A set of sand therapy classes during the adaptation period of infants and young children.

A set of sand therapy classes during the adaptation period of infants and young children.

A set of sand therapy classes during the adaptation period of infants and young children.

What do you need to play in the sand? But, in essence, so little is needed: Love, desire, kindness, So that faith in Childhood does not disappear.

Let's paint the simplest drawer from a table with blue paint, A handful of golden sand will flow into it like a wondrous fairy tale.

A set of small toys Let's take it into the game... Like God We will create our own World of Wonders, Having walked the path of Knowledge.

When entering a preschool educational institution, all children experience adaptation stress.

The adaptive capabilities of a young child are limited, so a sudden transition of a child to a new social situation and a prolonged stay in a stressful state can lead to emotional disturbances or a slowdown in the rate of psychophysical development.

Thus, an important task for teachers is to help children overcome stress when entering a preschool institution and successfully adapt to it.

One of the effective means of adaptation is “ Sand therapy ”

. Sand therapy is a type of play therapy.

Young children often cannot express their experiences due to the lack of active speech. Sand therapy may be useful for establishing mutual understanding with peers, adults and the new environment during the adaptation period. Sand therapy also stabilizes the child’s psycho-emotional state.

When working with children, it is recommended to use simple exercises that are based on such characteristics of young children as: emotionality, impressionability, the ability to quickly become infected, both positive and negative, by emotions from adults and peers and imitate their actions.

Each lesson using the sand therapy method has its own structural features:

1. Warm-up (or warm-up games)

. The stage of touching and playing on the surface of dry sand.

Goal: reduction of psychophysical stress, regulation of muscle tension, relaxation, development of tactile sensitivity, imagination, consolidation of knowledge about sensory standards.

At the stage of touching the surface of dry sand, the following games and exercises are used:

- Game “Hello Sand!”

— Game “Sand Rain”

— Exercise “Sand wind”

— Game “Unusual Traces”

.

2. Directly training part.

Goal: development of sensory abilities, object-practical manipulations, fine motor skills, cognitive and speech activity.

Games:

Game "Sand Hide and Seek"

Game “Hide the toys”

Game "Children's secrets"

Exercise “Funny fingers”

and etc.

3. Final stage. The stage of touching and playing on the surface of wet sand.

MAGAZINE Preschooler.RF

Senchenko Valentina Viktorovna, teacher, MBDOU "Kindergarten No. 48" , Ryazan, Ryazan region, Russia

Perhaps, each of us has our own positive memories from childhood associated with playing in the sand - sea, river, or what is poured into sandboxes near the house. However, sand is not so simple. Seemingly simple games can be very beneficial for the mental health and development of children. Especially if these games are sand therapy.

Have you noticed that sand for babies has some magical powers? At a certain age, they begin to be attracted to it: children want to touch the sand, pick at it with a stick, play with toys, dig a hole.

First of all, sand therapy for children is an excellent opportunity for self-expression, the development of creative inclinations in a child, as well as a simple and effective way to learn to express their feelings, emotions, and experiences. Sand therapy classes under the guidance of a teacher or psychologist provide answers to many questions parents have regarding the inner emotional world of their child, allows you to uncover and see the true causes of conflicts, fears, and subsequently make corrections!

The creators of sand therapy are students of the famous psychologist and scientist Carl Jung. The therapy is based on the psychologist’s discovery of the fact that our unconscious communicates with us through symbols and hints, which often helps us recover from illnesses, cope with difficulties and resolve some difficult issues. Today, playing with sand is becoming increasingly popular. Sand therapy began to be actively used in kindergarten.

How it works? The paintings created on the sand by our hands are a reflection of the unconscious. They are like dreams, but you can also touch them. With their help, we bring out our experiences, internal problems, tormenting conflicts. A psychologist or teacher will help you look at all this in your picture, as well as realize what thoughts are disturbing you.

The sandbox is an excellent mediator for establishing contact with a child. And if he speaks poorly and cannot tell an adult about his experiences, then in such games with sand everything becomes possible. By playing out an exciting situation with the help of small figures, creating a picture of sand, the child opens up, and adults get the opportunity to see the child’s inner world at the moment, and during sand therapy it will definitely “flow out” onto the sandy surface. But this is far from the only advantage of sand therapy: it remarkably develops fine motor skills (sand, due to its structure, has a beneficial effect on tactile sensations and stimulates the nerve endings that are located in the fingertips), imagination, creativity, imaginative thinking and much more.

Working with sand is calming (especially for hyperactive children) - it seems to contain life-giving solar energy that recharges us with positive emotions.

Sand therapy is also good for preschoolers because when creating certain compositions, artistic skills are not needed, as in drawing. This means there is no room for disappointments, mistakes and self-doubt. During the “sand” lesson, children are relaxed, cheerful and inspired: they create their own world, and doing this is endlessly pleasant.

Sand therapy is akin to play, and in play a child learns about the world around him, overcomes difficulties, and learns to solve adult problems. The participation of a teacher or psychologist is important here, who will help the child find a solution and a way out of the current situation in a timely manner.

Sand therapy helps a lot in speech therapy. Children who have some kind of speech problems learn exercises reflected in the sand much faster. So, kids love to sculpt different letters, words, and letter combinations that are difficult for them. Children who have difficulty speaking overcome speech problems much faster, since sand affects the tactile-kinesthetic centers associated with those hemispheres of the brain that are responsible for the development of speech activity.

Older children can learn to write stories based on what they “drew” in the sand. This teaches them coherent speech, retelling skills, and this is really interesting to them: who doesn’t want to describe what kind of situation is depicted in the sand?

What do you need to play in the sand? But, in essence, so little is needed: Love, desire, kindness, So that Faith in Childhood does not disappear.

The simplest table drawer - Paint it with blue paint, A handful of golden sand will flow into it like a wondrous fairy tale.

A set of small toys Let's take it into the game... Like God We will create our own World of Wonders, Walking the Road of Knowledge.

To organize sand therapy you will need:

• Sand box (sandbox), size in centimeters: 50x70x8. It is believed that this size of the sandbox corresponds to the volume of the field of visual perception.
• Sand (regular, but sifted, clean)
• Water
• Collection of miniature figurines

The sandbox for sand therapy can be wooden or plastic. The main thing is that it has fairly high sides (so that the sand does not spill out) and a bottom painted blue. It will symbolize the sky or water, which makes it easier to play and create your own picture.

Classes are conducted using a large number of small figures and special sandboxes with dry or wet clean sand.

During classes, children love to travel to a fairyland with the Sandman, the keeper of the magical sandbox. Every time, sitting around the sandbox, the children listen to the Sandman's story about a new interesting game.

A classic sand therapy session begins with the psychologist giving the task to create a picture of his mood and the child choosing the most attractive toys for him.

It is important that they be varied and allow the child to involve different aspects of life in his games. These should be figures of people (preferably of different ages, different nationalities, professions, categories), both real and imaginary. Animal figures – domestic, wild, mythical. Some symbolic objects like mirrors, eggs, butterflies. Toy buildings and furniture: houses, churches, towers, castles. Connecting toys: ladders, ropes, stones, grains, beans. Cars, planes, trains, boats. Vegetation: trees, twigs, flowers, bushes. Various things: buttons, feathers, coins.

After which these same figures are placed in random order on one of the trays with sand. You can place them however you like: in one row, in a circle, at different ends of the tray, and so on. The figures can be connected by drawn “paths” (connections between objects), “traces” made by fingers, or they may not be connected by anything at all - everything is as the child wants to do it.

The therapeutic effect is achieved already at the stage of placing toys. When the picture is completed, the psychologist will be able to interpret what is bothering the child at a given period of time, and will also help him find a way out of a difficult situation during the game.

Calm music can be played in the practice room, or complete silence can reign, depending on the mood of the group and the age of the children.

In kindergarten and school settings, not only a psychologist can use a sandbox, but also teachers who can conduct educational games in the sand. Developmental exercises on the sand are more effective than standard teaching methods.

It is thanks to independent drawings in the sand that the child quickly masters letters and numbers, masters the concepts of “right” and “left ,” temporary concepts of day and night, and seasons. With the help of constructions in the sand, you can develop visual-figurative thinking, perception and memory. In the sandbox, tactile sensitivity and fine motor skills of the hand develop powerfully.

While playing on the sand, the child becomes interested, he tries to do it correctly, beautifully, accurately and, most importantly, quickly.

Children often cannot clearly articulate or name what is happening to them. By constructing various stories, a child can play out various difficulties in his life. For example, difficulties in communicating with children, indecisiveness or your own fears.

Playing with sand is a kind of self-therapy for a child with the help of a psychologist. The child is the master in the sandbox and, experiencing this feeling, he becomes internally stronger because he can change his pictures, stories, relationships and moods.

In games on the sand there are wars, a struggle between good and evil, but the child always knows that good will win! And this experience is very important for his future life.

In sand therapy, children gain inner freedom and confidence that no one will judge them and will accept them for who they are. First on the sand, and then in real life!

The goal of such therapy is not to change and remake the child, not to teach him any special behavioral skills, but to give him the opportunity to be himself.

What are the benefits of playing with sand?

• Develop perception, thinking, memory, attention, speech, self-control and self-regulation skills, creative thinking, imagination and fantasy;
• Form the child’s ideas about the world around him;
• Develop fine motor skills and eye
• Calms and relaxes, relieving tension;
• Develop a sense of success and self-confidence (that's how I do it!)
• They help you to understand your outer and inner world.

Along with the high effectiveness of the method, sand therapy also has contraindications. Not recommended in cases where:

• The level of anxiety of a child (adult) is very high;
• There are allergies and asthma to dust and small particles;
• There are skin diseases and cuts on the hands.

Forms and options of sand therapy

1. Game methods

Didactic gaming workshop using a sandbox is used for the little ones. Scientists have proven that sand absorbs negative energy, calms, and fills with harmony. This is why it is so useful for children to play in the sandbox.

A series of games based on the book by T.D. Zinkevich-Evstigneeva “Games in fairy tale therapy” , aimed at developing tactile-kinesthetic sensitivity and fine motor skills of the hands, creative imagination, help to understand the external and internal world)

1. "Sensitive palms"

Hot-cold, soft-hard, dry-wet.

2. “Our handprints” . Kids really like to make footprints and handprints in the sand, and use their fingers to depict animal tracks. It’s also very interesting and pleasant to bury your hands and feet in the sand.

3. Game “Secret” “What is hidden in the sand? Any toys are hidden in the sand, the hiding place is marked, the child’s task is to dig out the “secret” and then make a similar one.

4. Drawings in the sand. Using a stick you can draw letters, numbers, geometric shapes and entire pictures.

These simple exercises are of enormous importance for the development of a child’s psyche. Firstly, this kind of interaction with sand stabilizes the emotional state. Secondly, with the development of fine motor skills, we teach the child to listen to himself and pronounce his feelings, this contributes to the development of speech, voluntary attention, and memory. But most importantly, the child receives the first experience of reflection - he learns to understand himself and others.

2. For diagnostic purposes (individual and group form)

In an individual form, you can diagnose:

• The presence of internal conflicts (struggle, sand country in a state of destruction)
• Level and direction of aggression (hetero and auto-aggression)
• Conflicts with significant others. In this case, there is a confrontation between the heroes of the sand fairy tale, playing the role of real members of the author’s entourage
• Potential, resource opportunities (when there are some miraculous objects that bring deliverance and a happy resolution to the situation)
• Ways to overcome difficulties (mutual help, patronage, avoidance)
• Level of development of the emotional sphere (analysis of feelings, reflection)
• Analysis of the location of the figures in the sandbox and their meaning

In a group form of working with a sandbox, you can diagnose:

• The nature of interaction in the group
• Distribution of roles in the group
• Behavioral style of each group member

3. Method of psychocorrectional influence (for example, if a child has emotional and behavioral disorders of a neurotic nature). In other cases - as an auxiliary means to stimulate the child, develop his sensorimotor skills, reduce emotional stress, etc.)

Preschoolers with mental retardation, mental retardation, and children with disabilities are especially in need of such therapy. The leading characteristics of such preschoolers include weak emotional stability, impaired self-control in all types of activities, aggressive behavior and its provocative nature, difficulties in adapting to the children's group, fussiness, frequent mood swings, feelings of fear, mannerisms, familiarity towards adults. On the sand, each selected figurine represents a character who can interact with other characters. The child comes up with what they say or do; sometimes he may invite a psychologist to join the game and speak on behalf of a character. In all these cases, the child feels like the master of his small world and is the director of the drama that plays out on the sand sheet. What was previously hidden in the depths of a child’s soul comes to light; The characters of the game come into motion, expressing the most relevant feelings and thoughts for the child.

The proposed technique can be very useful for them. If a child has certain speech disorders, as in children with OSD, a series of “Sand Literacy” , aimed at developing phonemic awareness, correcting sound pronunciation, and teaching reading and writing.

The style and dynamics of play in the sandbox for children with intellectual development problems is up to 60 minutes. As a rule, the plot in their games is not clear and most often there is confrontation, struggle for territory, and parallel play.

It is important to note that in addition to moments of admiration, classes contribute to the development of manual motor skills and hand-eye coordination, which are necessary to prepare a child for writing. The fact is that in the human brain the centers responsible for speech and finger movements are located very close.

5. As a psychoprophylactic, developmental agent

Psychoprophylaxis is carried out with the aim of preventing problematic situations. Having the remarkable property of “grounding” negative mental energy, sand is an excellent psychoprophylactic agent. Psychoprophylactic and developmental aspects are manifested in the production of fairy tales and myths in the sandbox. By playing with your child, you can share your own life experiences with him.

6. In psychological counseling of children, adolescents and adults.

As a provision of primary psychological assistance.

DRAWING WITH SAND

This technique, called “Sand Art Therapy,” is amazing because it suggests using sand and the sand painting technique as a basis for creativity and self-knowledge.

To organize classes you will need:

- tablet/pallet/table - depending on the room (if the equipment is stationary, then you can have light tables, if you need to clean up after classes, then it is better to purchase tablets/pallets)

- quartz sand (you can have several options for colored sand for art therapy)

Sand drawing, sand animation - all these are names for the same activity, which has become extremely popular recently. And no wonder.

Sand painting is an unusual art of creating pictures using sand; it is an opportunity to express your feelings and emotions without words.

Sand painting develops:

• fine motor skills
• Improves memory
• Plastic movements
• Brain function
• Stress management

It is in this state that stress and internal tension are best relieved, problems go away...

It is especially characteristic of sand painting: by manipulating bulk materials, a person gets rid of negative emotions. Drawing occurs directly with your fingers in the sand, which promotes the development of sensory sensations, liberates and harmonizes, and also promotes the development of two hemispheres (since drawing occurs with both hands).

Even very young children can draw on the sand. This activity will develop motor skills no worse than finger painting, and it will create much less mess.

Experience with children has shown that the use of sand therapy gives positive results:

• Children feel more successful;
• Classes are fun, there is no boredom or monotony;
• In kindergarten, it is easier for children to adapt to a group environment;
• Fear and tension disappear.

Finding themselves in a fabulous sandy land, the children play in the Magic Sandbox and feel like real Wizards!

The article was prepared using freely accessible materials on the Internet.

Bibliography:

1. T.D. Zinkevich-Evstigneeva T.M. Grabenko “Miracles on the sand” workshop on sand therapy. From "Rech" 2005
2. T.D. Zinkevich-Evstigneeva T.M. Grabenko “Games in fairy tale therapy” St. Petersburg 2008
3. M.V. Kisileva “Art therapy in working with children” St. Petersburg 2006
4. T.D. Zinkevich-Evstigneeva Workshop on fairy tale therapy St. Petersburg 2013
5. Dieckmann H. Methods in analytical psychology. - M.: LLC "TsGL "RON" , V. Sekachev, 2001. - 329 p.
6. Sakovich N. A. Sand playing technology. Games on the bridge. - St. Petersburg: Rech, 2006. -176 p.
7. Steinhardt L. Jungian sand therapy. -SPb.: Peter, 2001. -320 p.