Message on the topic: “Development of mental operations in preschoolers” consultation on the topic

Thought processes in children

It is the ability to perform mental operations that provides children with the conscious assimilation of knowledge and, at the same time, the further mental development of the child.

The mental development of a child can be traced in three planes:

1. what the child knows, his worldview, whether he has a picture of the world at the end of preschool childhood;
2. at what level of development are the child’s mental abilities and cognitive processes: perception, memory, speech, thinking, imagination, attention; what his interests are directed towards; what he has aptitudes and abilities for;
3. to what extent the child has mastered certain academic skills - reading, counting, writing, organization, etc.

It is clear that in the overall picture of mental development these indicators are interrelated.

All children 5-6 years old have certain common signs of mental development, and at the same time, each child has distinct individual differences for each of these indicators, which most depend on the conditions in which the child grows and develops.

Researchers believe that more than 80% of the knowledge that an adult has is acquired in preschool age.

So, preschool age is special regarding the mental development of a child and a person. It is in the era of preschool childhood that all cognitive processes rapidly develop: perception, memory, speech, thinking, fantasy, and basic abilities and interests begin to develop.

Knowledge is undoubtedly an important indicator of the mental development of a child or adult.

But we can talk about a high level of development only when the child acquires knowledge on his own, when the child’s activities, games, work or education are structured in such a way that conditions are created for the development of his own cognitive capabilities, abilities, cognitive processes - sensory (sensations and perceptions) ), memory, speech, imagination, thinking, attention.

Article:

Thinking is the most generalized form of mental activity that establishes connections and relationships between the objects being studied.
Thinking radically expands a person’s capabilities in his desire to understand everything around him, since it operates not only with primary and secondary images, but also with concepts. In its development, thinking goes through two stages: pre-conceptual and conceptual.

Pre-conceptual thinking is the initial stage of the development of thinking in a child, when his thinking has a different organization than that of adults; Children’s judgments are singular, about a given specific subject. When explaining something, they reduce everything to the familiar, the particular.

Most judgments are judgments by similarity, or judgments by analogy, since during this period memory plays the main role in thinking. Their earliest form of proof of rightness is example. Taking into account this feature of a child’s thinking, when convincing him or explaining something to him, it is necessary to support his speech with clear examples.

Conceptual thinking is a specific activity of operating with concepts. In this type of thinking, the following stages are distinguished: 1) This stage is determined by the ability to name a concept and describe it. 2) At this stage, the child learns to compare concepts and distinguish a given concept from others. 3) This stage is characterized by the ability to establish meaningful relationships between concepts.

In addition, the thinking of each person, including a child, has its own characteristics associated with the so-called mentality, his individual abilities. That is why one child is better at solving mathematical calculations, studying physical phenomena and other exact sciences, while another has an artistic mindset associated with creative tasks and a developed imagination.

Thinking develops from concrete images to perfect concepts designated by words. The concept initially reflects the similar, unchangeable in phenomena and objects.

The child’s thinking develops as he grows from visual-effective (associated with practical actions on objects, with the real transformation of the situation in the process of acting with them) to visual-figurative (characterized by reliance on ideas and images of situations and changes in them that a person wants to receive as a result of their activities), and then to verbal-logical or abstract (carried out using logical operations with concepts). In addition, a distinction is made between theoretical (knowledge of laws, rules) and practical thinking, that is, knowledge of a specific goal by performing the necessary mental operations: analysis, comparison, synthesis, generalization, abstraction, concretization, among which the main ones are analysis and synthesis.

Analysis is the division of a complex subject into its constituent parts or characteristics.

Synthesis is a mental transition from parts to the whole.

Comparison - establishing similarities and differences between objects.

Generalization is the mental unification of objects and phenomena according to their common and essential characteristics.

Abstraction is the selection of essential properties and connections of an object and abstraction from other, non-essential ones.

Concretization is the selection of the desired attribute, property of an object or phenomenon among others similar to it or similar to it.

In the process of performing mental operations, individual qualities of thinking can manifest themselves, which are unique personality properties: breadth, depth, independence of thinking, flexibility (setting a goal, creating a plan, a project for transforming reality), intuitive (based on unconditioned reflexes) and logical (based on life experience, judgments and a person’s point of view on various objects and phenomena) types of thinking.

Mental activity is realized both at the level of consciousness and unconsciously, characterized by complex transitions and interactions of these levels. As a result of a successful action, a result is obtained that corresponds to the previously set goal.

Any mental activity is a person’s knowledge of the surrounding world to achieve thought, the speed and criticality of the mind, as well as some of their violations. Initially, the child’s thinking is closely connected with visual images of objects and practical actions.

With the beginning of active mastery of speech, the child’s thinking enters a new, more advanced stage of development - verbal thinking. An adult thinks in words that are spoken out loud or silently. Thinking in preschool age is characterized by pronounced concreteness, imagery and retains a close connection with practical activities.

Intensive development of abstract thinking occurs at school age, when in the process of learning children purposefully, consciously learn the ability to listen, look, highlight the main, essential, and connect objects and phenomena by meaning. Gradually, the child develops 3 main forms of thinking. A concept that reflects the main and essential properties of objects and phenomena. A judgment contains an affirmation or denial of any data regarding objects, phenomena or their properties. Inference arises as a result of comparison and analysis of various judgments, on their basis the necessary conclusions are drawn.

The connection between speech disorders and other aspects of mental development determines the specific thinking characteristics of children with speech disorders. Possessing, in general, complete prerequisites for mastering mental operations accessible to their age, children lag behind in the development of verbal and logical thinking, without special training they have difficulty mastering analysis and synthesis, comparison and generalization. In addition, they have insufficient stability of attention, limited possibilities for its distribution and a narrowed volume.

With relatively intact semantic memory, children have reduced pronunciation memory and memorization performance suffers. They forget complex instructions, elements and sequences of tasks.

All qualities of thinking need training, since they can only be improved through activity. In the development of thinking and other mental processes of preschoolers and primary schoolchildren, play is of great importance, the process of which is associated with the properties of objects (their shape, weight, size, color, features), and the performance of various actions with them. This promotes a comprehensive study of these subjects and creates conditions for the simultaneous interaction of various senses.

Drawing, modeling, and design activities are important for the development of thinking, which include setting tasks for the child, observing, and require an attentive and organized attitude. Gradually, with the enrichment of the child’s life experience, the accumulation of knowledge, the development of his mental activity, the ability to compare, generalize and analyze, the child’s observation skills develop, thinking becomes more complete, flexible, enriched with details, and purposeful.

The proposed games for the development of thought processes will help improve the mental operations of a child with speech impairment.

GAMES FOR CHILDREN 3-5 YEARS OLD

1) Game “What doesn’t fit?”

Task: to teach children to identify among several others an object that differs from the rest in some main way, to train them to justify their answer in a complete sentence.

Equipment: a row of 3-4 objects familiar to the child or a card with 3-4 subject pictures, among which two or three objects (pictures) belong to the same group, and one object (picture) does not fit the rest according to any sign.

Description. An adult shows the child a row of objects or a card with 3-4 object pictures and asks the question: “Which object in this row does not fit with the others?” The child must correctly name the extra object and explain why he thinks so.

For example: “There is an extra doll here because it belongs to toys, and all other items belong to furniture.”

2) Game “Match by Shape”

Task: to consolidate in children the concept of basic geometric shapes: circle, square, triangle (3-4 years), plus an oval, rectangle (5 years), relate surrounding objects to them.

Equipment: geometric shapes, object pictures depicting objects of round, square, triangular, oval, rectangular shapes.

Description. An adult forms piles, labeling them with each of the geometric shapes, and shows how to lay out pictures similar to one of them.

For example, a ball is placed next to round objects, a pyramid - to triangular ones, a cucumber - to oval ones, a door - to rectangular ones, etc. Then the child arranges the pictures independently.

3) Game “Sort by color”

Task: to consolidate in children the concept of the primary colors of objects: yellow, red, blue, green, white, black (3-4 years), their shades: orange, pink, purple, brown (5 years), to correlate surrounding objects with them.

Equipment: cards - color samples, pictures depicting objects of different colors.

Description. The adult shows the child pictures and names the objects depicted on them. Then he begins to form piles of them according to color, and the child must arrange all the objects according to this pattern.

4) Game “Pick up a picture”

Task: to consolidate general concepts in children’s speech: for 3-5 years old, such as vegetables, fruits, dishes, furniture, mushrooms, clothes, shoes, birds, wild and domestic animals, toys; develop the ability to classify objects into groups and combine them together with one general name.

Equipment. Option 1: large cards divided into parts, or one picture depicting objects belonging to one group, small cards depicting individual objects of different groups,

Option 2: lotto, consisting of pictures depicting objects familiar to the child, belonging to different generalizing groups.

Description.

Option 1. You can play alone with a child or a group of children of 3-4 people. If large cards with empty cells are used, then they are distributed to the players, who during the game will have to choose pictures with objects of a certain group.

Separate small cards depict various vegetables, fruits, animals, dishes, furniture, clothing, etc.

An adult, showing a small card, asks: “Who needs a cucumber (cup, dress, table, etc.)?” One of the players must answer: “I need this card, I collect vegetables (dishes, clothes, furniture, etc.).”

The game is played until everyone's cards are empty. The winner is the one who closes his card before others without making a single mistake in his answers.

Option 2. An adult plays with one child, shows him how to arrange pictures into piles (or in a row), which can be called one general word.

For example, cucumber, tomato, onion, pepper, cabbage, carrots, etc. are vegetables; dress, shorts, coat, jacket, skirt, trousers, etc. are clothes; table, chair, armchair, sofa, wardrobe, bed, etc. are furniture.

5) Game “What’s mixed up?”

Objective: to teach children to reason and compare the possible and the impossible, to find situations in pictures that do not happen in life, to develop children’s coherent speech.

Equipment: plot paintings depicting non-existent, absurd situations, tricks.

Description. The adult says to the children: “I’ll show you a picture, and you look at it carefully and find something that doesn’t happen in reality.”

Children find something that doesn’t exist in the picture and talk about it in a complete sentence.

For example: “Carrots do not grow on a tree, but in a garden bed”; “A hedgehog should be under a tree, not flying in the sky.” For each corrected mistake, the child receives a chip. The one who collects the most chips wins.

6) Game “What is missing from the object?”

Objective: to teach children to find the missing part (detail) of an object, to develop children’s coherent speech, to train them in the formation of genitive case forms of nouns.

Equipment: object pictures with some missing element, broken toys.

Description. The adult invites the child to find what is missing from an object or a broken toy, and answer this question correctly, using a noun with the correct ending.

For example: “The car is missing a wheel”; “The doll is missing arms”; “The chair doesn’t have enough back.”

7) Game “Name everyone in one word”

Task: to teach children to combine suitable objects into a group and call them one general concept.

Equipment: rows of pictures depicting vegetables, fruits, toys, birds, animals, clothing, shoes, dishes, furniture, etc.

Description. The child must look at the picture. ki and name a number of objects in one word.

For example: cucumber, tomato, onion, carrot lie together - these are vegetables; chair, table, wardrobe, sofa - furniture was placed here, etc.

Game “Cut pictures (cubes connected by one plot)”

Objective: to develop children's thinking and imagination, fine motor skills.

Equipment: depending on the age of the child, the picture can be cut: for 3-4 years old into 4 parts (picture of 4 cubes), for 5 years old - into 6 parts (picture of 6 cubes).

Description. The child tries to put together a whole picture from parts, following a model or his imagination. At the initial stage, if the child finds it difficult to complete the task, you can put the cut parts of the picture on the sample to teach the child to see these parts in the whole picture.

9) Game “Place the pictures in order”

Task: to develop logical thinking, the ability to arrange pictures sequentially depending on their characteristics.

Equipment: plot paintings depicting the seasons, pictures depicting family members, a series of paintings connected by a single plot.

Description. An adult gives a task to a child:

Option 1. Arrange the seasons one after another in order.

Option 2. Arrange family members from oldest to youngest.

Option 3. Arrange the pictures with the same characters in order: what happened first, what happened next, what at the end (without compiling a story).

10) Game “Lay by size”

Task: to consolidate in children the concept of the size of objects.

Equipment. Pictures depicting objects of large, medium and small sizes.

Description. The adult shows the child pictures, names them and begins to form piles of them according to size, and the child must arrange all the objects according to the adult’s model.

11) Game “Guess by the contour”

Objective: to develop children’s spatial understanding, teach them to recognize objects by their external outlines.

Equipment: cards with cut out objects in the middle.

Description. Cards with outlines of objects cut out in the middle are laid out in front of the child. Items are proposed to be placed in the appropriate contours.

12) Game “Loto of Geometric Shapes”

Objective: to teach children to correlate object pictures with the color and shape of geometric shapes, to develop visual attention.

Equipment: large cards with geometric shapes of different colors, cards with images of objects that match them in shape and color.

Description. The child arranges cards with objects into geometric shapes of a large card in accordance with their shape and color.

13) Game “My first numbers”

Task: to practice forward and backward counting skills within the range of 1-10, to familiarize children with images of the corresponding numbers.

Equipment: puzzle cards, on one half of which there are numbers from 1 to 10, on the other - animals corresponding to them in number.

Puzzle locks and similar colors of animals and numbers will help you find the right combinations.

Description. The adult lays out pictures of animals in front of the child, then shows him how to make a chain of them so that each subsequent one has one more animal than the previous one.

Then, together with the child, using a lock and a suitable color, they select the corresponding numbers for the animals.

As training progresses, the child completes the task independently, then practices counting in forward and reverse order with their help.

14) Game “We need different cars”

Objective: to introduce children to the main types of machines, teach them to independently reason, compare, and analyze.

Equipment: puzzle cards, including air (plane, helicopter, rocket), water (ship, steamship, cutter, boat) and land (bus, car, truck, tram, train, etc.) modes of transport.

Description. Option 1. The child must find and correctly name the given cars among several others.

Option 2. The adult places cards with plot drawings in front of the child (the sky for air transport, the sea or river for water transport, the road for land transport). Separately there are cards with pictures of cars. For example, a boat - which of the generalization cards can it be attributed to?

If the child made the right choice, then the locks on the puzzles will match and all the cards will form a single chain. After this, you can ask your child additional questions.

For example, what connects the machines in each chain? All of them relate to water transport. What vehicles are classified as land transport? (Car, bus, train, etc.) What are the names of the cars that fly in the sky? (Air mode of transport.)

GAMES FOR CHILDREN 6-7 YEARS OLD

1) Game "Fourth wheel"

Task: to teach children to find one that differs in some way among several other objects, to train them to justify their answer in a complete sentence.

Equipment: cards with 4 subject pictures or 4 separate subject pictures, 3 subjects on which belong to the same group, and one differs from them in some way.

Description. An adult shows a card with a picture of 4 objects (or 4 separate pictures) and asks the question: “Which object is the odd one here?”

Children (or a child) must correctly name the extra object and explain why they think so.

In contrast to the game “What is not suitable” for children 3-5 years old, the tasks are more complex, requiring knowledge of rarer generalizations (devices, tools, various types of transport, wintering and migratory birds, seasons, animals of hot and cold countries, etc. .d.). For example, the following objects are given: horse, sheep, goat and dog - the dog is superfluous, since it has paws, and the rest have hooves.

2) Game “Correct the mistake”

Objective: to teach children to reason and compare the possible and the impossible, correct errors in sentences, and develop children’s coherent speech.

Equipment: incorrect sentences prepared by adults, chips.

Description. An adult reads sentences that contain mistakes. Children must notice them and pronounce the sentence correctly.

For example: “The dog feeds the girl”; “The ball plays with Katya”; “Mom carries a bucket in the water”; “The boy rides the bicycle”; “Sveta draws a picture with a pencil.” For each mistake corrected, children receive chips. The one who gets the most chips wins.

3) Game “Picture Comparison”

Objective: to teach children to analyze objects according to any characteristic (shape, color, size, length, correctness, speed, number of objects, etc.), reason and compare the similarities and differences found, determine the greatest (smallest) value of the compared characteristics, develop a coherent children's speech.

Equipment: cards with items for comparison.

Description. The adult shows a picture or objects for comparison and asks the child questions: “Which picture is correct? Which object is the longest (largest, smallest)? Which group has the most (few) items? Who's the fastest? Choose the same figure”, etc.

The child must look at the objects and answer the question correctly by choosing the appropriate object.

4) Game “Seasons”

Objective: to clarify children’s ideas about the seasons, their sequence and main features, and to develop their coherent speech.

Equipment: subject pictures depicting winter, spring, summer, autumn (preferably the same place at different times of the year), subject pictures depicting the signs of each season (leaf fall, blizzard, birds fly away, people put on summer clothes, the day becomes in short, harvesting, hot sun, melting snow, etc.).

Description. The adult shows the child plot pictures depicting the seasons, names each of them, and the child must arrange them sequentially one after another, and then select suitable signs for each of them. If the child copes well with the task, you can name the signs found for each season.

5) Game “Find the differences (similarities)”

Objective: to teach children to compare objects that are similar at first glance, to find similarities and differences between them.

Equipment: pairs of pictures that differ from each other in some details that are not noticeable, chips.

Description. Children are asked to look at the pictures and find a certain number of differences (similar details) between them in a limited amount of time. For each difference, the child receives a chip. Whoever collects the most chips is considered the winner.

6) Game “What goes with what?”

Task: to develop logical thinking, the ability to correctly associate with each other objects that are suitable in meaning or purpose.

Equipment: a general picture in which subject pictures from different pairs are mixed, or separate cards with images of 3-4 objects, two of which fit together.

Description. An adult shows the child a general picture or a card with 3-4 objects, and the child must choose from them and name a couple that match each other.

For example, a key and a lock, an album and a pencil (paints), a hammer and nails, a table and a chair, etc. If necessary, an adult can help the child by naming one of a pair of suitable objects, and the child finds and names the other.

7) Game “What comes next?”

Objective: to develop in children an understanding of the sequence and the ability to continue it.

Equipment: a given sequence of 3-4 objects or pictures.

Description. The adult shows the child a sequence of objects or a series of pictures, as well as several individual objects from this series. The child must choose from the individual objects the one that will continue the row.

Game “Guess the object by its part”

Objective: to develop spatial concepts and logical thinking of children.

Equipment: individual elements of the whole picture, an object picture with an empty space for this element.

Description. The adult shows the child a part (a separate element) of the picture, and he must guess and name the object depicted on it. At first, you can use a sample picture with an empty space for the missing element.

9) Game "Mailbox"

Objective: to teach children to correlate geometric shapes with holes corresponding to their shape, to develop fine motor skills.

Equipment: cube (box) with holes of different shapes, geometric shapes according to the number of these holes: oval, circle, triangle, rectangle, rhombus, star, crescent, cross, etc.

Description. The child must lower the figure into the corresponding hole.

At first, an adult can show him how to turn the cube over in search of a suitable “house”, how easily and effortlessly the figure lowers into its hole. At this stage, it is allowed to find the appropriate hole by trial and error.

10) Game “Find two identical objects”

Task: to teach children to compare objects and find the same ones among them.

Equipment: cards with a number of items of the same type, among which two are completely identical, and the rest have some differences.

Description. The child must look at the picture and find two objects that are completely identical in all respects from a number of similar ones.

11) Game “Place in order”

Objective: to develop logical thinking, coherent speech and imagination of children, the ability to arrange pictures in the correct sequence.

Equipment: a series of paintings (of 3-8 parts), connected by a single plot.

Description. The adult gives the child the task of looking at the pictures and putting them in order: what happened first, then, what at the end, then come up with a story based on these pictures. If a child finds it difficult to compose a story, an adult helps him by asking leading questions, starting phrases from the picture so that the child continues them, etc.

12) Game “Find an object that is different from others”

Objective: to develop in children attentiveness to detail, visual recognition of differences between objects that are similar at first glance.

Equipment: rows of 3-4 items that seem identical at first glance.

Description. First, the adult offers the child objects that differ in some fairly large element, then - small ones that require the child’s special visual attention to find them.

If necessary, in the first stages, an adult can help the child with leading questions.

13) Game “What is where?”

Objective: to develop in children the ability to distinguish between positions up and down, inside and outside, right and left, in the middle.

Equipment: plot pictures in which objects occupy the position necessary to answer the question.

Description. The adult shows the child a picture and asks the corresponding question: “Show (name) first the one who is below, then the one who is above. Name the one who is in the middle, what lies inside, what is outside; the object on the right is on the left.” The child must show (or name) the object in the desired position.

14) Game “Guess by the contour”

Objective: to develop children’s spatial concepts, teach them to recognize objects by their external outlines.

Equipment: a general picture in which the contours of objects are mixed up.

Description. The child examines the picture, trying to see by the contours what objects are drawn on it and name them.

14) Game “I’m learning to count”

Objective: to develop children’s logical thinking, practice counting skills and counting operations within 10.

Equipment: cards with drawn winners of addition, subtraction, comparison of objects, cut out elements: numbers from 1 to 10, signs +, -, =, >, <, objects to add them to the corresponding task.

Description. First, together with an adult, then independently, the child learns to solve examples of addition, subtraction, match a number to the number of objects, compare objects by their number, distribute objects equally, insert a missing number or sign, add the missing number of objects to get a given number.

Child mental development - sequence

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

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

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

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

An important component of readiness to learn is cognitive activity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Game as a means of developing mental activity

The development of the mental activity of preschoolers is usually carried out during the game, but the game should be aimed at the mental development of the child and certain mental actions.

Thought Process - Comparison

Such an important mental operation as comparison requires great attention when working with preschoolers, since it is precisely this that underlies cognition. To recognize an object means to assign it to a certain category.

K.D. Ushinsky also said that if we encountered an object that we could not compare with anything and distinguish from anything, then we could not recognize it.

Comparison is inextricably linked with other mental operations: analysis - isolating individual parts, features of an object and synthesis - their combination.

After all, in order to compare objects on any basis, you need to highlight it in the objects that are being compared.

Thus, by teaching children to compare, we simultaneously teach them to identify and compare the characteristics of objects.

When developing the ability to compare in children, they need to be taught to do it consistently.

They must understand that comparisons are made in a certain order. If, for example, dolls are compared, then first you need to consider the hair, face, then arms, clothes, legs, shoes, size.

Comparison in a certain sequence provides the child with a suitable analysis of all selected features.

The development of analysis and comparison ensures in preschoolers the formation of more complex mental operations of classification and generalization, that is, the unification of objects and phenomena into groups and classes based on common characteristics.

For example, vegetables grow in a garden, fruits are fruits that grow on trees in a garden. The complexity of this process lies in the fact that objects are combined according to common, essential characteristics that do not coincide with external ones.

Each item has various characteristics by which it can be classified into one group or another. For example, there are notebooks for writing, mathematics, and drawing. To classify a particular notebook into a certain category, it is necessary to highlight a certain feature.

Grouping in mental activity

Preschoolers, when grouping objects, often rely on external, visible signs and therefore classify them incorrectly. Considering that the correctness of generalization ensures that children develop correct concepts about the world around them, much attention should be paid to the development of this operation. For this purpose, it is advisable to use various games.

For example, children are offered 16 drawings, from which they can form eight pairs based on generic characteristics (table, bed, trousers, shirt, cow, horse, apple, pear, shoes, boots, car, bus, carrot, cucumber, oak, birch).

We need to find a pair for each picture. When the kids complete the task, the teacher asks them to name each pair with a general word. If one of the children finds the task difficult, the teacher names one group himself. The teacher can prepare many versions of this game based on the material he has.

It is advisable to change the principle of grouping so that children understand that there are different connections between objects. Thus, you can offer images of objects that are combined with functional connections.

Classification as a thought process

The development of classification and generalization in children occurs better when they are taught to see several signs in objects in which they can be combined.

For example, a task that involves grouping objects taking into account two characteristics - functionality and size. Children must choose from among the drawings depicted on individual cards, those that are suitable in meaning and size to those presented on the large card.

These types of games serve this purpose well. Pupils are offered individual drawings depicting a cow, horse, pig, goat, hare, mouse, tiger, lion, bear, chicken, duck, goose, sparrow, swallow, turkey, crow, bullfinch. The teacher asks the children to divide the pictures into two groups and name each group in one word.

Kids, having ideas about animals and birds, do this without difficulty. Next, the teacher gives the children drawings that depict only animals and asks them to divide them into two groups, but does not explain how. Children must separate wild animals from domestic ones. If children cannot cope with this on their own, various types of help are possible:

1. the teacher himself puts the tiger in one direction, the cow in the other and invites the children to group them themselves - this is a visual aid;
2. The teacher asks the children to remember which animals live where; this help involves updating their knowledge.

After this, drawings depicting birds are used in the same way. Children must first divide them into wild and domestic.

Such games, while developing the ability to generalize objects according to various characteristics, at the same time clarify and enrich children’s knowledge, preparing them for learning.

The development of mental activity presupposes the formation in children of the ability to think, reason, and see cause-and-effect relationships in phenomena. This process successfully occurs when the teacher not only imparts new knowledge to the pupils, but also activates their thinking, encouraging children to use their knowledge of familiar phenomena to explain new ones.

This activation occurs during the conversation. The teacher, for example, asks the children: “Think and explain why there is a lot of water in the river in the spring?”

If the children cannot answer right away, the teacher helps them with additional questions to reproduce their knowledge about snow and spring. Eventually, the children understand the phenomenon they were asked about.

Stages of development of thinking in children

Psychologists distinguish three types of thinking characteristic of childhood:

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

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

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

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

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

Questions as a stimulus for thought

The questions that require children to think can be different, but they should all be aimed at activating their existing knowledge.

For example, what does a plant grow from?

• What kind of transport is called water transport?
• Which one is ground-based?
• Which one is airborne?
• Why doesn't a ball sink in water, but a round stone does?
• Will a snow woman become warm if she is dressed in a fur coat?
• What do birds that fly to warmer regions for the winter eat?
• Why is the balloon big but light?
• Why do puddles quickly disappear after rain in summer?
• Why does snow begin to melt in spring?
• Do trees grow in winter?
• Why, when a bouquet is placed in a vase, is water poured into it?
• Why does a duck have webbing between its toes, but a chicken does not?