Development of thinking in children of early and preschool age

Stages of development of thinking in children

Psychologists distinguish three types of thinking characteristic of childhood:

1. Visual and effective thinking is characteristic of young children. Children 1.5-2 years old think through actions on objects. They like to throw toys, push things into holes, take things apart, break things, push buttons, and so on. In this way, children accumulate experience and establish the first cause-and-effect relationships (for example, if you throw a ball hard, it will roll far). For the development of this type of thinking, games with sorters, modeling exercises, and games with various materials (sand, water, cereals) are well suited.

One of the main tasks of parents at this stage of mental development is not to interfere with the child’s exploration of the world, creating a safe environment at home for this.

1. With the acquisition of speech in early preschool age (3-4 years), visual-figurative thinking . Thanks to the images stored in memory, the child no longer needs to perform real actions with objects. The development of this type of thinking is especially influenced by activities such as drawing and design.
2. Verbal and logical thinking begins to form in older preschool age on the basis of figurative thinking. By the age of 5-7 years, children can already reason and operate with some abstract concepts (for example, time, morality, art, etc.). Signs of logical thinking are the ability to establish cause-and-effect relationships, reason, compare and classify.

Human mental activity consists of mental operations. The ability to use them is to show the development of a preschooler’s thinking.

If a child develops harmoniously both figurative and logical types of thinking, it is easier for him to solve various problems.

Child mental development - sequence

All these processes develop in a certain sequence - from practical reason to theoretical and, at the same time, in a complex, that is, those that have already developed are the basis for the development of more complex ones.

In mental education, it is necessary to provide for a certain chain of processes.

The outstanding researcher of child development problems A.V. Zaporozhets wrote that the mental development of a child is like a building: floor by floor. If any floor is lowered, the building will be shaky.

The same gaps occur in mental development, which manifests itself in its number of levels (knows, but does not understand), incapacity, and the like.

An important component of readiness to learn is cognitive activity.

Children in whom this activity develops in a timely and normal manner often annoy adults with questions like “What is this?”, “Why?” and etc.

This unique curiosity of children and its satisfaction by adults stimulate the child’s mental development, contribute to the formation of meaningful knowledge, that is, knowledge that children are able to independently use in situations that are new to them, and solve new everyday and educational problems.

It is known that not all children who come to school have developed those mental properties that provide them with further successful acquisition of knowledge and skills. These children experience great difficulties both in the process of acquiring knowledge and during its application.

Lack of formation of mental activity leads to formal assimilation of knowledge, which is characterized by superficiality and insufficient flexibility. Such knowledge is fragile, it is quickly forgotten.

So, in the multifaceted process of preparing children for school, a special place is occupied by the development of their mental activity and cognitive activity. If a child can read, this does not mean that he is already prepared for school.

A more significant indicator of this is understanding what you read or listen to: the ability to establish cause-and-effect relationships in the described phenomena, answer questions about what you read, and reason.

Games and exercises for the development of imaginative and logical thinking

• “What does it look like?” Show your child a picture of a fancy blot. Let the child come up with as many original associations for it as possible.
• "The fourth is odd." Invite your child to look at 4 pictures, three of which can be combined according to some characteristic. The child must understand which picture is “extra” and explain why he thinks so.
• “Call it in one word.” This game consists of an adult offering the child a set of words or images that can be combined into a concept. The child’s task is to name objects in one word (for example, tit, nightingale, woodpecker, crow, hawk - birds; raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, watermelons - berries).
• “Put it into groups.” An adult places pre-prepared objects or their images on the table and mixes them. The preschooler must sort them into groups according to some characteristic.
• “Fold the picture.” This didactic game is an analogy to puzzles. The child’s task is to put together a whole picture from several parts.
• "Sudoku". This puzzle, popular all over the world, in its simplified version (2x2, 3x3 or 4x4), is also suitable for preschoolers.
• “Who eats what?” Select pictures depicting animals and their favorite delicacies, mix them, and then ask the child to make pairs (feed the animals). By analogy, you can play games such as “Moms and Their Babies”, “Who Lives Where?”, “Signs of the Seasons” and so on.
• “Continue the row.” Draw long beads and start a sequence of bead colors (for example, red, yellow, blue, red again). The child must color the rest of the beads, following the pattern.

To make it interesting and fun for your baby, try to introduce your child to new games and exercises every time.

• "Opposites". In this game, the child needs to come up with a word with the opposite meaning. For example, you say the word “big”, and the child says “small” (“cheerful” - “sad”, “loud” - “quiet”, “fast” - “slow”, and so on).
• "Guess what it's about." This game will help develop not only thinking, but also attentiveness. Describe one of the objects in the room, and the child must guess what it is about. For example, a fragile, glass, beautiful vase.

For other useful games and exercises, watch the video:

Board games (checkers, chess, strategy games), mazes and puzzles are also suitable for developing the thinking of preschoolers. Such games allow kids to learn how to make decisions, think through moves, and assess possible risks. Role-playing games, communicating with peers, reading and discussing books are also great for developing creative thinking.

Features of the development of mental operations in preschool age. article

Features of the development of mental operations

in preschool age.

Brief summary. The features of the development of mental operations in preschool age are analyzed. The need for special training of preschoolers in the ability to compare, highlight the main features, and distract from the secondary is emphasized.

Logical mental operations act as a tool for a person to understand the surrounding reality. The question of the development of thinking and mental operations is one of the central issues of children’s intellectual readiness for school.

The problem of the development of mental operations in preschool children has been studied by many domestic and foreign teachers and psychologists (N.P. Anikeeva, L.A. Wenger, L.S. Vygotsky, J. Piaget, N.N. Poddyakov, D.B. Elkonin and many others).

A child’s thinking during preschool age goes in two directions: forms of thinking and mental operations develop. The main mental operations include: analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparison, abstraction, classification and specification.

As noted by N.B. Istomina, a child’s ability for analytical-syntactic activity lies not only in the ability to isolate the elements of an object, its various features or to combine elements into a single whole, but also in the ability to include them in new connections, to see their new functions.

Moreover, the mental operation “synthesis” in preschoolers develops earlier than the mental operation analysis. At the same time, the mental operations under consideration in children develop following the mechanism of internalization. Consequently, at first preschoolers develop practical analysis and synthesis, and by older preschool age they move to the internal plane of mental action.

The development of analysis and synthesis is facilitated by tasks to select an object from a group according to any criterion, tasks to select several objects according to a specified characteristic, and to select one or more objects according to several specified characteristics.

A child of primary preschool age is characterized by inconsistent use of comparison. Children can correctly identify identifying, distinctive features in each object, but they do not yet know that it is necessary to identify homogeneous features in each compared object and compare them in pairs: color with color, size with size. Therefore, comparison operations must be taught in the classroom, during didactic games, and in everyday life.

During preschool age, generalization goes through a significantly long developmental path. The child’s level of generalization is directly dependent on the degree of familiarity with the objects included in a given group; from knowledge of a word that generalizes all objects included in a given group; on the form of requirements placed on the child. Among them, the requirement to define a concept, i.e., is especially difficult. answer the question “what is it?” The easiest thing for children is to group homogeneous objects.

As the child grows up, the nature of generalizations changes. Children gradually move from operating with external signs to revealing signs that are objectively more significant for the subject. A higher level of generalization allows the child to master the classification operation, which allows objects to be assigned to a group based on species-generic characteristics.

The nature of the material affects the level of classification of preschoolers. Children classify real objects, their images and names differently. Children of four years old are characterized mainly by object classification, children of five years old - visual-figurative, and children of six years old - verbal-figurative. Based on this, when teaching preschoolers to carry out classification, it is necessary to gradually make the transition from sensory material to verbal.

When abstracting, preschoolers find it difficult to highlight the main thing, which is especially clearly manifested in the retelling of the text by A.I. Linkina noted that short retellings are much more difficult for children than detailed ones. This is explained by the fact that a brief retelling requires highlighting the main thing that children do not know how to do. The inability to distinguish between the general and the particular, the main and the secondary, often leads to erroneous conclusions, which is due to the fact that children think about objects on the basis of secondary, unimportant features.

Numerous studies and our observations show that in children and adults, such an aspect of the abstraction process as abstraction from the unimportant is more difficult than the isolation of the essential. The ability to be distracted from the unimportant is a very subtle indicator of the formed ability to hold a task and subordinate one’s mental activity to a given task. Therefore, a preschool teacher needs to persistently teach children not only to highlight the main thing, but also to be distracted from the unnecessary or unimportant. In addition, special training is needed, aimed at consciously highlighting the main thing and discarding the secondary.

Thus, the formation of a qualitatively new way of thinking in a preschool child is associated with the development of mental operations. In preschool age, they develop intensively and begin to act as methods of mental activity.

How parents' behavior causes children's disobedience

An obedient child is the dream of any parent. However, such children do not exist: even the most humble ones at least sometimes disturb parental peace. What is the reason? As they say, no matter how much you raise a child, he will be like his parents - many reasons for disobedience are that sons and daughters adopt the behavior patterns of their parents.

Few fathers and mothers are ready to admit that they make mistakes. Most often, at an appointment with a psychologist, upset parents, having brought their disobedient child with the words “do something with him!”, sincerely do not understand why the specialist offers to work with them and not with the child. There is nothing to be surprised: a child is a mirror of his parents and their behavior, he reflects everything that adults do not want to see in themselves.

Reasons for disobedience

The most common reason for children's disobedience is lack of parental attention.

Adults believe that they pay enough attention to their child: they buy beautiful and expensive things, give interesting gifts, select clubs and sections, take them to play in shopping centers - and generally do everything for his happiness. Modern parents love to “buy off” their child, believing that, first of all, it is necessary to conscientiously fulfill his basic needs. But the latest model iPhone will not replace parental affection and love.

This situation also happens. Parents spend a lot of time with their child: they do homework with him, take him to school, and believe that they pay enough attention. But this is not what the child needs at all: he wants to play together, wants to share important and intimate things with his parents, wants to have dinner together, discussing the past day, and not at all do homework together. The result is that he stops obeying his parents in order to attract attention to himself. Every parent needs to understand that attention can be qualitatively different, and you do not always give your child the one that satisfies his need.

Another common reason for children's disobedience is the lack of clearly established boundaries. A child is born without an understanding of what is possible and what is not - he receives these rules from the outside, most often from his parents. If adults often change their minds and cannot set clear requirements, then the child will not obey, because he simply does not understand why yesterday it was possible to walk until late in the evening (a friend was visiting his mother), but today it is not possible, and the day after tomorrow it is possible again. If you have set a rule, follow it, breaking it only in exceptional cases, for example, when a child is ill.

This also includes a situation where mom and dad have different lines of upbringing and different rules. In this case, the child gets confused and does not understand why parents should behave differently in the same situations. Always discuss your guidelines in advance with all family members and convey them to your child together.

Unfortunately, a negative example of parental behavior is also the cause of children's disobedience. If parents can afford to be rude in their speech, then it is logical to expect the same from the child. If dad often doesn't keep his promises, naturally the child will behave the same way. If the mother is constantly late, the child will adopt this behavior. Before demanding obedience from a child, think about whether you are doing what you forbid? “I’m an adult, I can do it” doesn’t work in the educational process. By correcting your behavior, you will see that your child will begin to behave differently.

Sometimes parents do not pay attention to the child’s condition and his/her employment when asking for something. If the baby is too interested in a new game or book, he often does not hear their request. In addition, the perceptions of an adult and a child do not always coincide. Parents rarely check with their children whether they understood each other correctly, but such dialogue is a direct path to success and mutual understanding. Instead of repeating “your room is dirty” 50 times, check with your child whether he understands that he needs to clean, and if so, agree on a time when he will do it. If parents do not respect the child’s personal time and space, then obedience should not be expected.

With his disobedience, a child most often shouts “SOS!”, and if the parent does not take this signal seriously, then subsequently his self-will will only grow.

What to do if your child doesn't listen

An obedient child with exemplary behavior is the dream of all parents, but there are practically no children who always unquestioningly obey adults.

It’s one thing when a child plays or runs too noisily, not realizing that he is disturbing others. It’s quite another thing when, going beyond what is permitted, a naughty person ignores the comments of adults.

We will not dwell on the reasons why a child does not obey - there can be many of them. We will look at typical examples of children's disobedience and find out what parents should do in each situation.

Five typical examples of disobedience

Exhibiting dangerous behavior. Every parent is faced with the fact that a child, despite warnings, tries to cross the road, picks up sharp objects or commits other actions that threaten his health, and sometimes life. Of course, such behavior causes negative emotions in parents.

The child does this not out of a desire to annoy adults. The fact is that 3-4 year old children, along with high activity and a thirst for understanding the world, do not have enough life experience to realize the full danger of such actions. This means that it is useless to scold them: the kids simply will not understand what exactly they did wrong and why, for example, they should not touch hot or sharp objects. But due to his age, the child does not yet understand detailed explanations. What to do?

Psychologists advise using some kind of prohibiting word, to which the child should react reflexively, instantly stopping unwanted actions. Don't be put off by the thought that in dangerous situations you will have to influence your child using reflexes. When a child is in danger, there is no time for explanations: first of all, it is necessary to stop the dangerous behavior and prevent its possible consequences.

Such a verbal “brake” can be, for example, the word “dangerous” or “stop”. A small child should react to it automatically, and why this or that action is dangerous for him, parents can explain to him in detail in a calm environment. Then the baby will not only react correctly to the prohibiting word, but will also gradually learn to understand what the specific danger is.

At the same time, it is important for adults to control their emotions and not show their fear, fear or worries. It happens that a child deliberately provokes adults into an emotional outburst, so you should not follow his lead. It’s enough to calmly but firmly say: “Stop it, it’s dangerous.”

Protest. As a rule, it appears in children at 3-4 years of age. No matter what adults tell the child, no matter what they ask, he reacts to all demands and requests exactly the opposite: he refuses to get dressed, wash his hands, eat, and go to bed.

Children's protests are often accompanied by screaming, tears, and hysterics. This behavior irritates parents, and they also start screaming. As a result, the situation in the family becomes nervous and tense.

If a child protests against parental demands, analyze them. Requirement and requirement are different. If, for example, a child wants to wear a red shirt to kindergarten instead of a blue one, this is not a fundamental question: let him decide for himself what to wear. For you this is a small thing, but for him it is an opportunity to show independence and feel like an adult. But even if your request is logical, and the child does the opposite, allow him to make a deliberately wrong decision (of course, if it does not harm him). Let him personally see that he has chosen the wrong path, because a negative experience is also an experience.

If the protest is accompanied by screaming and hysterics, parents need to behave as calmly as possible in order to extinguish the child’s negative emotions. Hug him, calm him down with gentle words, switch his attention to another object. Typically, preschool children switch quite quickly.

But sometimes children, as they say, work for the public: they throw hysterics demonstratively in the hope that someone present will feel sorry for them and make concessions. In this case, it is better to leave the child alone, looking after him from a distance. Realizing that there are no “spectators”, he will quickly calm down.

Bad behavior in public places. Often on the street, in a store, entertainment complex or public transport you can observe the following picture: a preschooler runs, screams, pushes, disturbing others. They, in turn, express dissatisfaction, and parents have to blush for their restless child.

In this case, all complaints are against the parents who did not teach the child the rules of behavior. But at the moment when he is running, screaming, pushing, it’s too late to talk about it. You can stop unwanted actions as follows. Stop him and calmly say: “You are so big, but you act like little.” Children, regardless of age, really want to become adults as soon as possible, so this is a compelling argument for them. And then, when the child calms down, explain to him why his actions are disturbing the people nearby.

For example, a loud conversation in a cinema interferes with the rest of the audience watching the film, and running around with ice cream in your hands can stain the clothes of those around you.

Such explanations, even if repeated several times, will gradually teach the child proper behavior in public places.

But bad behavior is easier to prevent. Therefore, before traveling on public transport, going to the theater (cinema), museum, or exhibition, talk to your child about how to behave. Take his word of honor that he will comply with generally accepted rules of behavior in public places.

Ignoring parents. The child ignores any request or remark from adults.

Ignoring parental demands can occur for two reasons: either the child is so busy with his own thoughts or playing that he simply does not hear what he is being told, or in this way he demonstrates protest.

In the first case, you just need to call the child by name to attract his attention, and repeat your request.

In the second case, psychologists advise turning to your son or daughter with a question to which they will definitely answer. By starting a dialogue, you can achieve temporary reconciliation.

In any case, it is worth asking your child about the reasons for his neglect. Conversations will help with this: talk about what interests the child, and find out what worries him, why he behaves this way with his closest people.

The requirement to immediately satisfy a request, accompanied by hysteria. Typically, this type of disobedience is typical for children who demand to buy their favorite toy or treat. This behavior goes away with age.

The whims and tantrums of a child demanding to immediately buy this or that thing can be easily stopped by being distracted by another action. For example, leave the store and draw his attention to the surrounding objects: a bright poster, birds on a tree or an unusual car on the road. Let us remember that babies quickly switch their attention to other objects and forget about their recent categorical demand.

But with older children you need to negotiate. Ask your child why he needs this thing, and if his arguments are compelling, promise to buy it as a gift for a holiday or birthday. But in this case, be sure to keep your promise so as not to lose your children’s trust.

And of course, in all of the above cases, parents should set a personal example for their child. It is useless to explain to a child how to behave in a public place if the mother pushes passengers while making her way to the exit of the bus, causes a scandal in a store or talks on the phone in a movie theater.

In general, in order to minimize moments of disobedience, it is necessary to establish a warm relationship with the child, based on trust and mutual understanding.

Even if it seems to you that children’s problems are not problems at all, try to delve into what worries your child. What seems insignificant or funny to you is serious and important to him. Often the reasons for children's disobedience are not a momentary whim, but the result of insufficient attention from adults. This means that the more attention you pay to communicating with your child, the less reasons he will have for hysterics, protests and bad behavior.

Consultation for parents

"Play with children with passion"

Parents know that children love to play, encourage them to play independently, and buy toys. But not everyone thinks about the educational significance of children's games. They believe that the game is for fun, to entertain the child. Others see it as one of the means of distracting the child from pranks and whims, filling his free time so that he can be busy. Those same parents who constantly play with their children, watch the game, value it as one of the important means of education.

For a preschool child, play is the leading activity in which his mental development takes place and his personality as a whole is formed. Children imitate their parents: their manner of treating others, their actions, and work activities. And they transfer all this into their games, thus consolidating the accumulated experience of behavior and forms of attitude. With the accumulation of life experience, under the influence of training, upbringing, children’s games become more meaningful, varied in plots, themes, number of roles played, and participants in the game.

In games, the child begins to reflect not only the life of the family, the facts that are directly perceived by him. But also images of heroes from fairy tales read to him, stories that he needs to create based on his imagination. However, without guidance from adults, children, even of older preschool age, do not always know how to play. Some have little ability to apply existing knowledge, do not know how to fantasize, others, although able to play independently, do not have organizational skills. It is difficult for them to come to terms with partners and act together. One of the older family members, joining the game, can become a link between the children and teach them to play together. You can take turns playing the main role; an adult can take a secondary role. Joint games between parents and children enrich children spiritually and emotionally, satisfy the need to communicate with loved ones, and strengthen self-confidence.

Younger preschoolers aged 2-4 years not only do not know how to play together, they do not know how to play independently. The kid usually drives the car back and forth aimlessly, not finding any other use for it, he quickly throws it away and demands a new toy. Independence in play is formed gradually, in the process of playful communication with adults, older children, and peers. The development of independence largely depends on how the child’s life is organized in the game. Waiting until he starts playing on his own means deliberately hindering the development of a child’s personality.

One of the important pedagogical conditions that contribute to the development of the play of a small child is the selection of toys by age. For a child, a toy is the center of play, a material support. It prompts him to the theme of the game, gives birth to new connections, makes him want to act with it, and enriches his sensory experience. But toys that adults like do not always have educational value for children. Sometimes a simple shoebox is more valuable than any wind-up toy. The box can be a trailer for a car in which you can transport blocks, soldiers, bricks, or you can arrange a stroller for dolls in the box. Children always need to have pieces of fur, fabric, cardboard, wire, and wood on hand. A child’s play set should contain different toys: plot-shaped (depicting people, animals, objects of labor, everyday life, transport, etc.); motor (various gurneys, strollers, balls, jump ropes, sports toys); construction sets, didactic (various turrets, nesting dolls, board games). When purchasing a toy, it is important to pay attention not only to novelty, attractiveness, cost, but also to pedagogical expediency.

Playing with building materials develops children's sense of shape, space, color, imagination, and constructive abilities. Sometimes adults need to help build this or that building, think together about what parts are needed, what color, how to fix it, how to supplement the missing structures, how to use the building in the game.

Games: lotto, dominoes, paired pictures, give children the opportunity to enjoy the game, develop memory, attention, observation, eye, small hand muscles, teach endurance and patience. Such games have an organizing effect because they require strict adherence to the rules. It is interesting to play such games with the whole family, so that all partners are equal in the rules of the game. The little one also gets used to the fact that he has to play, following the rules and comprehending their meaning. Children's games with theatrical toys are very valuable. They are attractive for their bright appearance and ability to “talk.” Making flat figures from cardboard and other materials by the whole family gives children the opportunity to independently act out familiar works of fiction and invent fairy tales. The participation of adults in children's games can vary. If a child has just been bought a toy and he knows how to play with it, it is better to give him the opportunity to act independently. But soon the child’s experience is exhausted. The toy becomes uninteresting. Here we need the help of elders, to suggest a new game action, to show them, to offer additional game material to the existing game. When playing with their child, it is important for parents to monitor their plan. The even, calm, friendly tone of an equal playing partner gives the child confidence that they understand him and want to play with him. The child is very happy about the minutes given to him by his parents in the game. Communication in play is never fruitless for a child. The more precious moments he has in the company of people close to him, the greater the relationship, common interests, and love between them in the future.

Dear Parents! The games we want to offer you are designed to develop creative abilities in young children. But you need to remember that all children have different levels of development and learning. Therefore, when playing with a child, you need to listen carefully to him and evaluate his qualities that have already developed. If he quickly and easily copes with tasks aimed at his age, you can offer him more complex ones. But under no circumstances should you force the completion of creative tasks or reproach a child for not being able to do something, even something that his peers already know how to do. Creative tasks usually have several solutions, and any solution that is subordinate to the task can be correct. It is important to teach your child to come up with multiple solutions and defend his opinion, accepting criticism without offense.

The game “What toy?” is one of the simplest for kids. You need to prepare several pieces of paper with figures drawn on them. On each piece of paper there is one figurine, similar to several toys at once. In this game, it is important that the child fantasizes and is able to find as many solutions as possible without getting stuck on one. Usually emotional children actually evade the rules of the game, saying for example: “It’s like a nesting doll, I have one too, I love it. Let's look at another picture." Of course, we need to listen to their stories about their favorite nesting doll, and about the dog, and about the astronaut. But you need to tactfully return to looking at the drawing until the largest number of different portraits is found (this depends on your imagination). This is where stability and focus emerge, which emotional children so lack. More balanced children often give monosyllabic answers and also do not always vary them. They need to be helped to find different answers, and asked to describe the toy they saw in more detail: “Which bucket did you come up with: big or small? What color is it? What is written on it?

Game "Children on a walk." For this game you will need several pictures of children. Draw a line of an indefinite shape for the hand of each child depicted. You tell the child that the artist drew a girl (boy), but what she (he) took with her for a walk - he did not have time to draw. We need to figure out what it could be. After answering, ask: what will the girl (boy) do on a walk with this item? What is her (his) name? Who (what) will she (he) play with? Etc. It is very important that the child, based on his ideas, come up with more different answers. The most difficult game for kids is “Pebbles on the Shore”. You need to draw a seashore (your artistic abilities do not matter: it could be a blue stripe - the sea). On the shore, draw several pebbles (5-6) of different shapes, each of which should look like several different objects, animals, people. There may be several pebbles of the same shape. You tell the child that a wizard just came to the seashore and enchanted everything into pebbles. To break the spell, you need to guess what or who the pebbles used to be. Help your child come up with several possible answers for each pebble. Then, having chosen one of them, together with your child, draw a pebble so that you get an image of the invented object.

Game "Change". You invite your child to show how you can go through a high gate or a low one (you can go straight through a high gate, but you need to bend down through a low gate). Another option is “Heavy-light”. Each child is given an empty bag or package. Explain: “You are carrying a bag, it can be heavy or light. Show me how to carry bags of different weights.” The child depicts: a very heavy one “puts it on the floor”, a very light one “folds”. Similarly, you can build a large number of games: “Fast-slow”, “Sad-fun”, “Hot-cold”, “Light-dark”, etc. The game “Fix the Toy” develops a child’s flexible vision of an object. Here the child’s ideas about what an object usually is and how the child sees it collide. At the moment, for such a situation to arise, it is enough to take a familiar toy (preferably a car) and put a rubber band on the wheel so that it does not spin. Then give this toy to the baby. It is important that the child himself is able to detect the malfunction. The number of faults in one toy can be increased, but only after the child finds the previous fault (no more than three).

Guessing game. Prepare a small wooden box (or box) and a set of geometric bodies: sphere, cube, cylinder, cone. Show your child the cube and the ball, then put the ball in the box out of sight and cover it with a lid. The child must guess what is inside without opening the box. The box is allowed to be tilted and shaken. In addition to games, you can use situations to develop imagination and fantasy. For example: when going home with a child, invite him to watch the evening sky, ask what the clouds look like, why he thinks so. Listen to the child's answer. All of the above games can be made at home, with your own hands, and used to develop the child’s creative abilities and imagination.

Mirror and me.

As practice shows, children react to the mirror and their reflection in it in different ways. Someone notices themselves immediately and begins to examine them with interest. Some people don’t even look at the reflection and strive to do something else. However, sooner or later the baby begins to show interest in his reflection: first he is surprised, then admired, and as he gets older, playing with the mirror gives him more and more pleasure.

Most psychologists attribute the period of active games with a mirror to the age of 7 months to 1.5 years. The child, by shouting and facial expressions, shows his interest in this particular object, and up to 1.10 months, for him, the reflection in the mirror becomes a cheerful friend with whom he sometimes talks, communicates through gestures and sounds. The child can play with the mirror, smear it with paints or lipstick, laugh and react to its behavior. Trying on new things turns into a fun game for the baby. He happily runs to the mirror, spins and turns in front of it, and can spend hours showing off, trying to try on a thing in a new way. The interaction between a child and a mirror at this age turns into an endless game, exciting and interesting for both him and his parents. At about 2 years old, the baby understands that this funny little man in the mirror is himself. These sensations are new and unusual for him, but they play a big role in the formation of future self-esteem. By the age of 3, the child is already quite developed and does many things independently. Hang a mirror in the bathroom and teach your child to wash himself and comb his hair. A mirror is a great way to teach him to be clean. A small mirror in a children's room would also look appropriate. Hang it low, and every time a child passes by, he will pay attention to his appearance. It will be very interesting for him to see himself happy or upset, with tears in his eyes or smeared with chocolate. At this age, the child observes the behavior of adults in the mirror. Comparing his appearance, gait, and movements with his parents, he finds many similarities and differences, studying them in detail and being interested in them. You can often watch your baby copy your movements and gestures. And this is absolutely normal, because he strives to move and look like an adult.

conclusions

Preschool childhood is a period in a person’s life during which he acquires basic knowledge, skills and abilities, and his personality and intellect are formed. Among the most important mental new formations is thinking. It is with its help that the child gets to know himself and the world around him. Children of early age are characterized by a visual-effective type of thinking; in early preschool age, a visual-figurative type is formed, and in older preschool age, a verbal-logical type of thinking is revealed to the child (although figurative thinking remains the leading one). The development of a child’s thinking depends on experience, so it is very important to provide the child with the opportunity to see the world as widely as possible, as well as to train his thinking abilities. Thinking development activities can be interesting and exciting if done in a playful way. Choose exercises that you also like, because when both an adult and a child enjoy the process, the result will be much better.

Creative thinking

Parents believe that the tasks of mental education of preschoolers are to teach the child to count and write in block letters. But this is not enough for successful schooling. The child must learn to think creatively. At school he will not only have to solve examples and write dictations. In both junior and senior grades, many assignments will be of a creative nature. Diagnostics of the mental development of preschoolers shows that children with a rich imagination cope well with both writing essays and solving algebra problems.

The development of creative thinking begins at 3-4 years. The exercises used by parents or educators should be in the form of a game. If activities for developing imagination take the form of a lesson at school, the result will not be achieved. Children quickly get tired of such exercises. In order for classes to be successful, it is necessary to take into account the thinking characteristics of preschool children.

The baby’s imagination needs to be constantly stimulated. Developing creative thinking is a good activity while walking through the autumn park. You can invite children to compose a fairy tale about fallen leaves. At home, you need to stage a play created by a children's writer or by the child himself. You should involve your son or daughter’s friends and their parents in the game. Such methods of mental education will lead to quick results and will captivate the child.

At the age of 6-7 years the task should become more difficult. We need to prepare for school, learn to work with pencils and pens. It is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of the development of thinking in children at this age. The preschooler wants to express his thoughts graphically. The simplest task involves writing on a piece of paper several words that are not related in meaning, for example, tree, pen, cake, boots. The child should write a short essay containing all the words listed. You can draw lines, dots or any abstract shapes on a piece of paper and invite the preschooler to complete the drawing of the objects.