Things to teach preschoolers

Here is a list of kindergarten readiness skills based loosely upon a preschool inventory given to children at the very end of our local Pre-Kindergarten program. It was used as both a guiding document as well as an assessment at the end of the year. The original list includes 71 very specific objectives, but I have tried to narrow it down

Please keep in mind as you look over this list that  kids learn best with hands-on experiences, not memorization or drill practice! These early years with our children should be about fostering a love to play, explore, and learn! Also, it is important to note that our children are all different and gifted in unique ways. Obviously, if your child has special needs, exceptionalism, or is delayed in a particular area, this won’t necessarily be relevant to your child. This is simply a guide…not something to stress about!

Finally, all areas of development are of equal importance to young children!  Gross motor and social development tasks are just as important as cognitive and pre-reading tasks at this age. Also, it is important to note that there is no prerequisite (besides age) for children to go to public schools here in the United States. Although it would be ideal for each child to come into kindergarten already mastering these skills, this is obviously not the reality for many children. Schools are prepared to meet the needs of individual students, regardless of their current ability.

Have fun learning together through games and various experiences while still encouraging your child’s natural creativity!

What does your child really need to know before kindergarten?!?!

Despite the fact that I am sharing this exhaustive list, the two MOST IMPORTANT skills for your child before he/she begins kindergarten is a desire to learn and a respect for others.  Obviously, these “skills” are also the most difficult to quantify or measure.  But if you are raising your child to be curious and inquisitive of the world around him while also teaching him to obey authority and treat other children with kindness, the rest of this list is just a bonus!

• Shows an eagerness to learn and age-appropriate curiosity
• Persists in completing a task and is willing to ask for help if needed
• Exemplifies a pleasant and cooperative personality

• Follows rules and routines
• Manages transitions (going from one activity to the next)
• Demonstrates normal activity level

• Interacts easily with one or more children
• Interacts easily with familiar adults
• Participates in group activities
• Plays well with others
• Takes turns and shares
• Cleans up after play

• Seeks adult help when needed to resolve conflicts
• Uses words to resolve conflicts

• Listens attentively to directions and conversations
• Follows one and two-step directions

• Speaks clearly and can be easily understood without the need for contextual clues
• Can sequence events in an oral conversation

• Listens with interest to stories read aloud
• Shows interest in reading-related activities
• Retells information from a story

• Uses pictures to communicate ideas
• Scribbles, draws shapes, or attempts to create letter-like symbols to write words or ideas

• Recites/sings alphabet
• Identifies upper-case letters
• Identifies lower-case letters
• Matches upper-case letters to the lower-case letter counterpart

• Sorts by color, shape, and size
• Orders or seriates several objects on the basis of one attribute (i. e. “size”– small, medium, large)
• Recognizes simple patterns and duplicates them (i.e. circle, square, circle, square)

• Rote counts to 20
• Demonstrates one-to-one correspondence when counting 10 objects
• Matches oral numbers to their written numerals
• Identifies numerals 0-10

• Identifies 4 shapes- circle, square, rectangle, triangle
• Demonstrates concepts of positional/directional concepts (up/down, over/under, in/out, behind/in front of, beside/between, top/bottom, inside/outside, above/below, high/low, right/left, off/on, first/last, far/near, go/stop).

Measurement

• Shows understanding of and uses comparative words (big/little, large/small, short/long, tall/short, slow/fast, few/many, empty/full, less/more).

• Pedals and steers a tricycle
• Jumps in place, landing on two feet
• Jumps consecutively- 7 jumps
• Balances on one foot for 5 seconds
• Hops on one foot 2-3 hops
• Hops on one foot- 6 ft.
• Throws a ball with direction- 5 ft.
• Catches a thrown ball with arms and body
• Climbs a playground ladder
• Skips smoothly for 20 feet

• Stacks 10 small blocks
• Strings large beads
• Completes a seven-piece interlocking puzzle
• Makes a pancake, snake, and ball from playdough
• Grasps pencil correctly (i.e. proper pencil grip)
• Copies:  vertical line, horizontal line, circle, cross, square, V, triangle
• Prints first name
• Grasps scissors correctly
• Cuts within 1/4″ of a straight line
• Cuts out a small square, triangle, and circle
• Uses a glue stick appropriately
• Uses appropriate amount of glue for tasks

• Identifies 10 colors:  red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, black, white, brown, pink
• Uses a variety of art materials for tactile experience and exploration (paint, crayons, markers, clay, etc)
• Enjoys singing
• Dances like no one is watching  :)
• Makes believe with objects
• Takes on pretend roles and situations

Remember parents, this list is just a guide.

If you’re looking for some suggestions on practical things you can do to prepare your child for Kindergarten, check out 33 Ways to Prepare Your Child for Kindergarten.

You can download and print a list with simple, easy activities that will help to ensure your child is ready!

If this feels overwhelming…

Getting ready for Kindergarten is a simple resource that will show you step by step how to have your child kindergarten ready, whether you are a first time parent, a carer or home school.

Click on the pic below to get your copy now…

This article was first published March 2012. Updated 2019.

What and how to teach a preschooler

How many times each of us was amazed at how quickly time flies! It seems that just recently your baby took the first steps and uttered the first words, and now the time is very close when your child, having crossed the threshold of the school, will become a first grader. A period of responsible and difficult work will come for him and for you: to learn new things every day, learn to think and reason, build your relationships with peers. And, of course, every parent cannot help but worry about the following questions: how will the child's school life turn out? How will he study? Is he ready for school? What can and what should a family do to make school years a joyful and happy period of growing up, learning, and work for a child?

So, in order for your child to learn school material well, he needs to be taught a lot of things, especially at preschool age. Parents need to understand that it is necessary to teach a child in such a way as to stimulate not only mental, but also mental development. A lot has been written about what and how to teach a preschooler, and yet we often come across a depressing fact: parents have little idea of ​​what exactly they should do.

They do not have a clear program of action, which means that there is no necessary sequence. Parents are lost in the flow of various information, they begin to rush about: what to teach? What book to read? What is the best game to buy? Which kindergarten should I send my child to? And so on ad infinitum: questions, questions, questions. And poor children from the age of four or five, forcedly, under pressure from their parents, write a stick, learn a number series, memorize long poems they do not understand, and much, much more. But what does this give for their mental development, for the development of basic cognitive processes: perception, thinking, independent speech?

Very often educators and psychologists come across a sad phenomenon when a six-year-old child, who is too capable, according to his parents, can count up to a hundred perfectly, but cannot count ten matches lying in front of him. Why is that? - you ask. We answer: a child of preschool age is not yet able to realize that counting is not a way to get parents' praise, but a means of determining quantity. A no less sad sight is the child's knowledge of letters, which is not connected with the sound-letter analysis of the word, and even more so with the ability to compose syllables and words from individual letters. Such knowledge can become a serious brake on the way not only to acquiring literacy, but also to the successful development of the school curriculum as a whole.

So what should be taught to a preschooler in order for him to develop correctly, harmoniously and be ready for school? The child must be taught everything, not only directly those skills that are necessary in school education: reading, writing, counting, but also all those skills and abilities that are necessary in everyday life: to correctly use the objects surrounding him, namely action, and not dry knowledge about an object or phenomenon.

Family education

How does the education and preparation of the child for school begin? Of course, from family upbringing. Remember the proverb: “If you sow an act, you will reap a habit; if you sow a habit, you will reap a character; if you sow a character, you will reap a destiny”? In everyday communication with children, the seeds of the future character are laid, which then will give good or evil shoots. Neglecting this is often very costly! Very often school failures of our children, their difficult entry into the team, inability or, even worse, unwillingness to learn are the result of parental miscalculations and mistakes, those relationships that reign in the family, those life orientations that are assimilated in it.

All parents, without exception, make sure that their child does not need anything, is fed, shod and clothed.

Many spare no time and effort to teach their three-year-old son or daughter to write, read and count, mistakenly believing that this is preparation for school. However, this is not enough for a full-fledged upbringing. Just as zealously, we must take care of what we fill the mind, heart and soul of the child, because his psychological development largely depends on this, and therefore, his formation as a person.

To develop cognitive abilities

To develop a child's cognitive abilities does not mean giving him "ready-made" knowledge, skills and abilities; First of all, we are talking about developing a child's need for this knowledge, determining possible ways to obtain it, and teaching them to think and reason. The success of his education depends on how well the student has developed cognitive activity and independence.

Is it possible to set such a complex task in relation to a preschooler? Yes, you certainly may! It is during the period of preschool age that a kind of database is laid, which will be necessary for the child throughout the entire education.

The child acquires cognitive experience primarily in a variety of activities. Each of its types makes its own, special contribution to the development of the child. How does it happen? The first independent activity of a preschooler is subject. She introduces him to the world of things created by human hands, and helps to understand why we need them. Mastering objective actions is the first step in mastering material culture. However, parents should remember that this will only happen if the object is used for its functional purpose, only under this condition the child will fully comprehend the properties of objects, their relationships, while simultaneously developing perception, representation, and, consequently, mental operations.

Mastering object actions first occurs in the game. Gradually, the child learns to replace the missing objects with others, but similar (a thermometer with a stick, soap with a cube), then with any others, endowing them with the appropriate function, and, finally, with words. This is how imagination develops, the ability to abstract from a specific situation and model a new, imagined reality. Later, the cognitive activity of the child is built on this solid foundation.

Teach your child to play - at first simply operate with objects, imitating real actions, their logic and sequence. The next stage - the child already knows how to act independently, play out entire plots, the main purpose of which is to reflect the child's vision of relations between other people: family, business, etc. Only at this stage of the child's play development, actions can already become purely symbolic, and real objects - be replaced by others, with the help of which you can depict the desired action. Having passed all this playful way, your child will gain a lot, having significantly advanced in his development, he will receive the necessary knowledge about the objects around him, phenomena, human relations, which will contribute to the development of thinking and imagination.

The first types of productive activity of the child - visual and constructive . Creating something new with his own hands - be it a drawing, a plasticine craft, a building made of cubes - he seeks to reflect the world around him as truthfully as possible, and this, in turn, contributes to the further development of perception, spatial representations. In the development of the child's cognitive abilities, an important role is played by labor , which incorporates all types of activity.

Labor education begins in the family

You can join it in completely different ways - self-service, household chores, working in nature, making various handicrafts, mastering craft skills. Raising a child's readiness for work is one of the main tasks in preparing children for school, because the success of education largely depends on how much the child is accustomed to work, whether he has the necessary personal qualities that allow him to productively cope with educational tasks.

At home and on the street, people around the child are busy with various kinds of work; the things with which the child comes into contact are the result of labor; the importance of labor in people's lives should be fully realized by the child. Respect for any work and for a person engaged in business must be brought up purposefully and consistently from an early age, protecting children from laziness and selfishness. K.D. Ushinsky said: “Education should not only develop a person’s mind and give him a certain amount of information, but should kindle in him a thirst for serious work, without which his life cannot be either worthy or happy.”

The child's work should supplement the experience of being able to organize activities, should teach to help others, to take care of loved ones. Help your child experience the joy of a job well done: “Look how bright and clean it is”, “See how the washed dishes shine”, “It's good that you helped grandma: now she can relax and play with you.” Before going to bed, talk with your child about how the day went, what he managed to do, what he learned new, ask him to talk about vivid impressions and events. So gradually the standard of any activity and an independent assessment of its results will be formed in the preschooler.

Cognitive activity

All types of cognitive activity of a child allow mobilizing his cognitive abilities, and therefore, developing them, teaching not only to navigate in the world around him, but also to change it to some extent. However, for this to happen, parents need to properly organize any activity of the child: they need to determine its goal together with him, think over possible ways to achieve this goal, plan a sequence of actions, control himself during work, be able to correctly and objectively evaluate the result. The acquisition of such skills in planning one's own activities is necessary for a child in the process of schooling.

For the proper development and upbringing of a child, it is very important for parents to create emotional comfort, they need constant attention to their behavior and to the behavior of their baby, patience, flexibility, sensitivity and tact, the desire and ability to understand the motives of the child's behavior in a particular case. Incontinence, shouting, abuse of adults give rise not only to a feeling of resentment, distrust, injustice, but also a state of anxiety, self-doubt, which can have a detrimental effect on the child's further education outside the home, in general educational institutions.

We are glad that the child loves to draw, sculpt, design, play with blocks, dolls and cars - the kid is busy, and this is enough for parents. But how often do you ask yourself questions: what do these classes give him? How does he play, construct, sculpt, draw, work? What difficulties does it experience? Does he finish what he started? Meanwhile, observation of the child's play activity can play a decisive role in the cognitive development of the child and his preparation for school. Without interfering with the child, without suppressing his initiative, observe him in order to tactfully help him realize and enrich his activities, organize classes, direct them in the right direction of mental development.

Here is a baby playing with a doll: dressing, undressing, feeding. Draw his attention to the meaning of these actions: undresses to put to bed or bathe; dresses to go to visit or for a walk; feeds, educates, etc. Show your imagination and wake up the baby's fantasy - this will help you and him to develop your own model of family behavior.

Before drawing, ask him what he wants to draw and what is needed for this - paints, pencils, felt-tip pens; why he wants to choose this particular color and not some other. Discuss the completed drawing: what worked and what didn’t work, and it’s important that the child pays attention to what worked and what didn’t.

Emotions and will of a preschooler

The development of the emotional-volitional sphere determines the formation of a child's personality. It is at preschool age that the assimilation of moral norms takes place, the ability to subordinate one's actions and actions to moral and ethical rules is developed, and the skills of behavior in a team are formed. It should be noted that the emotional-volitional sphere does not develop by itself, but requires long-term painstaking work, otherwise it may form incorrectly, as a result, the child's behavior may take undesirable forms, he may become selfish, spoiled, and intellectual abilities will remain unclaimed.

If a child is brought up correctly, then by the age of six he not only learns basic moral concepts, but also learns to act in accordance with them.

The child's idea of ​​himself, of his "I" changes significantly: he begins to have a clearer idea of ​​his capabilities, to understand how others relate to him and how this attitude is explained. On the basis of correct self-assessment, an adequate reaction to censure and approval is developed - the child, in response to the remark of adults, no longer cries, does not quit the lesson, but tries to correct the mistake, find new ways to complete what has been started.

A preschool child often encounters various difficulties - intellectual, everyday, behavioral. But, whatever the nature of the activity that caused certain difficulties, they can be divided into two groups:

• firstly, these are problems that a child simply cannot cope with on his own, due to his age;
• Secondly, these are problems that your child can overcome on their own, using their past experience or acting through their own trial and error.

The main task of parents in the first case is to tactfully, without insisting, help the child cope with the difficulty that has arisen, explain, direct; and in the second - just as sensitively and flexibly to push the child to solve the problem, to force him to use the experience accumulated earlier.

However, adults need to remember that the assessment of all the actions of the child must be as objective and accurate as possible, because a child aged 5-6 sees himself through the eyes of other people, and their attitude serves as the basis for him, the standard of self-esteem. During this period, your baby needs empathy and understanding from adults - parents and caregivers, at the same time, for his part, he begins to evaluate the actions of other people, their character and behavior, so it is very important for parents to strengthen their authority in the eyes of the baby during this period.

By the age of 6-7, a child has such feelings as shame if one or another of his actions does not correspond to the moral standards accepted in the family, and pride if the action corresponds to them, and especially if it is associated with overcoming certain difficulties and obstacles . Therefore, parents need to very carefully punish or encourage the child, his desire for good deeds will depend on this in the future.

It is at this age that a child develops a conscious need to communicate with other children. He learns to correlate his actions with the actions of his comrades, to take into account not only his own, but also their desires and interests, evaluate the actions of his peers and focus on their assessment. At this age, real friendships are born - it is important for parents to teach the child to be friends, in some cases to give in, and in some cases to defend their opinion. These skills are required to facilitate the passage of such an important test in the life of first graders as life in a completely new school community.

The ability to communicate

The ability to communicate and find a common language not only with adults, but also with their peers is another necessary condition for the development and preparation of children for school.

It must be said that the desire for communication in a preschooler is based on the need to know another person, strangers and compare oneself with them. By the way your child is among strangers, one can judge not only his character, habits, but also the miscalculations of his parents in his upbringing. After all, parents and other relatives are the first people who not only satisfy his need for communication, but also give him a standard of behavior. Therefore, adults are obliged to take care of the proper emotional and aesthetic level of communication of the child, to teach him to empathize and be kind to the interlocutor.

Another important condition for a child's readiness, which parents should pay special attention to, is nurturing a child's desire to learn. To do this, first of all, the parents themselves must clearly understand why their child goes to school - not for fives and a good certificate, but for knowledge, skills and abilities.

School years are a part of a child's life, and therefore it is important that it be filled not only with the happiness of learning, familiarization with the treasures of world culture, but also with the joy of communication, hard work and, at the same time, creativity. This is what you need to teach your child first of all.

At school, a child should not only acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, but also learn how to independently acquire new ones, see and creatively solve problems that arise. It is also necessary to accustom a preschooler to this at an accessible level for him. The desire and ability to learn, the joy of gaining new knowledge is the basis of a responsible attitude to learning. As the author of the excellent “Pedagogical Poem” A.S. Makarenko rightly noted: “What a person will be, mainly depends on how you make him by the fifth year of life. If you haven’t raised him properly before the age of five, then you will have to re-educate him.”

Taking into account the many factors in the education of a preschooler, one can once again be convinced that the psychological preparation of children for school is absolutely necessary, and it is necessary to “lead” the mental development of a child from early childhood.

The first and most important condition for a child's mental preparation for school is cooperation with the adults around him: mom, dad, grandma, grandpa. Moreover, cooperation should be understood as such organized joint activity of a child and an adult, during which the latter transfers his social experience in its various forms, and the former adopts it and makes it his own. Therefore, an adult should be able to look at himself and his life through the eyes of a child, constantly caring not only about what and how he passes on to the child, but also that the child wants to learn what is being transmitted.

For many children, the difficulties of entering the school community are due to the fact that they did not learn how to build interpersonal relationships in time, they do not know how to subordinate their desires and actions to the requirements of adults and the interests of their comrades. Not accustomed to consider other people's opinions, children become selfish, stubborn, capricious, unfriendly towards their classmates and sometimes even towards the teacher. If a child is unhappy, impulsive, anxious, then the reason lies, as a rule, in the emotional atmosphere of the family, in a disrespectful and intolerant attitude towards each other.

In conclusion, I would like to quote A.S. Makarenko: “The educational process is a constantly ongoing process, and its individual details are resolved in the general tone of the family, and the general tone cannot be invented and artificially supported. The general tone, dear parents, is created by your own life and your own behavior.

Diagnosis of the development of thinking in children aged 3 to 6 years. Tasks

At preschool age, visual-figurative thinking (operating with images) predominates in children, therefore, tasks for diagnosing the level of development of thinking should be appropriate. The proposed tasks can also be used as developmental exercises. →

What to teach a child - Psychologos

Most parents are primarily interested in the problem of the child's intellectual development. And not the development of speech, attention, memory, but the ability of the baby to read, count, write, speak English. Some parents make every effort to make their child a rising star, and therefore from the age of three they take him to an English-speaking kindergarten or music school.

It happens that, persistently moving towards their goal, parents sometimes forget about the child. How does he develop physically and morally? Does he pronounce all sounds? What dreams does he have? What is his favorite activity?

There is nothing insignificant in a child's development that does not deserve parental attention. But maybe then leave the development of the baby to nature, let him comprehend the world spontaneously, he himself acquires the skills he needs without the help of adults?

Indeed, thanks to the innate ability to imitate, the child learns a lot on his own: to crawl, stand, walk, run. Adults only create certain conditions for this or, if necessary, help. How much a three-year-old child must comprehend! Four worlds he has to know: the world of nature, the world of man-made, the world of the people themselves and the inner world of his Self. In each of the worlds, the child must navigate, correlating his needs and capabilities. The child will have to master the richness of their native language, its grammar and phonetics, learn to navigate in space and time, recognize their own and others' emotions, and enrich their sensory experience.

This list is as endless as life is endless and varied. What are the priorities for selecting information in organized learning, and in fact, conscious, rather than spontaneous parenting? Each family answers this question independently, in accordance with its values, interests, family traditions. Of course, parents will have both joys and failures. To make the latter less, I would like to introduce moms and dads to a few typical misconceptions.

The first misconception: “The main thing is intellect!”

Six-year-old Tanya was brought up by her grandmother. While the parents were at work, the grandmother, a teacher in the past, was completely absorbed in teaching her granddaughter. The girl attended preparatory courses at a prestigious school, studied music and painted in the art studio of a famous artist, besides, every evening she read five pages of text and wrote dictations under the guidance of her grandmother. In order to be in time everywhere, the grandmother dressed her granddaughter, put on shoes, almost fed from a spoon, not allowing her to make “extra” movements. A six-year-old, physically healthy girl, her grandmother, walking with her in winter, sat her on a plank, pushed her and quickly ran downstairs to meet her. The girl, having rolled down, did not even make an attempt to get up, sat like a doll, without moving a hand or foot, and patiently waited for her grandmother to run up to her, help her to stand up, take a plank and lead her granddaughter by the hand up the hill.

Parents very often underestimate the importance of their children's motor development. In fact, it is difficult for preschoolers to draw a line between physical, in particular motor, development, on the one hand, and intellectual development, on the other. In the preschool years, children improve motor skills, including motor skills: gross (the ability to make movements of large amplitude: running, jumping, throwing objects) and fine (the ability to make precise movements of small amplitude). As fine motor skills develop, children become more independent, which is noticeable when they perform daily activities. The development of motor skills allows the child to move freely, take care of himself and express his creative abilities. In general, everything that a child does during preschool childhood becomes the basis not only for the formation of motor skills, but also for intellectual, social and emotional development. That's why it's so important to pay close attention to your child's emerging skills and abilities. We invite you to compare the results of your observations and the following statements. Which of them can be fully attributed to your child?

1. The child runs well.
2. Can change the speed and direction of running on the signal of an adult.
3. May switch from running to walking on the signal of an adult.
4. Able to throw a ball without losing balance.
5. Able to jump from a place.
6. Alternates legs while climbing stairs.
7. Riding a tricycle.
8. Can use hands and feet at the same time (eg march or clap and stomp).
9. Independently dresses and puts on shoes.
10. Unfastens zippers, buttons, buttons.
11. Takes objects with one hand, starting to prefer the right or left hand.
12. Eating by himself.
13. Knows how to hammer nails.
14. Knows how to use scissors.
15. Able to copy simple drawings, circles, straight lines, intersecting lines.
16. Draws a man with six body parts (head, torso, arms, legs), although primitive.
17. Assembles and disassembles a three-piece nesting doll.
18. Assembles and disassembles a three-piece pyramid.

If you cannot fully attribute any of the statements to your child, then you need to pay attention to this when working with the baby.

Second fallacy: “Playing means wasting time”

Before proving the opposite, let's give an example.

Three-year-old Grisha's mother took her child away from a private kindergarten, explaining that the teachers did not take the children seriously enough. “No matter how I go into the group, they either jump like bunnies, or spin like snowflakes, then, like autumn, paint the leaves. No serious lessons: no math, no English.”

Parents of preschoolers sometimes want to speed up the time and make their little ones older than their age. Almost from birth, adults teach children to read, count, give preference to encyclopedic knowledge, but forget about fairy tales and poems. As a result, three-year-old wise men do not believe in Santa Claus, they do not know the Three Bears, but they are remarkably familiar with dinosaurs and computers. Acting with the best of intentions, parents, alas, hinder the development of the most important figurative thinking for preschoolers - the ability to mentally reproduce and carry out actions with objects in their figurative representation. But at no other age does a child have such mental opportunities for the development of this type of thinking!

On the one hand, a preschooler learns most successfully if he is provided with figuratively organized information (remember the bunnies and snowflakes in the above example), on the other hand, the better the figurative thinking is developed, the stronger the so-called learning ability of the child. So, with the help of bright, impressive images, you can captivate a child with any area of ​​​​human knowledge, interest in any activity. If you turn an ordinary paint brush into a Queen Brush, then it will be easier for the baby to handle it carefully, and working with plasticine will not be so tiring if you say: “Mr. Plasticine, don't be lazy! And who I say, turn into!

The development of imaginative thinking is a necessary step in the development of a child's intellect. The resulting void cannot be filled in the future. Figurative thinking is the foundation of logical thinking. The development of imagery in the mind of a child goes through several stages: image - symbol - sign - concept. So, figurative thinking is the basis of conceptual, abstract thinking. And the higher the level of its development, the more it will be in demand when mastering most of the subjects of the school curriculum.

Since imaginative thinking is the basis of any creativity, it allows you to find original solutions in any area, its importance does not decrease even with the formed logical thinking.

Anya T. at the age of three years and ten months began to draw in a peculiar manner: on the basis of multi-colored spots-blots, she invented unusual artistic images. Parents began to persistently teach her fine arts, trying to get the girl to use the line in her drawings. Five years later, Anina's work was shown to a professional artist. Without dwelling for a long time on Anya's latest drawings, he was amazed at the blotted masterpieces and exclaimed: "Give me this brilliant child!" But alas! The girl has not painted with spots for a long time and, with all her desire, cannot return to them.

As soon as a child begins to use symbols, his thought processes become more complicated. "Water" he calls the water dripping from the tap, and the water of the murmuring spring stream. The kid already understands that the sand in the sandbox and in the plastic bucket are the same sand.

The child's ability to use symbols is manifested in the game. When your little one was two and a half years old, he needed toys that looked exactly like the real thing to play with. For a child older than three and a half years, substitute objects may not look like real objects at all. So, a pencil can be a thermometer, a gun, a spoon and even a magic wand.

It is thanks to the increasingly complex imaginative thinking that the child begins to perceive another person as an autonomous being with his own feelings and views. Imagery, thus, forms the prerequisites for social development, helps to master communication skills. Therefore, it is so important to pay attention to the development of imaginative thinking throughout preschool childhood.

Misconception three: "A fairy tale is not serious"

Parents of preschool children sometimes underestimate the role of a fairy tale in the development of a child. Children's fairy tales are replaced by numerous encyclopedias and educational literature. Arguing their position, mothers and fathers declare that they introduce children to the real world around them, and not to fictional fables, that sometimes fairy tales are too cruel and scary, that the child learned all the fairy tales before the age of three and now they are not interesting for him.

L. F. Obukhova: “In addition to play and visual activity, the perception of a fairy tale also becomes an activity at preschool age. K. Buhler called preschool age the age of fairy tales. This is the most favorite literary genre of the child. <...> A fairy tale is a work of art. <...> And like almost every kind of art, a fairy tale becomes a kind of psychotherapy, because every person (every child) discovers in it his own solution to pressing life problems.

In fact, preschool age is the age of a fairy tale. It is through a fairy tale that the cultural heritage of mankind is transmitted to the child. This is especially true of the folk tale, on which thousands of people worked, discarding unimportant details and adding important ones. This made the fairy tale a bundle of human wisdom and experience. The fairy tale awakens the curiosity and imagination of the child, develops his intellect, helps to understand himself, his desires and emotions, as well as the desires and emotions of other people. The child does not just listen to a fairy tale, but becomes the hero of the work and tries to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way. He finds in the fairy tale the solution to the pressing problems of life. The fairy tale fully takes into account the age capabilities of the preschooler, because:

• the fairy tale language is accessible to the child;
• the fairy tale is based on the figurative thinking of the child: enjoying its images, the child absorbs information imperceptibly, at the same time the fairy tale develops logic;
• The mood of the fairy tale is very close to the emotional world of the child. The fairy tale often contains images of animals speaking and acting like people. This is very understandable to the baby, because at this age he has no doubt that representatives of the world of animate and inanimate nature, fairy-tale creatures are endowed with the same properties as the people around him and, of course, himself;
• Reading a fairy tale is one of the best ways to instill in your child a love of books.

How to make a fairy tale your baby's friend?

1. When choosing books, do not forget: young children understand the text only when they can rely on the image, and not just on the verbal description. Therefore, the first children's books should be with pictures.
2. You may have to read the same story to your baby many times. Sometimes children ask to read their favorite book again and again. This happens for several reasons. When listening to a fairy tale, the child perceives the text partially. The lost is completed with the help of the imagination of the smallest listener. Therefore, the same fairy tale appears before him every time in different ways. In addition, the child "gets used" to the fairy tale, becomes its main character and experiences all the events as real. Over and over again, passing fabulous tests, the child hones his personal qualities.
3. When reading a fairy tale to a child again, try to diversify the reading style: read faster or slower, more restrained or more emotional, etc.
4. If the child is impressionable, the "terrible" episodes of the tale should not be emphasized by expressive reading.
5. After reading the fairy tale, ask the child to draw an illustration for it, to mold the characters from plasticine. Watch a play or film based on this work, play it in your home theater. Such "after-tales" allow the child to understand and feel the fairy tale deeper.

A fairy tale has a huge potential for the all-round development of a child. The more fully the resources of the fairy tale are used, the brighter and more interesting the life of the baby is.

How to teach a child

Younger preschool age is a happy time for parents, which they can fully devote to communicating with their own children. The famous American psychologist Ross Campbell writes about how important it is to set aside time in your daily life for these purposes, writes the famous American psychologist Ross Campbell: “It is important to spend time with your family, get to know your children, tell them that you love them, show them in every way that they are for you. mean a lot."

It happens that parents fully understand the importance of everyday communication with their child, but they do not know at all what to talk about with their children, what games to play with them. See →

Diagnosis of the development of thinking in children aged 3 to 6 years. Tasks

At preschool age, visual-figurative thinking (operating with images) predominates in children, therefore, tasks for diagnosing the level of development of thinking should be appropriate.

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