Methods and means of guiding children's play activities
The process of leading a role-playing game should be structured so that the development of gaming skills is organically combined with training and education. Based on this principle, scientists distinguish 3 groups of methods (T.A. Markova, V.G. Nechaeva, S.L. Novoselova, etc.).
The first group of methods is associated with enriching children with knowledge, impressions, and ideas about the life around them. These include observations; excursions (initial, repeated, final); meetings with people of different professions; emotionally expressive reading of fiction; conversation; conversation-story using illustrative material about the work of adults and their relationships in the process; the teacher’s story, accompanied by a demonstration of specially selected photographs, paintings, reproductions about events taking place in the country; children compiling stories on certain topics related to observations of life around them; individual conversations with children, clarifying the knowledge and ideas of preschoolers about the phenomena of social life, about moral categories; staging literary works using toys and puppet theater characters; ethical conversations.
The second group is methods that promote the formation and development of gaming activities. Among them, an important place is occupied by the direct participation of the teacher in creative play: playing with one child, playing a leading or secondary role. In addition, the teacher makes extensive use of helping children implement the knowledge acquired in the classroom through suggestions, reminders, advice, selection of game material, conversation about the concept of the game, development of its content, and summing up.
The teacher takes into account the individual characteristics of the child; if he is confident in himself, it is important to teach him to critically evaluate his answers. If you are shy and indecisive, you need to support any initiative.
In order to develop children's skills and abilities to independently organize play, assignments are also used; tasks (on selecting gaming materials, making homemade toys, etc.); conversations; encouragement, explanations, questions aimed at suggesting to children the possible implementation of the plan, defining game actions.
Skills necessary for a child, such as determining a role for oneself and bringing it to the end of the game, are formed through advice, individual tasks, and assignments; attracting illustrative material, reading excerpts from literary works characterizing a particular character; individual conversations about the role; making costume elements for his role together with the child.
An important task is to develop in children the ability to independently assign roles, taking into account the capabilities, interests and desires of everyone. Therefore, the teacher must study well the characters, inclinations and habits of his pupils and constantly help children get to know each other better, drawing their attention to the positive aspects of each child’s personality. To solve this problem, you can use a technique such as holding competitions for the best design of costume elements, for interesting proposals regarding role-playing actions, for the expressiveness of speech, facial expressions, and gestures.
The third group of methods is associated with teaching children to construct from building materials and play with buildings, and make toys.
An important role is played by teaching children the ability to make toys from paper by folding (boats, steamships, animals, cameras, benches, glasses, etc.), from thin cardboard according to patterns; making toys from natural and additional materials (reels, cardboard boxes of various shapes and sizes, etc.
An important role for the development of the game is the ability of children to use substitute objects (a brick instead of soap, etc.); the more substitute objects children bring, the more interesting and meaningful the game.
Play is a special activity that blossoms in childhood and accompanies a person throughout his life. It is not surprising that the problem of play has attracted and is attracting the attention of researchers, not only teachers and psychologists, but also philosophers, sociologists, ethnographers, and biologists.
It is now generally accepted that play is the leading activity of a preschool child. For young children, the leading activity is object-based activity; for children of younger and older preschool age, the leading activity is play.
Techniques for managing the game can be direct and indirect.
Direct guidance involves direct adult intervention in children's play. It can be expressed in role-playing participation in the game, in participation in the collusion of children, in clarification, in providing assistance, advice during the game, or in proposing a new topic for the game.
Indirect guidance of play is especially fruitful when working with preschool children. The teacher expresses his judgments while playing with children exclusively in the form of advice, without demanding strict obedience.
An adult should give children examples of communication with various people, standards of emotional experiences, carefully monitor the children’s reactions, try to direct their communications, and promote adequate and emotional communication during the game. During learning to play, an adult performs the functions of an organizer and leader of gaming activities.
It is impossible to teach a game other than by playing with a child.
• The game should be free from themes and regulation of actions imposed by adults “from above.” The child must have the opportunity to master the increasingly complex “language” of play - the general ways of its implementation, increasing the freedom to creatively realize his own ideas.
Play should be a joint activity of the teacher and children, where the teacher is a playing partner, so that play at all age stages is an independent activity of children.
To develop gaming activities, it is necessary to fulfill several conditions: the creation of a subject-development environment, the availability of a certain time in the daily routine and the professionalism of teachers. Without these conditions being met, it is impossible to develop children's creative, amateur play.
Didactic play is one of the important methods of active learning for children, and the game situation, as a rule, is taken based on the methodological basis of the lesson. The role of each participant in the game is clearly defined, there are rules and a certain rating system, and the game provides for a strict and step-by-step procedure.
Games not only influence the physical and mental development of preschool children, they are also one of the important means of education.
In order for the game to perform an organizing function in the pedagogical process, the teacher needs to have a good idea of what tasks can be solved in it.
Based on the characteristics of the type of game, the tasks that can be solved with its help, the level of development of play activity in children, the teacher determines the extent of his participation in it, management techniques in each specific case.
However, when directing the game towards solving educational problems, one should always remember that it is a kind of independent activity of a preschooler. In play, a child has the opportunity to demonstrate independence to a greater extent than in any other activity: he chooses the plots of the game, toys and objects, partners, etc.
