“Cognitive development of preschool children through project activities”
Municipal budgetary educational institution
"BEKHTEEVSKAYA SECONDARY EDUCATIONAL SCHOOL KOROCHANSKY DISTRICT OF BELGOROD REGION"
Report on the topic:
“Cognitive development of preschool children through project activities”
Prepared by: teacher Novitskaya E.G.
“Cognitive development of preschool children through project activities.”
Preschool childhood is the initial stage of human personality formation. At this time, a positive attitude towards nature, towards the “man-made world”, towards oneself and the people around them is formed.
The basic component of preschool education states that the child must “have an idea of cognitive activity in his own development, be interested in the peculiarities of his perception, memory, imagination, thinking; master the initial forms of research, experimentation, and simply study the world around us.”
How to teach a child in the modern world of innovative technologies, computerization and a huge number of television programs and literature to find the necessary information. In this regard, there is a need to choose more effective methods of education and training that give children the key to understanding reality.
In preschool age, the main structural component of cognitive development becomes problematic, which ensures the child’s constant openness to new things and is expressed in the search for inconsistencies and contradictions.
If children are captivated by current events, when they have a certain amount of knowledge and impressions about a given phenomenon, they can set new tasks themselves, come up with game actions and ways to carry them out. Therefore, training and education should begin not with the transfer of ready-made knowledge and skills, but with the formulation of problematic tasks, in the process of solving which cognitive activity develops and creative abilities are formed.
If you use project activities as a means of cognitive development, this will contribute to the formation of specific skills, general educational and communicative skills; will develop the creative activity of children in the process of play and cognitive activity; activates the desire and ability to create new images and projects; invent and solve more complex problems, achieving success; will open up great opportunities for the teacher to activate the mental activity and personality development of preschoolers.
The method of project activity is based on a person-oriented approach to training and education, it develops interest, curiosity, develops cooperation skills and practical skills.
In pedagogy, a “project” is usually understood as a special creative situation when a person ceases to be the owner of an idea: he abandons the personal in order to collectively find a solution to the problem posed.
The project method is not fundamentally new. It’s just that over time, the idea of the project method has undergone some evolution. Born from the idea of free education, it has now become an integrated component of the education system. But its essence remains the same - to stimulate the child’s interest in problems.
When using the project method, the following requirements are determined:
1. The presence of a significant problem in the creative research plan.
2. Practical, cognitive significance of the expected results.
3. Independent (individual, pair, group) activities of children.
4. Structuring the project (stage-by-stage results).
5. Use of research methods:
— definition of the problem and the research tasks arising from it;
— putting forward hypotheses for their solution;
-discussion of research methods;
-discussion of ways to form final results (presentation, defense, creative reports, screenings);
— collection, systematization, analysis of the data obtained;
— summing up, drawing up the results, their presentation;
- conclusions, raising new problems.
In terms of duration, projects can be short-term (1 lesson) or long-term (from one week to several months); they can be individual or group. Work on the project must begin with drawing up a well-founded action plan, which is formed and refined throughout the entire period and takes place in several stages:
1. Goal setting;
2. Search for a form of project implementation;
3. Development of the content of educational work based on the topic of the project;
4. Organization of a developmental, cognitive, subject environment;
5. Determining the directions of search and practical activities;
6. Organization of joint activities with teachers, parents and children;
7. Work on the project, its correction;
8. Collective implementation of the project, its presentation, defense.
In my work I use the following forms of children's projects:
research: “The Amazing World of Turtles”, “Water is Life”, where a creative research problem is solved;
educational: creating an album “My parents and I are researchers,” including a set of search and creative techniques;
creative: “Kindergarten, family and I – the formula for health”, “What helps us to be strong and healthy”, aimed at creating a health-creating educational environment, encouraging pupils and their parents to lead a healthy lifestyle; involving students in various types of active health-creating activities through the organization of creative, sports, educational events designed to form a value-based attitude towards health and life
I always involve parents in the children’s activities, because... One child cannot cope with search and creative activities. I carefully think through the tasks so that they are not too labor-intensive and are completed with desire and joy, and if necessary, I provide reference practical material or recommend where it can be found.
Analyzing the results of the work on introducing the project method, I would like to say the following: work on a project is of great importance for the cognitive development of the child, for the development of the child’s creative abilities. In the preschool period, integration occurs between common methods of thinking, speech, art and other types of activity. Visual arts skills improve, hand motor skills develop, the preschooler’s vocabulary is activated and enriched, contacts with other children and adults are easily established, and the ability to think independently and draw conclusions is formed. The project method provides a good opportunity for insecure and shy children to realize their creative abilities. Working on a project develops communication and moral qualities: the ability to negotiate, show patience and respect for each other, and the ability to listen to the opinions of others. Of great importance is the relationship between the teacher and parents, who become not outside observers, but participants involved in the educational process. The development of such qualities prepares the child for success in school.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. Erofeeva T.I. Modern educational programs for preschool institutions. - M, 2000.
2. Zhuravleva V.N. Project activities of older preschoolers. - Volgograd: Teacher, 2009.
3. Zaire-Bek E.S. Fundamentals of pedagogical design. - St. Petersburg, 1997.
4. Kiseleva L.S., Rakilina T.A., Zuikova M.B. Project method of activity of a preschool institution. -M. : ARKTI, 2005.
5. Nikitina I.V. Innovative activities of a modern teacher. - Volgograd: Teacher, 2007.
6. New pedagogical and information technologies in the education system / Ed. E.S.Polat/. -M. 2000.
7. Stupnitskaya M.A. New pedagogical technologies: learning to work on projects. -Yaroslavl: Development Academy, 2008.
“Development of cognitive abilities of preschool children through project activities”
And here the game comes to the fore as the main activity of preschool children. In educational games, the child’s targeted intellectual development occurs, which is inextricably linked with the development of elements of logical thinking. To solve a game problem, a preschooler needs to compare the characteristics of objects, establish similarities and differences, generalize, and draw conclusions. This develops the ability to judge, make inferences, and the ability to apply one’s knowledge in different conditions. Fascinating, educational, mathematical games create interest in preschoolers in solving mental problems: the successful result of mental effort and overcoming difficulties brings them satisfaction and a desire to learn new things. All this makes educational games an important means of developing elements of logical thinking in children of senior preschool age.
Our group also had an experimental long-term project “Unexplored properties of salt.” The topic of the experimental (research) project arose after reading the fairy tale “Gold and Salt” to children. The guys had a question: where does salt come from? The children began to argue that there are different types of salt: large and fine. The children were very interested in this. We decided to explore salt as a mineral. During this project, children developed mental operations, the ability to establish cause-and-effect relationships, draw conclusions, and developed children’s creative abilities and communication skills.
The creative project “The World of Theater” aroused great interest among children. I created conditions for independent creativity, which “pushes” little researchers to identify the problem and how to solve it. Thanks to this project, children learned to communicate with each other, supplemented various fairy tales with their own ideas, changed the actions of the characters in the production of fairy tales and performances. The children developed strong-willed and communication skills, became more liberated, and also thanks to this project, close cooperation was carried out with parents, parents actively participated in the creation of attributes and sewing costumes.
Then our group created an innovative photo case project “Child and the Road”; this project developed creative and conscious critical thinking, the ability to assess the situation and make decisions. The ability to find alternative solutions in practice and relate them to life situations was formed. In this project, children developed moral aspects of behavior.
Our projects were created from the interests of children and any project in the group was carried out gradually and it was possible to highlight certain stages of project activity,
shaping the problems, goals, objectives of the project and its final product. Children need to understand and accept the problem, get used to the game situation, recognize themselves as its participants, understand what needs to be done and how to do it in order to get a result.
