Construction and constructive games, educational and methodological material on construction, manual labor
- Characteristics of construction games.
In the history of pedagogy, games with building materials have been described for a long time and are represented in many systems of educating preschoolers. This type of game has been studied quite well in domestic preschool pedagogy (A.N. Davidchuk, L.A. Wenger, L.A. Paramonova, S.V. Petrushina, etc.).
The peculiarity of games with building materials is that they are based on building skills and abilities, as a result of which, to a greater extent than any other type of children's game, they are closer to the creative and productive activity of a person. Constructive construction games promote the development of thinking and spatial imagination, which are the basis of design activity, as convincingly demonstrated in the studies of N. N. Poddyakov, L. A. Paramonov and others.
In the process of constructive construction games, the teacher teaches children to observe, distinguish, compare, remember and reproduce construction techniques, and focus on the sequence of actions. Children study the construction diagram of a building, learn to plan the work, presenting it as a whole, analyze and synthesize the building, and show imagination.
The content of games with building materials is the creation and reproduction of the surrounding reality using various materials.
The following types of building materials are distinguished:
– specially created (floor, tabletop building material, “Old Castle” type set, “Young Architect” type set, construction set);
-natural (sand, snow, stones, clay);
– stand (cards, boxes, boxes, etc.).
Games with building materials are associated with other types of games (role-playing, theatrical, mobile, didactic).
The presence of the concept of the game, its free development, the variability of the solution - all this determines the creative nature of games with building materials.
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Construction.
Construction (from the Latin construo - to build, create) means construction as a whole, bringing various objects, parts, elements into a certain relative position and the process of creating a model, machine, structure, technology with drawings and calculations.
Children's design refers to the process of constructing buildings, such structures that provide for the relative arrangement of parts and elements, and methods for connecting them. As a rule, the design process takes place in a playful way to interest the preschooler.
In theory and practice, there are several types of structures:
- Pattern design is the most common type of design. It has many positive aspects: children develop various skills, master general techniques, and learn sequences of actions.
- Designing on a specific topic brings the child closer to the creative implementation of a task, but on a limited topic.
- Designing according to your own project is a complex type of design in which the child independently solves all problems, sets the goal of the activity, plans it, collects material and implements the concept.
- Conditional design: contains great opportunities for development. The child independently determines the length and height of the building.
- A model building is a type of construction developed by A. R. Luria. The child is offered a model of the building (a drawing made by the building teacher, pasted over with paper), on which the outlines of the constituent elements of the structure are hidden (model of a sofa, gate, car).
Each of the considered types of construction has its own advantages, because it is necessary to combine them in educational work, in childhood in a preschool institution.
Of all the variety of construction sets that are used in preschool institutions, I would like to focus on LEGO
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construction set, which is “a bright, colorful and multifunctional material that opens up enormous opportunities for a child’s research and experimental activities.” With its help, you can solve complex problems through an exciting, creative game in which there will be no losers, because any child can handle it. The elements of the LEGO set have different sizes, different shapes, and simple options for attaching to other elements.
LEGO - the designer is widely used in design classes and solves the following problems: develops mental processes (analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, etc.). A fairly effective means of improving thinking is to design using models, diagrams, drawings, plans, samples, and from memory.
LEGO - the constructor is also used in mathematics lessons to consolidate and develop the skills of forward and backward counting, comparing numbers, knowledge of the composition of numbers, geometric shapes; the ability to navigate an airplane, the ability to classify by characteristics.
In lessons on familiarization with the environment, LEGO is used in experimental activities as the material from which the construction set is made (“What is it made of?”, “Find the same thing,” “How are they similar and how are they different?”).
With the help of LEGO, children pass on their acquired knowledge and impressions from lessons, excursions, observations and walks through buildings.
LEGO is a powerful source of developing children's interest in construction.
- Conditions for the development of games with building and natural materials.
To develop children’s play activity, it is necessary to create the following conditions:
- Organize the play environment: select the necessary building material in accordance with the objectives of developmental construction activities in the preschool institution. The material should be varied (floor, tabletop, different types of builders,
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set and so on), beautifully designed, stable enough to suit children's abilities.
- Find time and space to play with building materials. Games require concentration of thought and attention. Therefore, play stands with tabletop building materials and construction materials must be placed so that they do not interfere with children or distract them.
- Respect for buildings and structures made by children. Usually the child likes to “return” to his buildings and make changes. Therefore, it is necessary to instill in all children a careful and attentive attitude towards their own buildings and the buildings of others.
- To create conditions for playing with buildings for this, you should choose small toys (cars, trains, figures of people and animals, etc.).
- Combine children for cooperative constructions from the builder. Create a situation in which a child who has acquired new construction skills will teach them to other children.
- Teach children to handle building materials carefully. Carefully disassemble the building, the craft from the designer, arrange the parts and shapes in the cells of the rack, drawers.
What else to read: Imitation games and exercises in the speech development of children: concept, functions
Games with natural materials.
These games enter a child's life early. Just having learned to walk, the child takes a shovel, a spade, tries to dig snow, sand, and loves to play with water. But without special training, children do not acquire the necessary skills, and games with natural materials are monotonous and lack content.
Meanwhile, they contain great opportunities for the development of children's thinking, will and perseverance.
These possibilities are largely determined by the nature of the natural material. It is very diverse and has different properties that dictate different ways of using it as a building material.
The child learns many properties of natural materials through the senses. Methods of sensory cognition, the ability to highlight certain properties and qualities of objects are developed in the process of meaning
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interesting activity, especially in the game.
Games with natural materials - snow, water, sand, clay, grass, sticks, shells, pine cones, chestnuts, acorns, rose hips, maple seeds, linden, thorns, leaves, roots, bark, moss, etc. – excellent raw materials for crafts and games with them.
Every year modern pedagogy masters an increasing number of different methods and directions.
The pedagogical sandbox is a good environment for individual and group work with children for the purpose of their spiritual and moral development, personal development and cultural growth.
Sandplay cannot be interpreted. The teacher must play the role of an attentive spectator. The position of the teacher is “active presence”; she does not lead the process. The release of stored energy leads to its transformation, which allows you to direct the converted energy to personal development and further learning.
The main tasks of the pedagogical sandbox:
– Child’s self-development through creative games in the sand.
– Development of tactile-kinesthetic sensitivity and fine motor skills of the hands.
– Strengthen the skills of phonetic and grammatical structure, sound pronunciation, teaching literacy and writing.
– Development of a creative personality.
- Guidance of building and construction games in different age groups.
The teacher performs the following tasks:
– expand children’s understanding and draw their attention to the work of builders and the equipment they use; – methods of teaching the construction, education and development of independence and mental activity, constructive and creative abilities; – formation of hard work, development of correct relationships between children, uniting them into a friendly team.
First junior group
The kindergarten program for younger groups includes construction games with toys, design lessons
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material on which the necessary actions are taught, the formation of simple, but understandable and lasting skills. Children are introduced to building materials, their shape, size, different locations on the table top (beds, supports); learn to lay one on top of the other, lay bricks horizontally (train, track); form the simplest ceiling (gate, house). The teacher finds similarities between familiar buildings and objects of surrounding life.
Second junior group
They are taught not only to distinguish the main parts of the building (cube, brick, slab), but also to give them names, and also to place bricks at equal distances from each other in a circle, in a quadrangle (fence, fence), placing them on a smaller plane . Already at this age, children are taught to purposefully inspect objects and buildings.
Teacher's manual - creating a play environment: selection of building materials.
Central group
The educational program of the kindergarten provides for the further development of children's interest in construction games, the use of created buildings in role-playing games, teaching the ability to build not only according to the proposed model, but also the subject itself, and teaching more complex methods of work. Under the guidance of a teacher, children 4-5 years old can reflect impressions of the environment in a building game. They are provided with a variety of materials (building material; builder; pieces of plywood, cardboard, materials for finishing buildings). During hikes and targeted walks, the teacher draws children’s attention to buildings, bridges, transport, roads, fences, and so on, teaches them to see the beauty of buildings, to notice not only what is common, but also what is different, and to highlight individual parts. Therefore, in the process of teaching children of this age building games, their understanding of the environment they use in the game expands.
Senior group
The educational program of the kindergarten involves teaching children the preliminary design of collective construction games, setting the goal of the game, identifying participants by prior agreement, using construction and construction skills not only for
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a clear example, as well as from drawings and photographs of various designs. Older children's games are more focused on a combination of intellectual and practical activities. The teacher teaches them to think about the next game actions, compare with each other, develops intelligence, encourages speculation, and encourages them to implement the solution. For older preschoolers, various
Construction Materials. You must show them how to use one or another of them, how to connect its individual parts, blocks, how to make buildings mobile, durable, and beautiful. The correct conduct of the game and the active participation of all children in it determine their satisfaction with the game, their interest in it and, consequently, its duration.
What else to read: Games in early and early preschool age
Preparatory group
Construction games in the preparatory group are distinguished by a very diverse idea, as children become familiar with the phenomena of life around them, with construction techniques on special excursions, while watching films, through books. In play, they often imitate the construction activities of adults. The interests of children in the preparatory group and their skills place high demands on the conduct of construction games. The teacher must have the necessary knowledge and show interest in technology and invention. From a wide variety of buildings, structures, design types, select those that are accessible to children and have educational and educational value.
In teaching design, the translation of a flat image (photograph, drawing) into a three-dimensional design is of great importance, which places significant demands on the child and contributes to the development of analytical activity. The teacher teaches how to analyze the results of the game. This disciplines the mind, teaches children to connect the goal and the construction process with the result.
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Bibliography:
- Davidchuk A. N. Development of constructive creativity in preschool children. M., 1976.
- Kozlova S.A., Kulikova T.A. Preschool pedagogy: a textbook for students of secondary schools. – M.: Publishing house, 2009
- Kutsakova L.V. Design and handicraft in kindergarten. – M.: Education, 1990.
- Lishtvan Z.V. Design / Ed. THERE. Paramonova. – M.: Education, 1981.
- Paramonova T.E. Theory and methodology of creative design in kindergarten. – M., 2002.
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The importance of games and activities with building materials
THE IMPORTANCE OF GAMES AND ACTIVITIES WITH CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL
In the “Kindergarten Education Program,” construction with building materials and construction games occupy a prominent place in educational work with children of all age groups.
Children's construction is an organic part of role-playing games. It, like games, reflects the activities of surrounding adults.
In children's games, the means of depicting objects are varied: in some, children simply imitate the sounds and movements of objects associated with the activities of adults, in others they act with objects, conveying the relationships of adults in the process of work. At the same time, children imitate the process of creating the objects themselves. Therefore, a significant place in games is occupied by the construction of buildings as one of the ways to implement the game plan.
Sometimes construction precedes the game: children build a ship, a station, a bridge, and then develop the plot; and sometimes the construction process is actually a game: children build, for example, a kindergarten and take on the role of construction workers. The need for construction may arise during the game. In this case, the children switch to the construction site, and after it is finished they continue to develop the plot. Construction can only be a reason for developing the plot of the game. So, having built a fairy-tale house from building material, the children begin the game of “fairy tale”.
Children are not always equally demanding when it comes to the design of their buildings in the game. Sometimes, starting a game with a building, children try to make it as similar in appearance as possible to the real object and at the same time so that they can play with it. A steamship, for example, must accommodate the players; it must have a bridge for the captain, a gangway for passengers, etc.
In other cases, children are limited to very conventional structures, even if they have good construction skills. They are satisfied with the image of what is necessary for the corresponding actions. For example, during the game you need to fly a plane as quickly as possible, so a steering wheel, wings and a seat for the pilot are enough. It doesn’t matter that the constructed plane looks primitive: it satisfies children completely. In this case, such a construction is advisable.
Construction itself can captivate children. Such games are most typical for older preschoolers. In this case, all the attention of the players is focused on the constructive process, and the plot side sometimes appears in the form of a kind of testing of finished buildings: the child immediately populates the new house with residents, puts the driver in the car, blows the whistle of the locomotive, etc.
Sometimes construction continues for several days, but there is no plot. When the children were building the Bolshoi Theater building, all attention, mental effort and imagination were directed to a truthful depiction of the theater with the features of its architecture. Construction continued for several days. The children changed the design of the theater, trying to give it a more believable look, but did not develop the plot.
For construction games, children use a variety of materials: sand, clay, stones, tree branches, logs; they turn chairs, benches into airplanes, trains, trams.
With the development of constructive abilities, a primitive image does not always satisfy children, and they want the buildings they make to be as similar as possible to the real thing. To develop children's constructive abilities, special building materials are needed. Construction sets give children the opportunity to embody more and more playful construction ideas into real images. “...Children,” he wrote, “do not like toys that are immobile, finished, well-finished, which they cannot change according to their imagination... the best toy for a child is one that he can make change in the most varied ways...”
Construction sets are a combination of various geometric bodies (cube, cylinder, prism, etc.). To successfully implement play building plans, it is important to know the properties and design capabilities of building sets, since children often reproduce quite complex structures in their buildings. In those kindergartens where children are systematically taught construction creativity and guided through construction games, the nature of children’s constructive activities changes significantly: interest in the constructive side of construction games deepens, and construction early becomes purposeful.
Construction from building materials becomes most fruitful if, when getting to know the surrounding buildings and structures, the teacher not only helps children understand their meaning and identify external signs, but also teaches them to look closely at their constructive qualities and introduces them to these qualities. So, when examining a bridge over a river, you need to pay attention to the fact that it has a roadway and vaults (arches), which are beautiful with their symmetrical structure.
For a more complete understanding of the design features of the bridge, you need to tell the children that an essential part of it is the supporting parts (abutments, bulls), since the driving surface rests on them. It is important to pay attention to the massiveness of the supporting parts, to the features of their fastening to the bridge deck. After such preliminary work, children will understand why, when building a play bridge, the most stable parts are needed for the supporting part.
During classes with building materials, children's sensory abilities are developed. With proper organization of construction activities, children acquire not only the ability to design individual objects (buildings, types of transport, etc.), but also such personality qualities as the ability to purposefully examine objects and structures, dismember them into parts, compare objects and structures, see they have common and different features, make conclusions and generalizations, understand the design, find the main structural parts on which the arrangement of other parts depends, i.e. the child performs a series of mental operations, as a result of which he forms clear ideas about the subject and the mental processes are being improved.
In the process of developing sensory abilities, the ability to use socially developed sensory standards (systems of geometric shapes and bodies, spatial relationships, spectral colors, etc.) is formed. Children's actions become conscious. In this regard, the ability to independently master generalized methods of performing a number of homogeneous buildings, and not just individual, specific ones, is developed. This makes it easy to navigate in changed conditions and build familiar buildings in new versions. These conditions are determined either by the teacher in the classroom (for example, to build a railway bridge under which boats and ships could sail), or are dictated by the game. For example, children never built factory buildings in class, but in the game the need arose for this. Having mastered a generalized method of constructing buildings, children can easily independently cope with a new task that has arisen in front of them, completing a new building in a sequence familiar to them and in a learned way, and not by trial and error.
In the process of learning, children learn that before building, they need to have a good idea of the object, examine it carefully and in a certain way, and only then, having mastered the generalized method of action when constructing such buildings, build a new version of it in a certain sequence.
Therefore, when planning classes, attention is paid not only to teaching children how to build specific buildings, but especially to ensuring that these classes contribute to the development of personality traits, the development of mental abilities, and the arbitrariness of mental processes (perception, memory, thinking, imagination). At the same time, mastering skills no longer becomes an end in itself. The child acquires them consciously as a means to solve more complex mental problems. When planning lessons, each time the teacher needs to think about what techniques can most expediently solve certain problems related to the development of the child’s personality, his mental activity, and what technical skills he must master.
With a certain organization of training in targeted viewing, children develop the ability to carry it out independently when the desire arises to reproduce some new structure. In playing with building materials, children develop an interest in technology, develop observation skills, children acquire some technical information, and become familiar with the simplest properties of geometric bodies (the parts of building sets represent various geometric bodies).
Playing with building materials is especially close to work activity. They cultivate in children such qualities that directly prepare them for work: the ability to set a goal, plan work, select the necessary material, critically evaluate the results of their own work and the work of their comrades, take a creative approach to achieving the goal, etc.
The ability to think and plan work is an important aspect of the development of mental abilities, which are formed in all types of activities. Constructive activity provides rich opportunities for this. Planning consists of, before building, thoroughly studying and examining an object or sample, taking into account the capabilities of the existing building material, then determining the shape of the base of the future building, its dimensions, and taking into account the conditions with which the practical purpose of the building is associated.
The child intends his buildings for practical use in the game: a garage for cars, a house for dolls, while cars, dolls, and animals must be placed in the building. The practical purpose of a building teaches children to solve design problems taking into account the purpose of the building, the amount of available material, and its properties. All this can only be done if you have certain knowledge, which will help you pre-calculate the size of the building, the required number of toys, and help make the building durable. The child acquires this knowledge in classes during the learning process, in which the leading role belongs to the teacher.
Construction materials can be classified as toys-materials (according to classification). Anton Semenovich wrote that one of the types of toys is various materials. They “represent the cheapest and most rewarding gaming element. These toys are closest to normal human activity: from materials a person creates values and culture.”
Properly organized games with materials contribute to the development of a high culture of activity: they widely develop the child’s imagination, and “creative working fantasy.” When children are given the task not of reproducing a building according to a model, but a more complex one - creating it independently on the basis of ideas that were formed earlier in the process of observation, or according to given conditions - the child is faced with constructive tasks that require independent solutions and the appropriate use of previously acquired skills . Such activities lead to the development of not only children’s constructive abilities, but also thinking in general, and the development of basic mental operations.
Constructive activities, promoting practical knowledge of the properties of geometric bodies and spatial relationships, develop stereometric concepts in children. Teachers constantly note that when studying geometry and stereometry at school, many difficulties arise precisely because these ideas in children are very poor.
When constructing a play structure, the child must take into account its location in space. To determine the direction in space, children often use demonstrative adverbs (there, here, here, there), instead of indicating the exact direction (up, down, further, closer, etc.). Sometimes such concepts as tall - low, large - small, long - short, etc. are incorrectly used, they are confused, for example, short or low objects are called small. This happens because in everyday life children’s attention is rarely focused on such concepts, and in addition, children do not practice using them correctly. Constructive activity allows the teacher to train children in the correct use of these concepts. Assimilation occurs in the direct activities of children and is consolidated in communication with peers.
By constructing, children learn such words, geometric names (for example: block, plate, cube, pyramid, etc.), which are almost not used in other types of activities, but they will really need them at school.
Considering the issue of preparing children of primary school age for polytechnic education, she indicated that this preparation should consist of cultivating an interest in technology and work based on direct observations of children, as well as their independent activities. Preparing children for polytechnic education, she said, should also consist of developing certain skills in the field of drawing, modeling and working with various materials, and developing the ability to observe and test their observations in practical activities. I also considered it necessary to teach the children to comprehend their work. All these tasks can be set and, to some extent, resolved in kindergarten. To do this, use forms accessible to preschool children. The main forms are activities with building materials and children's games. Details of building materials are regular geometric bodies with mathematically precise side dimensions. This gives the child the opportunity to obtain the design of an object with the least amount of energy, without much difficulty conveying the proportionality of its parts and their symmetrical arrangement.
Not a single type of children's visual activity provides such clarity of image as construction. In modeling, for example, the child receives an amorphous mass of clay, from which he himself creates parts of the object. This requires a rather subtle development of the finger muscles, complex skills. In drawing, obtaining an image is initially difficult because it is difficult for the child to control his hand and coordinate its movements with the eye enough to get the line needed at the moment: circle, oval, straight, etc. Depicting the shape of objects in drawing and modeling is not easy for a child . In construction, his thought is directed to the process of constructing an object from ready-made and correct-shaped parts that are in a certain relationship with each other. Creating a structure here is achieved with less difficulty.
In games with building materials, a large role belongs to the activity of the hand, associated with the active work of consciousness. Materialistic physiology attaches great importance to the hand as a subtle organ of touch, which complements the complex of sensations and makes ideas about objects more complete and deeper. Thanks to the joint activity of the hand, brain and speech apparatus, a person has the opportunity to influence the outside world, learning the laws of its development.
In a kindergarten setting, construction games help improve children’s speech: they share their ideas, explain their actions, discuss ideas, motivate, defend their proposals, and agree on joint construction. Children's speech is enriched with new concepts and terms, the use of which makes it more accurate and, to some extent, technically competent.
Construction games and activities, provided that children’s experience is systematically enriched, are not only a means of getting to know the environment, but also a means of developing moral qualities. Constantly observing how new residential buildings, schools, nurseries, shops are being built around, children, under the guidance of a teacher, become acquainted with the real embodiment of the care of our party and government for the people.
Specific examples of construction that children directly observe will help them understand that Soviet people love their work. This will have an impact on instilling hard work in children. Training in construction activities for children, organized in accordance with the specified requirements, contributes to the formation of such valuable personality qualities as the ability to show independence, initiative, be organized and responsible in activities. In addition, in the direct activities of children in the construction of play buildings, strong-willed qualities are cultivated, the ability to complete the work, overcome the difficulties encountered, listen to the teacher’s explanations and work in accordance with his instructions. Games and activities with building materials are of great importance for organizing a children's team. In kindergarten, children often play with building materials in groups. In this case, their activities are aimed at achieving a common goal. With a certain focus on construction games and teaching children in classes of joint constructive activities, there are great opportunities for developing the initial skills of friendly work in a team.
she said that the earlier a child begins to live a collective life, the greater the chances that he will grow up to be a real communist, who knows how to devote himself wholeheartedly to a common cause. taught that the mental education of children should be carried out in close cooperation with ethical education. A socialist school, she said, at all its levels should have one common goal - the education of comprehensively developed people, with conscious and organized social instincts, who clearly understand everything that happens around them in nature and social life.
She especially emphasized that children need to be raised as collectivists who know how to live and work together. And in this regard, she highly valued the children’s joint work and their common games with their peers. All this, she said, “provides rich material for developing social ethics in a child.” It is necessary to systematically guide children's relationships. Otherwise, they may develop on the wrong basis. If the relationship between the builders is established spontaneously, the more active and independent children take the initiative into their own hands: they dictate the theme of construction, carry out creative, constructive work, while the rest help to implement the plans of the more active children. As a result, some fall into the category of good builders, others into the category of “low-capacity”.
“Capable” builders often turn out to be bad comrades. They suppress the initiative of inactive children and do not gain the experience of paying attention to a friend’s work or thinking through a plan together. And such positive traits as the ability to take initiative and creatively implement one’s ideas easily coexist with the negative personality traits of a child, which place him outside the team.
“Low-capable” builders develop a lack of self-confidence, since they are unable to practically implement their plans and gain experience. They are forced to subordinate their actions to the will and initiative of more active children and gradually get used to the idea that they do not know how to build or build poorly. To raise a friendly team, the teacher must constantly monitor the relationships between the children. The experience of advanced educators and our experimental work convinces that every child can develop an interest in playful construction activities; every child, under certain conditions, is capable of creative participation in a construction game, where respect for comrades and their work is fostered.
Construction games are also valuable because they bring great emotional pleasure to children, as they are accompanied by a feeling of joy when solving various constructive problems. The embodiment of one’s own creative thought into a living, concrete work causes special satisfaction, as it strengthens faith in one’s strengths and affirms self-esteem. Moreover, all this happens during the game, where children simultaneously transform into their favorite characters: either this is a pilot building an airplane; or a captain, heatedly discussing with his sailors the details of a steamship under construction, on which a long voyage is planned; or the builders of a new canal, overcome by a common desire to complete their construction as quickly as possible.
Constant exercise in a wide variety of movements, accompanied by an emotional uplift, helps these movements become fast, dexterous, and easily subject to the control of the eye. The coordinated work of individual muscles, especially flexors and extensors, improves.
By introducing children to some of the structures and buildings of our era (canals, residential buildings, buildings of kindergartens, schools, theaters), as well as architectural monuments that are understandable to them (the Moscow Kremlin, the Bolshoi Theater, etc.), the teacher has the opportunity to develop artistic taste children, causing them aesthetic pleasure when looking at beautiful buildings, to develop the ability to appreciate what has been created by the creative work of people, to love the architectural riches of their city and country. In addition, children develop an understanding of the appropriateness of the constructive design of a building: the purpose of shop windows, clocks at a train station, etc.
First of all, the teacher introduces the children to interesting buildings and structures of their city. The teacher teaches children to build their own buildings as best as possible, to see the beauty of their forms. It is important to bring to the child’s consciousness that the beauty of a building lies, on the one hand, in the maximum satisfaction of practical needs, and on the other, in thoughtful decoration, literacy and clarity of forms.
For the education of aesthetic feelings, not only the result of construction is important, but also the organization of the children’s work itself. The teacher teaches them the ability to create and maintain a certain order in the process of work, so that actions are economical; teaches the appropriate selection of parts, a certain sequence and coordination of actions, if the construction is carried out by a group of children, teaches children to see the beauty of the construction process itself.
Playing with building materials corresponds to the characteristics of children's consciousness, which were very subtly noted: “The child likes precisely the living movement of ideas in his head, and he wants his toys to at least somewhat correspond to the associations of his imagination.”
Activities and games with building materials help prepare children for school. These games develop such personality qualities as focus, perseverance in achieving a goal, the ability to show creative initiative based on acquired knowledge and skills, the ability to analyze, and the ability to correctly navigate in space.
The role of constructive activity in preparing children for school is great: it contributes to the development of children’s ability to learn. The main feature of educational activities, as noted, is that in the process, children begin to see the main meaning of learning not in obtaining a practical result, but in acquiring knowledge and skills. Such a cognitive motive for educational activity, he says, causes significant changes in mental processes. These changes consist mainly in the ability to voluntarily control one’s cognitive processes, directing them to solve educational problems, in achieving a certain level of development of mental operations, in the ability to perform mental actions, in the ability to systematically perform mental work necessary for the conscious assimilation of knowledge.
But construction activity has such a multifaceted significance only when the constructive possibilities of the material are revealed to children, when the program of constructive activity provides for the development of valuable qualities of the child’s personality, his mental activity, and in the pedagogical process during training the most effective methods are used to solve program problems.
Solving these problems is made easier by the fact that throughout preschool age, construction games attract the attention of children and give them great satisfaction, since building material is the most accessible for the implementation of their creative plans.
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The main ways to implement the management of construction games for preschoolers
Construction games and their optimal organization are necessary for the development of preschoolers. They are focused on the educational development of children, on developing their constructive skills. The effect of their educational influence is directly related to the rational organization of leadership, the use of optimal techniques and methods of educational influence.
Figure 1. Construction games. Author24 – online document exchange for students
In order to teach children specific construction skills and abilities, to develop in their minds a certain concept of design work, it is necessary to regularly familiarize children with the methods of construction of various buildings, the characteristics of materials and their functional purpose. This leads to a gradual expansion of the child’s knowledge, which, in turn, makes construction games more meaningful, develops the ability to build more complex structures and improves construction techniques.
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Figure 2. Characteristics of construction games. Author24 – online document exchange for students
Construction game management is focused on solving the following educational tasks:
- Formation and development in children of ideas about the importance of work, the need to develop labor skills, especially in the construction industry, focusing children’s attention on the organization of work of builders, instilling respect for this field of activity, the desire to preserve the original appearance of the building, the need to treat it with care and respect it ;
- Familiarization with various construction methods. This allows you to develop the child’s creative and constructive abilities, activates his intellectual activity, develops thought processes;
- Teaching hard work, respect for work, developing teamwork skills and methods of collective interaction.
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Observation 1
By supervising construction games, the teacher creates an optimal play space that allows organizing construction work, selecting the necessary material in sufficient quantity so that all children can participate in the game.
Providing the possibility of real observation of the construction of any object is important for the competent organization of management of the construction game process. To do this, the teacher can bring illustrations of the various stages of construction work, show films on construction topics, prepare a presentation, or organize an excursion to the construction site. This will enrich children's ideas of construction, which will have a beneficial effect on the development of the game plot.
In addition, familiarity with construction based on the use of special builders is of no small importance. Children know the design details of various shapes and modifications: cubes, bricks, plates, cylinders. The teacher, in turn, shows ways to connect them and design options. Having mastered the possibilities of working with the designer, the child begins to fantasize and develop new modifications.
Construction games are held in two main areas:
- Familiarization with constructive activities in specially organized classes.
- Demonstration of construction techniques and development of the basic skills necessary for successful construction are carried out in the independent play of children.
In special construction classes, children learn to build various structures and expand the construction theme. Construction begins with individual small parts and objects and gradually moves on to the construction of larger buildings and structures. In the process of learning to design, children develop the ability to plan their work, predicting the results, based on the materials used for design and methods for modifying them. This has a beneficial effect on the development of the child’s thought processes, the formation of his intellectual abilities, the development of creative abilities and creative talents.