at socializing children in a team. In order to organize independent games for children of senior preschool age, a game library will be relevant, which concentrates educational and logical-mathematical games, such as: checkers, chess, “Dyenesh Blocks”, “Cuizenaire Sticks”, “Zaitsev’s Cubes”, “Find the Mistakes” , geometric puzzles, tangrams, etc. In this toy room, children independently choose a game according to their desire and capabilities. This center promotes the development of logical actions - comparison, logical operations - classification, recognition by description, reconstruction, transformation, orientation according to schemes, models, and the implementation of control and verification actions.
During the walk, children also take the initiative in outdoor games with rules, unite in micro-groups based on interests, choose a driver using a counting rhyme or lot, which contributes to the development of friendly relationships.
To develop initiative, it is necessary not only to develop children’s play activities, but also to create special conditions for transferring the abilities formed in play to other types of activities. These conditions include: − experience of surprise, discovery of one’s interest; − experience of testing one’s actions within socially defined frameworks; − social support for achievements. Productive and creative activities of older preschoolers are implemented in the “Creativity Corner,” which is created on the principle of accessibility and mobility. The teacher tries, in difficult moments, to provide freedom, independence, and initiative for productive creative actions, which are reflected in children’s works. All this contributes to the development of imagination, confidence, and initiative in mastering new artistic abilities.
However, comparative studies of the level of initiative shown by a 5-6 year old child in free play, in free experimentation and according to the observation of a teacher in a group show that initiative in play corresponds to the level of development of play activity. Children who show initiative in free play do not always show initiative in cognitive or research activities, and vice versa, we are interested in the conditions for the emergence of initiative not in an imaginary, but in a real situation.
What technologies provide this in preschool education? The first organization of the game “Free Play” allows you to evaluate the manifestation of initiative in the game of a group of children with unformed material; The second is the “Free Experimentation” method of projects, based on children’s interests and questions - the manifestation of initiative in substantive action; A specially organized group environment is offered - mobile, flexible, capable of changing in accordance with the children's plan to “do something” with a set of various objects and materials. One of the leading forms of work in senior preschool age is cognitive and research activity. Research activities are aimed at creating conditions for independent search, ways and solutions to a problem situation. The “Experimentation Corner” with appropriate equipment allows you to have a huge impact on the cognitive activity of children. “Researcher folders” for each child, which are replenished with plans and diagrams based on the results of joint research conducted by the teacher and children. Children independently distribute the work they will do and disperse to centers to collect information. The teacher, acting as a partner, helps those who need help at the moment. Such work develops in children the skills and abilities to conduct independent research, allows them to develop important cognitive functions: memory, attention, perception, develops skills of cooperation, mutual assistance, and friendly relationships. Thus, the special educational conditions created (variable environment, play with unstructured material, work using the project method), children show dynamics in the development of initiative, and a transfer occurs from play to object-based activities. The described conditions make it possible to form initiative as an educational result of the preschool level. The teacher’s competencies and values necessary for the development of children’s initiative can be divided into three blocks. Gaming competence. An adult must be able to play himself and enjoy the game, be able to create conditions for children’s play, be able to get involved in children’s play activities, be able to observe children’s free play and assess the level of development of play abilities. Working in the interests of the child. An adult knows how to be surprised and surprise, knows how to hear and support children’s curiosity, is able to change educational activities so that they contribute to the search for answers to children’s questions, is able to show children’s interest to parents and include them in the work, and knows how to formalize the results.
An adult knows how to transform the group space in accordance with new tasks, has his own style of organizing space, is able to support the simultaneous work of small children's groups in different zones, and knows how to collaborate with children in designing the group space. Further research should be devoted to the development of technologies and methods for such work in the kindergarten group, and the training and retraining of preschool teachers that is already organized.
Literature:
Vygotsky L. S. Imagination and creativity in childhood - St. Petersburg: SOYUZ, 1997.
Petrovsky V. A. Psychology of non-adaptive activity / Ross. open university - M.: LLP "Gorbunok", 1992. - 224 p.
Smirnova E. O. Psychology of the child. - M: School-Press, 1997.
Erickson E. Childhood and society. - St. Petersburg: ITD “Summer Garden”, 2000.
