How to develop thinking in a child. Why is it important to develop critical thinking in children? Fundamentals of mental activity of a preschooler. Prerequisites for abstract-logical thinking

Practice compliance. Matching games can enhance perceptual reasoning by developing children's ability to recognize and compare visual information. There are an almost infinite number of ways to train compliance, but to get started, try:

  • Color matching. Challenge the children to find as many blue things as they can, then as many red things as they can, and so on. You can ask them to find objects or things in the room that are the same color as their shirt or eyes.
  • Matching shapes and sizes. Take cubes and blocks of various shapes and sizes and ask the children to assemble them according to the shape or size, and if the children are already quite developed, then in two ways at once.
  • Write the letters on cards or paper and ask the children to find the ones that match. After this skill is mastered, you can move on to short and longer words.
  • Ask the children to match the word with the picture. This game strengthens the connection between the written word and the visual image. There are similar cards and games on the market designed to develop this skill, but you can also make your own.
  • Encourage children to find objects or things that start with a certain letter. This game strengthens the bonds between a certain letter or sound and the objects and people whose name or name begins with them.
  • Play memory training games. Memory training games develop both skills - matching and memory. For such games, paired cards with different symbols are usually used. Cards are flipped front side down (after they have been reviewed), and the players must find the appropriate ones in the new deck.

Work on your ability to spot differences. Part of figurative thinking includes the ability to distinguish and determine on the fly what belongs to a certain group of objects and what does not. There are many simple exercises that can help children develop these skills. For example:

  • Try using pictures "Find the odd one". They are in magazines, books and on the Internet. The items in the picture may be similar, but children need to look carefully and find these small differences between them.
  • Encourage children to find objects that do not belong to them. Combine a group of items - say three apples and a pencil - and ask which object does not belong to them. As you progress, you can come up with more difficult tasks: use an apple, an orange, a banana and a ball, for example, then an apple, an orange, a banana and a carrot.
  • Train your visual memory. Show the children pictures, then hide some or all of them. Ask them to describe what they saw. Alternatively, show the children a number of items, set them aside, and ask them to name as many as they can.

    • Encourage the children to talk about the pictures they have seen. After they have described them, tell them stories about the items depicted, compare with other pictures.
  • Develop attention to detail. Show the children a picture with words or pictures and ask them to find as many as they can.

    Put together puzzles. Playing with various puzzles, children train their visual perception: they turn the puzzle pieces, connect them and represent the picture as a whole. This is a key skill in mathematics.

  • Teach children where is the right, where is the left. Orientation in which is right, which is left, is part of the perceptual and visual perception. Explain the difference between left and right side in the hands of a child, taking as a basis the one with which he writes. Strengthen knowledge, ask the child to take the object in left hand with your own or wave your right hand - use whatever comes to mind.

    • It is helpful for children at their early age to explain the concept of arrows showing direction. Show the children pictures of left and right arrows and ask them to guess the direction.
  • The mind of a child undergoes many changes during development. Thinking allows a person to understand what surrounds him and how to interact with it. Scientists believe that this is the highest mental function of a person (in animals it is almost undeveloped). Visual-figurative thinking in children preschool age is dominant.

    Why should it be developed

    Thinking develops gradually. There are several main types. The first one is visual and effective. It is formed in the process of manipulations with different objects. In infancy and early childhood, this is the leading type of thinking. Toddlers are actively learning miscellaneous items and try to use them. A variety of sensations stimulate activity nervous system and this contributes to the development of visual-figurative thinking in children.

    It occurs at about four years of age. At this stage, children no longer have to touch the object with their hands, manipulate it, they still do not have concepts, but they think in images. In their imagination they can draw different objects and phenomena. All this allows you to stimulate the creative side of the individual.

    The development of imaginative thinking is important for several reasons:

    • It is essential for successful learning activities, since the student has to operate with different images to solve problems. The more clearly he imagines the situation, the easier it will be for him to cope with it.
    • Formation of craving for beauty.
    • Stimulating an emotional response to aesthetics.

    It is also important for the formation of the next stage - the abstract-logical one. It is this type that is necessary for learning and further independent living.

    Stages of the formation of thinking

    In children's educational institutions special classes are held. They take into account all stages of the development of figurative thinking:

    1. In children after three years, a topological structure is formed. The kid can easily divide the pictures into two groups: in one he will put the images of closed geometric shapes, and in the other - open (spirals, horseshoes, etc.).
    2. The second structure is projective. It is easy to detect during the observation of babies. It is enough to give them a simple task - to protect the house with columns. Children before four years will do it in the form of a wavy trajectory. They don't care about form yet. Over time, they begin to build columns in a straight line.
    3. The third structure is ordinal. It allows you to form the principle of "preservation". In other words, the child begins to understand that pouring liquid from a narrow vessel into a wide one did not change the volume of water. This structure allows him to be taught elementary mathematical concepts.

    Knowledge psychological characteristics development of visual-figurative thinking of preschoolers allows you to effectively conduct training sessions. Studies have shown that for the formation it is important to follow the sequence of development of structures.

    Education in kindergarten is still taking place in a simplified form, but even it performs a number of tasks. Children get used to work in a team, actively explore the world. They form ideas about the world around them, and they learn different types of activities. The development of artistic and imaginative thinking in the learning process is carried out in different ways.

    Options for classes and exercises

    Not only professional teachers, but also parents can deal with the development of the child. For this, it is not necessary to use special materials. The most accessible way is walking in parks and forests. Watching plants, birds and animals brings not only positive emotions, but also develops a sense of beauty.

    Drawing will help develop imaginative thinking in a child. It can be done from memory or from nature. A good exercise is to create an abstraction, that is, something that does not exist in the outside world. The child is invited to draw emotions, music, etc.

    Any work with material (clay, salt dough, plasticine) contributes to the development of the design structure. Modeling can occur both from nature and under the influence of imagination. For application, it is better to use cardboard, paper and natural materials.

    You can offer to compare objects by size, shape, colors. This develops the skills of analysis and synthesis. This is facilitated by the collection of puzzles and designers.

    During the lesson with the child, it is important to follow the sequence:

    1. Demonstration of material on the topic;
    2. Story;
    3. Practice of joint activity;
    4. Independent work on the model;
    5. Creating something without prompts.

    Work must be carried out in a favorable environment. Parents always encourage the baby and approve even a slight success. This approach allows the formation of the motivational side of the personality. It is important not to overpraise the child, as this can lead to inflated self-esteem.

    You can ask the kid to come up with different fairy tales and stories. The impetus for their creation is any objects from environment: snags, clouds, leaves, etc. The parent himself begins the story, after inviting the preschooler to continue it. The same exercise is carried out with drawings. An adult draws a part of an object or a situation, and already the kid supplements it with details or paints.

    Preschoolers are introduced to the masterpieces of art, modern and ancient. They are told about various monuments of nature. Children are also introduced to folk crafts. All this allows you to form the prerequisites for aesthetic feelings.

    Origami is well suited for the development of figurative thinking. Paper crafting is easy to learn. Many children are fascinated by the process of turning flat paper into a three-dimensional object. Such work is carried out both together with the teacher, and independently. As a result of the activity, the child receives a new image.

    Various applications help fine and general motor skills. In this type of creativity, preschoolers realize their vision of the world and abilities. During the lesson, children get acquainted with colors, shapes and other features of objects. Designing allows you to learn how to plan your actions.

    Sewing also develops imaginative thinking and spatial imagination, Joint sewing of toys with mom or dad is a good pastime for children and their parents. Every home has everything that is needed for this: some fabric, ribbons, buttons, etc. You should not give your baby a real needle, even special children's sewing kits with plastic needles are sold, which allow avoiding injury to the child.

    As you can see, there are plenty of ways to develop this type of thinking, choose any. It is important to remember that children must do all the main work themselves. Parents should supervise the process, giving a little advice and deed when needed.

    The mental activity of a person is extremely multifaceted, because each of us has to solve a wide variety of tasks every day. This feature of thinking allows us to distinguish its types: subject-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical, which begin to develop in preschool age. That is why it is necessary to provide conditions for the full development of the child's thinking. First of all, figurative thinking deserves attention, as it is predominant among preschoolers and younger schoolchildren. Success in the assimilation of kindergarten and school programs largely depends on it. Psychologists have proven that intelligence is formed in preschoolers on the basis of imaginative thinking. It helps younger students to build a scientific picture of the world, to develop an attentive attitude to surrounding objects, to form the ability to see the beauty around them. All this develops creativity and imagination, influences the choice of profession in the future. For example, this kind of thinking is inherent in people of creative professions: artists, writers, designers, architects.

    By scientific definition figurative thinking is the ability to mentally represent, reproduce the world in the form of images of objects and phenomena. Caring parents, aimed at the full upbringing of your baby, is it worth thinking about how to develop imaginative thinking?

    Stepping on the steps of the development of figurative thinking in children

    Important: even a slight lag in the development of figurative thinking in children can lead to psychological problems, for example, the inability to formulate one's thoughts, act with systems of images during training, and create new images in creative activities.

    To prevent this from happening, parents need to know that at each age stage there are their own approaches to the formation of thinking. Figuratively speaking, we are gradually stepping through the stages of development of visually figurative thinking:

    Achievements of the child at each age stage

    What are the ways to develop imaginative thinking in children?

    Important: parents for the development of visual figurative thinking in preschool children at home are best helped by means that are simple, accessible and understandable to adults themselves (games, communication). Wherein big role the activity of the parent, his way of life will play, since a parental example is half the success in raising your own child.

    Experts suggest!

    Means that help the development of imaginative thinking are classical and modern. All of them can be useful for children, but for homework their main advantage should be: easy-to-select visual material (pictures, toys, household items), interesting non-monotonic actions (game movements, actions with scissors, paints, pencils, joint conversations) , availability in display and performance.

    The most popular means of developing figurative thinking:

    • board games (cut pictures, loto, dominoes, liners);
    • creative pursuits: modeling, application, drawing, macrame;
    • reading children's books, encyclopedias, magazines;
    • riddles, charades, rebuses;
    • watching movies and cartoons about the world;
    • family leisure, holidays, travel;
    • walks in nature: in the country, in the forest, in the park;
    • social events: holidays, sports competitions, hiking trips.

    Games and exercises for preschoolers and younger students

    Mothers and their babies game

    Develops figurative thinking, enriches the dictionary, promotes the establishment of semantic connections. You can play with children of all ages, the difference is that for kids the number of familiar animals is up to 5-7 (pets and zoo animals), for middle and older preschool children the volume of visual material increases and becomes more complicated. Children reproduce images of those animals that they could only see in pictures (giraffe, hippopotamus, koala). The adult offers pictures of adult animals for consideration, the child must pick up a card with the image of a cub. To maintain interest in children, you can use an artistic word (riddles, songs, rhymes):

    Easy to recognize a giraffe
    It's easy to find out:
    He is tall
    And sees far.

    White bear - to the pole.
    Brown bear - through the forest.
    This one sat on a eucalyptus,
    Leaves eats and sleeps a lot (koala).

    Game "Wonderful bag"

    The classic favorite game of children of all ages, including primary schoolchildren, helps to fix the images of objects, mentally reproduce them. For kids, these will be familiar toys, the signs of which they know well, for example, a small, soft, fluffy (bear). And older children can put new objects in, which they themselves must identify by touch, or find according to the description of the presenter: “Find a round, smooth, cold, small (mirror) in the bag.”

    Exercise "Magic Glasses"

    Develops the ability to group objects according to their characteristic feature, fixing stable images - patterns. A little preparation is required, an adult cuts glasses of a certain shape from thick paper, for example, square or oval. The child can choose glasses himself or complete the task at the direction of an adult. The box collects all the items of the form in which the glasses are worn by the player. For example, round glasses - a saucer, a mirror, a ring, a lid; square glasses - a cube, a box, a napkin.

    Exercise "Riddles - riddles"

    It helps to develop figurative thinking, as it forms in children the ability to mentally imagine, and then reproduce the object according to its characteristics. You need to start solving riddles as early as possible, when the child is just getting to know the world around him. Then the baby will early form the ability to correlate the word and the image. For small children, those objects are thought of, the signs of which are pronounced and the children know them well, for example, vegetables, fruits, toys, vehicles.

    This fruit tastes good
    It looks like a light bulb (pear)!

    Himself scarlet, sugar,
    Green caftan, velvet (watermelon).

    round, ruddy,
    I'll get it from the tree.
    I put on a plate:
    "Eat, mommy!" - I will say (apple).

    For older preschoolers and younger schoolchildren, riddles become more complicated, children learn to see a real object behind the description of the image, to understand the system of images. Children are taught that one and the same subject can be said in different ways (short, simple or complex, colorful). The subject of riddles is also becoming more complicated, riddles are used about inanimate and living nature, the plant world, different types transport, tools, professions of people, household items. Here is how, for example, the same image (snow) can be presented in different ways.

    The tablecloth is white, dressed the whole world.

    Bel, but not sugar,
    No legs, but walking.

    fluffy carpet
    Not hand-woven,
    Not sewn with silk,
    With the sun, with the moon
    Shines silver.

    There was a blanket
    soft, white,
    The earth was warm.
    The wind blew
    The blanket bent.
    The sun is hot,
    The blanket is leaking.

    Jenga

    Family board games are becoming increasingly popular, which diversify leisure time, make communication between children and adults more interesting and rich. It helps to form the ability to see the future, which contributes to the development of visual figurative thinking in preschool children. Such games are presented in a variety of children's stores, they can be ordered on the Internet. Board game"Jenga" is widely known around the world, most often it is called the Tower. It is considered to be an almost perfect family game. Its basis is that players build a tower from wooden blocks, starting each new floor by pulling out a block from the bottom one and building the building straight up. The winner is the one who collapsed the tower the least or never broke it. To increase the interest of the players, the bars can be decorated in various colors or even make changes to the rules of "Jengi" - for example, play forfeits by writing on various bars funny tasks that the loser performs.

    Imaginarium

    Another family interesting game in which you need to come up with associations to unusual pictures. You can play with older children, as experience is required. Increases the possibility of developing visually figurative thinking of younger students. According to the conditions, one participant comes up with an association to his card, and the rest try to guess it. On each new turn, the next player becomes the leader. The hidden card is laid out on the table face down. After the host has made an association, the other players look at their cards and choose the one that, in their opinion, corresponds to the invented association. The selected cards are laid out face down on the table and shuffled. Then the host opens the cards and lays them out on the table in one row with the face up. The task of all participants is to guess which card the presenter made up. The guesser receives three points and advances his chip (elephant) forward on the playing field. The presenter also moves his elephant forward by one point for each guesser of the association. The one who reaches the finish line the fastest wins.

    Dear parents! Your active participation in the upbringing of the child will provide an opportunity to fully develop imaginative thinking, which will help children to successfully study at school and follow the right path of choosing a profession.

    Sections: Working with preschoolers

    Classes: d/s, 1

    Keywords: logical thinking, visual action thinking

    Thinking in children younger age develops - from perception to visual-effective thinking, and then to visual-figurative and logical thinking.

    The development of thinking in early and preschool age. The first thought processes arise in the child as a result of the knowledge of the properties and relations of the objects surrounding him in the process of their perception and in the course of the experience of his own actions with objects, as a result of acquaintance with a number of phenomena occurring in the surrounding reality. Consequently, the development of perception and thinking are closely related, and the first glimpses of children's thinking are of a practical (effective) nature, i.e. they are inseparable from the objective activity of the child. This form of thinking is called "visual-effective" and is the earliest.

    Visual-effective thinking arises where a person encounters new conditions and a new way of solving a problematic practical task. The child encounters tasks of this type throughout childhood - in everyday and play situations.

    An important feature of visual-effective thinking is that practical action, which is carried out by the trial method, serves as a way to transform the situation. When revealing the hidden properties and connections of an object, children use the trial and error method, which in certain life circumstances is necessary and the only one. This method is based on discarding incorrect options for action and fixing the correct, effective ones and, thus, performs the role of a mental operation.

    When solving problematic practical problems, there is an identification, “discovery of the properties and relationships of objects or phenomena, hidden, internal properties of objects are revealed. The ability to obtain new information in the process of practical transformations is directly related to the development of visual-effective thinking.

    How does the child's mind develop? The first manifestations of visual-effective thinking can be observed at the end of the first - beginning of the second year of life. With the mastery of walking, the child's encounters with new objects expand significantly. Moving around the room, touching objects, moving them and manipulating them, the child constantly encounters obstacles, difficulties, looks for a way out, making extensive use of trials, attempts, etc. in these cases. In actions with objects, the child moves away from simple manipulation and proceeds to object-play actions that correspond to the properties of the objects with which they act: for example, he does not knock with a stroller, but rolls it; he puts the doll on the bed; puts the cup on the table; interferes with a spoon in a saucepan, etc. Performing various actions with objects (feeling, stroking, throwing, examining, etc.), he practically learns both the external and hidden properties of objects, discovers some connections that exist between objects. So, when one object hits another, noise occurs, one object can be inserted into another, two objects, colliding, can move in different directions, etc. As a result, the object becomes, as it were, a conductor of the child's influence on another object, i.e. effective actions can be performed not only by direct impact with the hand on the object, but also with the help of another object - indirectly. The object, as a result of the accumulation of some experience in its use, is assigned the role of a means by which one can obtain desired result. Formed qualitatively new form activities - instrumental, when the child uses auxiliary means to achieve the goal.

    Children get acquainted with auxiliary objects first of all in everyday life. Children are fed, and then they themselves eat with a spoon, drink from a cup, etc., they begin to use aids when they need to get something, fix it, move it, etc. The child's experience gained in solving practical problems is fixed in the methods of action. Gradually, the child generalizes his experience and begins to use it in various conditions. For example, if a child has learned to use a stick to bring a toy closer to him, then he takes out a toy that has rolled under the cabinet with the help of another one that is suitable in shape and length: a toy-shovel, net, stick, etc. The generalization of the experience of activity with objects prepares the generalization of experience in the word, i.e. prepares the formation of visual-effective thinking in the child.

    The development of objective activity and its “verbalization” in a child occurs with the active participation of the people around him. Adults set certain tasks for the child, show ways to solve them, name actions. The inclusion of a word denoting the action being performed qualitatively changes the thought process of the child, even if he does not yet speak colloquial speech. The action denoted by the word acquires the character of a generalized method for solving a group of homogeneous practical problems and is easily transferred to other similar situations. Being included in the practical activity of the child, speech, even at first only audible, as if from within restructures the process of his thinking. Changing the content of thinking requires its more advanced forms, and already in the process of visual-effective thinking, the prerequisites for visual-figurative thinking are formed.

    In the younger preschool age, profound changes take place both in the content and in the forms of visual-effective thinking. A change in the content of children's visual-effective thinking leads to a change in its structure. Using his generalized experience, the child can mentally prepare, foresee the nature of subsequent events.

    Visual-effective thinking contains all the main components of mental activity: goal setting, analysis of conditions, choice of means of achievement. When solving a practical problem task, orienting actions are manifested not only on the external properties and qualities of objects, but also on the internal relationships of objects in a certain situation. At preschool age, the child is already freely oriented in the conditions of the practical tasks that arise before him, he can independently find a way out of the problem situation. A problem situation is understood as a situation in which it is impossible to act in the usual ways, but you need to transform your past experience, find new ways to use it.

    The basis for the formation of visual-effective thinking of preschoolers is the development of independent orientation and research activities in solving problem-practical problems, as well as the formation of the main functions of speech. In turn, this makes it possible to strengthen the weak relationship between the main components of cognition: action, word, and image.
    In the process of acting with objects, the preschooler has a motive for his own statements: reasoning, conclusions. On this basis, images-representations are formed, which become more flexible, dynamic. When performing actions with objects and changing the real situation, the child creates a fundamental basis for the formation of images-representations. Thus, the visual-practical situation is a kind of stage in the establishment of a strong connection between action and word in a preschooler. Based on this connection, full-fledged images-representations can be built.

    Formation of the relationship between word and image

    The ability to correctly represent the situation according to its verbal description is a necessary prerequisite for the development of figurative forms of thinking and speech of the child. It underlies the formation of the mechanism of mental operation with images of the recreating imagination. In the future, this allows you to perform adequate actions according to instructions, solve intellectual problems, and plan. Thus, this skill is the foundation of high-quality, purposeful voluntary activity.

    It is the relationship between word and image that forms the basis for the development of elements of logical thinking.

    Tasks for the formation of skills to find a toy or object according to a verbal description, consolidation of ideas about the environment.

    TASK "GUESS!"

    Equipment: toys: ball, matryoshka, Christmas tree, hedgehog, bunny, mouse.

    Course progress. The teacher shows the children a beautiful box and says: "Let's look at what is there." The teacher examines all the toys with the children and asks them to remember. Then he covers the toys with a napkin and says: "Now I will tell you about one toy, and you can guess which toy I'm talking about." The teacher tells the poem: “Round, rubber, rolls, they beat him, but he does not cry, only jumps higher, higher.” In case of difficulty, he opens the napkin and repeats the description of the toy with the direct perception of it by the children. After the child chooses a toy according to the description, he is asked to tell about it: “Tell me about this toy. What is she like?

    The lesson continues, the teacher talks about other toys.

    MISSION "FIND THE BALL!"

    Equipment: five balls: red small, big red with white stripe, big blue, small green with white stripe, big green with white stripe.

    Course progress. Children are shown one by one all the balls and asked to remember them. Then the teacher closes all the balls with a napkin. After that, he gives a description of one of the balls in the form of a story. He says: "Vova brought the ball to Kindergarten. The ball was big, red, with a white stripe. Find the ball that Vova brought. We'll play with him." The teacher opens the napkin and asks the child to choose the ball that he spoke about. In case of difficulty or an erroneous choice, the teacher repeats the description of the ball, while the balls remain open. If this technique does not help the child, then clarifying questions should be used: “What is the largest ball that Vova brought? What colour? What was painted on the ball? What color is the stripe?

    After the child chooses the ball, he is asked to tell which ball he chose, i.e. justify your choice in a speech statement. Then the children stand in a circle and play with this ball. The game can be continued by offering the children a description of another ball. By such methods, the teacher draws the attention of children to the consideration and analysis of the external signs of toys, which, in turn, contributes to the connection of these signs with the child's own speech.

    Equipment: stencils depicting animals: hare, crocodile, giraffe; rectangles representing cells; toys: a hare, a crocodile, a giraffe and a building set - bricks.

    Course progress. The teacher offers the children to help “settle” the animals in the cages of the zoo, he says: “There are three cages free in the zoo, they are different in size: one is small, low; the other is large and very tall; the third is large and very long. Animals brought to the zoo: a crocodile, a hare and a giraffe. Help put these animals in cages that are comfortable for them. Tell us which animal should be placed in which cage. In case of difficulty, the teacher offers the children to build cages from bricks and place animals in these cages. After practical activities children are asked to tell which animals they “placed” in which cages and why.

    TASK "WHO LIVES WHERE?"

    TASK "GUESS AND DRAW!"

    TASK "TOY HALF"

    Equipment: for each player - a collapsible toy (or object): a mushroom, a car, a hammer, an airplane, an umbrella, a fishing rod, a spatula; bags for each player.

    Lesson progress. Children are given one half of the toy in bags and are offered to guess the toy by touch, without naming it out loud. Then you need to tell about it so that the other child, who will have a soul mate from this toy, guesses and shows his soul mate. After that, the children connect both halves and make a whole toy.

    Puzzles.

    • Hat and leg - that's the whole Yermoshka (mushroom).
    • Cabin and body, yes four wheels, two brilliant lights, not buzzing, but buzzing and running down the street (car).
    • Wooden neck, iron beak, knock, knock, knock (a hammer).
    • What kind of bird: does not sing songs, does not build nests, carries people and cargo (airplane).
    • On a clear day I stand in the corner, on a rainy day I go for a walk, you carry me over you, but what am I - tell yourself (umbrella).
    • Thread on a stick, stick in hand, and thread in water (fishing rod).
    • I walk next to the janitor, shovel the snow all around and help the guys make a hill, build a house (scapula).

    When repeating the game, you need to put other toys in bags.

    TASK "PICTURE HALF"

    Equipment: subject cut pictures in two parts: scissors, watering can, leaves, turnip, fishing rod, glasses, cucumber, carrot, snowflake; envelopes.

    Lesson progress. Children are given one part of the split picture in envelopes and are offered to consider it without showing it to other children. Having guessed the object shown in the split picture, the child must draw the whole object. Then each child makes a riddle to the children or talks about the object shown in the picture (or describes it: what shape, color, where it grows, what it is for, etc.). After the children have guessed the riddle, the child shows his answer drawing. In case of difficulty, the teacher invites the child to make a riddle with him.

    Puzzles.

    • Two ends, two rings, studs in the middle (scissors).
    • The cloud is made of plastic, and the cloud has a handle. This cloud went around the garden bed in order (watering can).
    • Green ones grow on a tree in spring, and gold coins fall from a branch in autumn. (leaves).
    • Round, but not onions, yellow, but not butter, sweet, but not sugar, with a tail, but not a mouse (turnip).
    • What is in front of us: two shafts behind the ears, in front of the eyes on the wheel and a seat on the nose? (glasses).
    • I have a magic wand, friends. With this stick I can build: a tower, a house, and an airplane, and a huge ship. What is the name of this wand? (pencil).
    • It slips away like a living thing, but I won't let it out. White foam foams, hands are not lazy to wash (soap).
    • The red nose is rooted into the ground, and the green tail is outside. We don't need a green tail, we just need a red nose (carrot).
    • In the summer in the garden - fresh, green, and in the winter in a barrel - green, salty, guess, well done, what are our names ...? (cucumbers).
    • A white star fell from the sky, fell on my palm and disappeared (snowflake).
    • When playing the game again, children should be offered other pictures.

    Tasks for the formation of skills to perform classification

    Target- to teach children to distinguish between essential and secondary, to combine objects for various reasons, into one group based on common features.

    Games and tasks "Grouping of objects (pictures)" without a sample and without a generalizing word. The goal is to teach children to use a visual model when solving elementary logical tasks for classification.

    GAME "DEPLOY THE TOYS!"

    Equipment: a set of toys of different sizes (three each): nesting dolls, bells, vases, houses, Christmas trees, bunnies, hedgehogs, cars; three identical boxes.

    Course progress. The teacher shows the toys to the children and says: “These toys should be put into three boxes. Each box should contain toys that are similar to each other. Think about which toys you put in one box, which ones in another, and which ones in a third. If the child lays out the toys in random order, the teacher helps him: “Which toys are similar to each other, choose them (for example, nesting dolls). How are these matryoshkas different from each other? Put them in boxes." Then the teacher gives the child bells and asks to distribute them to nesting dolls: “Think about which bell you will give to the largest nesting doll.” Next, the child lays out the toys himself and generalizes the principle of grouping. The teacher asks: "Tell me which toys you put in the first box, which - in the second, and which - in the third." In case of difficulty, he summarizes himself: “In one box - the smallest toys; in the other - more, and in the third - the largest.

    GAME "DEPLOY THE PICTURES!"

    Equipment: pictures depicting objects: vehicles, dishes, furniture (eight of each type).

    Course progress. The teacher shows the children a set of pictures and asks them to divide them into several groups so that the pictures in each group are somewhat similar. In case of difficulty, the teacher gives the child the instruction as the basis for grouping: “Choose all the pictures with the image of dishes. Now let's see where the furniture is, ”etc. After the child has laid out all the pictures, it is necessary to help him formulate the principle of grouping: "In one group, all the pictures depicting dishes, in the other - furniture, and in the third - transport."

    GAME "DEPLOY THE OBJECTS!"

    Equipment: a set of eight toys and objects for various purposes, but some are wooden, while others are plastic: cars, pyramids, mushrooms, plates, beads, cubes, houses, two Christmas trees; two identical boxes.

    Course progress. The teacher examines with the child all the toys one at a time (not in pairs), and then says: “These toys must be laid out in two boxes so that each box contains toys that are somewhat similar to each other.” In case of difficulty, the teacher takes the first pair of toys - Christmas trees - puts them side by side and asks the children to compare: "How do these Christmas trees differ from each other?" If the children cannot find the main difference, the teacher draws the attention of the children to the material from which these toys are made. Then the children act on their own. At the end of the game, it is necessary to generalize the principle of grouping: “In one box - everything wooden Toys, and in the other - all plastic.

    TASK "DRAW A PICTURE!"

    Equipment: 24 cards with the image of fish, birds and animals (eight of each type); three envelopes.

    Course progress. The teacher tells the children: “Someone mixed up my pictures. It is necessary to decompose these pictures into three envelopes so that the pictures are somewhat similar to each other. On each envelope, you need to draw such a picture so that it is clear what pictures are there. The teacher does not interfere in the process of completing the task, even if the child performs the task incorrectly. After the child lays out the pictures, the teacher says: “Tell me, what pictures did you put in this envelope, why? How are they similar to each other? etc. In case of difficulty, the teacher gives samples for laying out the pictures in envelopes. Then he asks the child to name this group of pictures in one word and draw a picture on the envelope.

    TASK "PAIR PICTURES"

    Equipment: eight pairs of pictures, which depict the same objects, only one - in the singular, and others - in the plural: one cube - three cubes; one chicken - five chickens; one pencil - two pencils; one apple - four apples; one nesting doll - three nesting dolls; one flower - eight flowers; one cherry - seven cherries; one machine - six machines.

    Lesson progress. The teacher gives the child to look at all the pictures, and then suggests that they be divided into two groups: “Decompose them so that in each group there are pictures that are somewhat similar to each other.” Regardless of how the child lays out the pictures, the teacher does not interfere. After the child has laid out the pictures, the teacher asks: “Which pictures did you put in one group, and which in another?” Then he proposes to explain the principle of grouping. In case of difficulty, the teacher asks the child to choose one pair of booths, compare them, explain how they differ. After that, it is again proposed to decompose the pictures according to the model, and then explain the principle of grouping.

    word games

    “WHAT IS ROUND AND WHAT IS OVAL?”

    Course progress. The teacher asks the child to name as many round and oval objects as possible. The child starts the game. If he cannot name, the teacher begins: “I remembered, the apple is round, and the testicle is oval. Now you go on. Remember what shape is a plum, and what is a gooseberry? That's right, the plum is oval, and the gooseberry is round. (Helps the child name objects and compare them in shape: ring-fish, hedgehog-ball, cherry-cherry leaf, watermelon-melon, acorn-raspberry, tomato-eggplant, sunflower-seed, zucchini-apple). In case of difficulty, the teacher shows the child a set of pictures and together they arrange them into two groups.

    "FLY - DOES NOT FLY"

    Course progress. The teacher invites the children to quickly name objects when he says the word “flies”, and then name other objects when he says the word “does not fly”. The teacher says: "Flies." Children call: “Crow, plane, butterfly, mosquito, fly, rocket, dove”, etc. Then the teacher says: "Does not fly." Children call: “Bicycle, camomile, cup, dog, pencil, kitten”, etc. The game continues: the words “flies”, “does not fly” are called by one of the children, and the teacher names the objects together with the children. The game can be played while walking.

    "EDIBLE-INEDIBLE"

    The game is played by analogy with the previous one.

    "LIVING-NON-LIVING"

    The game is played by analogy with the game "Flies does not fly".

    "WHAT HAPPENS DOWN AND WHAT HAPPENS ABOVE?"

    Lesson progress. The teacher invites the children to think and name what happens only at the top. If the children find it difficult, he prompts: “Let's look up, above us is the sky. Does it happen below? No, it always happens only at the top. And what else happens only at the top? Where are the clouds? (stars, moon). Now think about what happens only below? Look at the ground. Where does the grass grow? Where does she go? » (plants, reservoirs, earth, sand, stones, etc.). After that, the children independently list the objects of nature that are only above, and those that are only below.

    "WHAT IS SWEET?"

    Course progress. The teacher offers the children: “Listen carefully, I will call something that is sweet. And if I make a mistake, then I must be stopped, I must say: “Stop!” The teacher says: "Sugar, marshmallows, raspberries, strawberries, lemon." The children listen carefully and stop him on the word where he "wrong". Then the children themselves name what is sweet.

    "ANSWER QUICKLY"

    Equipment: ball.

    Lesson progress. The teacher, holding the ball in his hands, becomes a circle with the children and explains the rules of the game: “Now I will name some color and throw a ball to one of you. The one who catches the ball must name an object of the same color. Then he himself calls any other color and throws the ball to the next one. He also catches the ball, names the object, then his color, etc.” For example, “Green,” the teacher says (makes a short pause, giving the children the opportunity to remember green objects) and throws the ball to Vitya. “Grass,” Vitya answers and, saying: “Yellow”, throws the ball to the next one. The same color can be repeated several times, as there are many objects of the same color.

    The main feature for classification can be not only color, but also the quality of the object. The beginner says, for example: "Wooden", and throws the ball. “Table,” the child who caught the ball answers, and offers his word: “Stone”. “House,” the next player answers and says: “Iron”, etc. The next time, the form is taken as the main feature. The teacher says the word "round" and throws the ball to any player. “The sun,” he replies and names another shape, such as “square”, throwing the ball to the next player. He names the object square shape(window, handkerchief, book) and offers some form. The same shape can be repeated several times, since many objects have the same shape. When repeating, the game can be made more difficult by offering to name not one, but two or more objects.

    "WHAT ARE THEY LIKE?"

    Course progress. The teacher invites the children to look around and find two objects that are somewhat similar to each other. He says: “I will call: the sun-chicken. How do you think they are similar to each other? Yes, that's right, they are similar in color to each other. And here are two more items: a glass and a window. How are they similar to each other? And now each of you will name your two similar objects.
    Games to eliminate the fourth "extra" word.

    "BE CAREFUL!"

    Course progress. The teacher tells the children: “I will name four words, one word does not fit here. You must listen carefully and name the "extra" word. For example: matryoshka, tumbler, cup, doll; table, sofa, flower, chair; chamomile, hare, dandelion, cornflower; horse, bus, tram, trolleybus; wolf, crow, dog, fox; sparrow, crow, dove, chicken; apple, tree, carrot, cucumber. After each highlighted "extra" word, the teacher asks the child to explain why this word does not fit into this group of words, i.e. explain the principle of grouping.

    "GUESS WHAT WORD IS NOT GOOD!"

    Course progress. The teacher says that this game is similar to the previous one, only here the words are combined differently. He further explains: “I will name the words, and you think about how three words are similar, and one is not similar. Name the extra word. The teacher says: “Cat, house, nose, car. What word doesn't fit? In case of difficulty, he himself compares these words by sound composition. Then he offers the children another series of words: frog, grandmother, duck, cat; drum, crane, machine, raspberry; birch, dog, wolf, kitten, etc. The teacher in each proposed series of words helps the child to compare the words according to the syllabic composition.

    "MAKE A WORD!"

    Course progress. The teacher invites the children to come up with words for a certain sound: “Now we will find out what words consist of. I say: sa-sa-sa - here comes the wasp. Shi-shi-shi - these are the kids. In the first case, I repeated the sound “s” a lot, and in the second, which sound did I call the most? - The sound "sh" is correct. Now you come up with words with the sound "s". The first word I will call is “sugar”, and now you name words with the sound “s”. Then, by analogy, the game continues with the sound "sh".

    "LISTEN CAREFULLY!"

    Course progress. The teacher says to the child: “I will name the words, and you will say which word does not fit: cat, bump, dress, hat; tractor, basket, rubber, elderberry; river, turnip, beets, carrots; book, crane, ball, cat; water, pen, janitor, cotton wool. In case of difficulty, he slowly repeats a certain set of words and helps the child to highlight the common sound in words. When the game is repeated, the teacher offers the children various options assignments to eliminate the fourth "extra".

    The study of child development is undoubtedly of great theoretical and practical interest. It is one of the main ways to in-depth knowledge of the nature of thinking and the laws of its development. The study of the ways in which a child's thinking develops is also of understandable practical pedagogical interest.

    The ability to think is gradually formed in the process of development of the child, the development of his cognitive activity. Cognition begins with the brain's reflection of reality in sensations and perceptions, which form the sensory basis of thinking.

    One can speak about a child's thinking from the time when he begins to reflect some of the simplest connections between objects and phenomena and to act correctly in accordance with them.

    A detailed study of thinking requires the identification and special analysis of its various processes, aspects, moments - abstraction and generalization, ideas and concepts, judgments and conclusions, etc. But the real process of thinking includes the unity and interconnection of all these aspects and moments.

    The intellectual development of the child is carried out in the course of his objective activity and communication, in the course of mastering social experience. Visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal logical thinking- successive stages of intellectual development. Genetically, the earliest form of thinking is visual-effective thinking, the first manifestations of which in a child can be observed at the end of the first - beginning of the second year of life, even before mastering active speech. Already the first objective actions of the child have a number of important features. When a practical result is achieved, some signs of an object and its relationship with other objects are revealed; the possibility of their knowledge acts as a property of any subject manipulation. The child encounters objects created by human hands, and so on. enters into subject-practical communication with other people. Initially, an adult is the main source and mediator of a child's acquaintance with objects and ways of using them. Socially developed generalized ways of using objects are the first knowledge (generalizations) that a child learns with the help of an adult from social experience.

    Visual-figurative thinking occurs in preschoolers at the age of 4-6 years. The connection between thinking and practical actions, although it remains, is not as close, direct and immediate as before. In some cases, no practical manipulation with the object is required, but in all cases it is necessary to clearly perceive and visualize the object. Those. preschoolers think only in visual images and do not yet master concepts (in the strict sense).

    Significant shifts in intellectual development child arise at school age, when his leading activity is teaching, aimed at mastering systems of concepts in various subjects. These shifts are expressed in the knowledge of ever deeper properties of objects, in the formation of the mental operations necessary for this, the emergence of new motives for cognitive activity. The mental operations that are formed in younger schoolchildren are still connected with specific material, they are not generalized enough; the resulting concepts are concrete in nature. The thinking of children of this age is conceptually concrete.

    In children, the acquisition of a concept largely depends on the experience on which they rely. Significant difficulties arise when a new concept denoted by a certain word does not agree with what is already associated with this word in the child, i.e. with the content of the given concept (often incorrect or incomplete), which he already owns. Most often this happens in those cases when a strictly scientific concept, assimilated by children in the basement, diverges from the so-called worldly, pre-scientific concept, already learned by them outside of special education, in the process of everyday communication with other people and the accumulation of personal sensory experience (for example, a bird this is an animal that flies, so butterflies, beetles, flies are birds, but a chicken, a duck are not, they do not fly.Or: predatory animals are "harmful" or "terrible", for example, rats, mice, and a cat is not a predator, it pet, affectionate).

    junior schoolchildren they already master certain more complex forms of reasoning, they realize the power of logical necessity. On the basis of practical and visual-sensory experience, they develop - at first in the simplest forms - verbal-logical thinking, i.e. thinking in the form of abstract concepts. Thinking now appears not only in the form of practical actions and not only in the form of visual images, but above all in the form of abstract concepts and reasoning.

    The development of processes that subsequently lead to the formation of concepts has its roots deep in childhood, but only in the transitional age do those intellectual functions mature, take shape and develop, which in a peculiar combination form the mental basis of the process of concept formation.

    Observation data from children suggests that the child begins to draw “conclusions” early. It would be wrong to deny that children of preschool and perhaps even preschool age have the opportunity to make some "inferences"; but it would be completely unreasonable to equate them with the inferences of adults, in particular with those forms of inference used by scientific knowledge.

    A boy at the age of 4 years 6 months turns to his father: “Dad, the sky is bigger than the earth, yes, yes, I know that. Because the Sun is bigger than the Earth (he learned this from adults even earlier), and Vera (his older sister) just showed me that the sky is bigger than the Sun. And after 3 months in the summer after a walk by the stream: "Stones are heavier than ice." - "How did you know that?" - “Because ice is lighter than water; they go to the bottom in the water. This child compared visual situations of his experience and information about objects he received from adults.

    The above fact clearly reveals the features of typical preschooler inferences. His thought still functions within perception. Therefore, his reasoning is very often carried out by means of the transfer of entire visual situations; the conclusion goes from a single fact to a single fact.

    To characterize the specific form of these children's inferences, which dominates at preschool age, the psychologist V. Stern introduced the term transduction , distinguishing it from both induction and deduction. Transduction is a conclusion that passes from one particular or single case to another particular or single case, bypassing the general one. Transductive inferences are made on the basis of similarity, difference, or analogy. What distinguishes them from induction and deduction is the lack of generality. Piaget correctly noted that Stern only gave a description, not an explanation, of transduction. The absence of generalization in transduction is in fact not its primary, not defining feature. The child in transduction does not generalize because and insofar as he cannot isolate the essential objective connections of things from the random combinations in which they are given in perception. The situational attachment of the preschooler's thinking affects the transduction. But transduction is by no means the only leading form of inference in a preschooler. The development of the forms of children's thinking is inseparable from the development of its content, from the acquaintance of the child with a specific area of ​​reality. Therefore, the appearance of higher types of inference occurs at the beginning, so to speak, not along the entire front of intellectual activity, but in separate islands, primarily where the child’s acquaintance with facts, his connection with reality turns out to be the deepest and most durable.

    Elementary causal dependencies are noticed by children early, as evidenced by numerous observations. However, one cannot, of course, ascribe to a preschool child a generalized understanding of complex causal dependencies. The mental activity of the child develops at first primarily in the process of observation, in the closest connection with perception. It is very instructive and vivid in its attempts to understand and explain what is observed when perceiving pictures. To explain their content, children often resort to a whole series of reasoning and inferences.

    As long as the general is not yet recognized as the general, based on essential connections, but is reduced to a collective generality of the particular, the child’s reasoning at first usually comes down to transferring by analogy from one particular case to another or from the particular to the general as a collective collection of particular cases (approaching that , which in logic was called inductive reasoning, through a simple enumeration) and from the general as such a set of particular cases to one of them. These transference-based inferences of the child are based on random single connections, relations of external resemblance, more or less random causal relationships. And sometimes the child has "inferences" from the presence of one object or feature to another due to the strong associative connection established between them by contiguity. As long as the child is not able to reveal essential, internal connections, his inferences easily slip into transfers of external associative connections from one situation to another, clothed in an external form of inferences. But along with this, in areas that are practically more familiar and close to the child, genuine inductive-deductive, of course, elementary conclusions begin to appear in him.

    Thus, an analysis of the child's thinking reveals in him relatively very early - at preschool age and even at its beginning - the emergence of diverse mental activity. In a small preschooler, one can already observe a number of basic intellectual processes in which adult thinking takes place; questions arise before him; he strives for understanding, seeks explanations, he generalizes, concludes, reasons; it is a thinking being in which true thinking has already awakened. Thus, there is an obvious successive connection between the thinking of a child and the thinking of an adult.

    It is only when the child becomes a teenager that the transition to thinking in concepts becomes fundamentally possible.

    L.S. Vygotsky distinguishes three main stages in the development of concepts and, accordingly, in conceptual thinking.

    The first stage in the formation of concepts is the formation of an unformed and disordered set, the selection of a certain set of objects, united without sufficient internal relationship and relationship between its constituent parts. The meaning of a word at this stage of development is an unfinished, unformed syncretic cohesion of individual objects, somehow connected with each other in the representation and perception of the child into one fused image. In the formation of this image, the syncretism of children's perception or action plays a decisive role, so this image is extremely unstable.

    The second major stage in the development of concepts embraces many functionally, structurally, and genetically diverse types of one and the same way of thinking in its nature. This thinking is called Vygotsky thinking in complexes. This means that the generalizations created with the help of this way of thinking represent, in their structure, complexes of individual concrete objects or things, united not only on the basis of subjective connections, but on the basis of objective connections that actually exist between these objects.

    The meanings of words at this stage of development can most accurately be defined as "family names" combined into complexes or groups of objects. The most essential thing for the construction of the complex is that it is based not on an abstract and logical, but on a very specific and actual connection between the individual elements that make up its composition. The complex, like the concept, is a generalization or union of specific heterogeneous objects. But the connection underlying the generalization can be very various types. Any connection can lead to the inclusion of this element in the complex, as long as it is actually available.

    Thinking in complexes includes several intermediate stages: 1) combining objects into “collections” - mutual complementation of objects according to any one attribute; 2) "pseudo-concept" - a complex association of a number of specific objects that are phenotypically, in their own way appearance, according to the totality of external features, completely coincide with the concept, but according to its genetic nature, according to the conditions of its emergence and development, according to causal-dynamic relationships, it is not a concept.

    A child at the stage of complex thinking thinks the same objects as the meaning of a word as an adult, and this is the basis for understanding between them, but thinks with the help of other intellectual operations.

    The concept in its natural and developed form presupposes not only the unification and generalization of individual concrete elements of experience, it also presupposes the isolation, abstraction of individual elements and the ability to consider them outside the concrete and actual connection to which they are given in experience. The concept development stage is also divided into several sub-stages: 1) the stage of potential concepts and 2) the stage of true concepts. Only the mastery of the process of abstraction and the development of complex thinking can lead the child to the formation of true concepts. The decisive role in the formation of a true concept belongs to the word. “From syncretic images and connections, from complex thinking, from potential concepts, on the basis of the use of a word as a means of forming a concept, that peculiar significative structure arises, which we can call a concept in the true meaning of this word” .

    It is in the middle and senior school ages that more complex cognitive tasks become available to schoolchildren. In the process of solving them, mental operations are generalized, formalized, thereby expanding the range of their transfer and application in new situations. A system of interconnected, generalized and reversible operations is formed. The ability to reason, to substantiate one's judgments, to realize and control the process of reasoning, to master its general methods, to move from its expanded forms to folded forms is developed. A transition is being made from conceptual-concrete to abstract-conceptual thinking.

    The intellectual development of the child is characterized by a regular change of stages, in which each previous stage prepares the subsequent ones. With the emergence of new forms of thinking, the old forms not only do not disappear, but are preserved and developed. Thus, visual-effective thinking, characteristic of preschoolers, acquires new content among schoolchildren, finding, in particular, its expression in solving ever more complex structural and technical problems. Verbal-figurative thinking also rises to a higher level, manifesting itself in the assimilation of poetry, fine arts, and music by schoolchildren.