During the reform of the education system, much attention is currently being paid to the implementation of the activity approach. The bottom line is that the child is a full, active participant in the educational process.
When familiarizing a preschooler with the outside world, research activity, activity comes to the fore. Curiosity and a desire for knowledge are paramount in the implementation of pre-school education programs. In conditions of a huge information flow, the availability of all kinds of resources and the ease of finding a solution to a problem, the child should want to learn new things.
Cognitive and research activities of preschoolers - the natural state of children. Remember yourself in childhood - maybe someone took apart the parental watch, trying to understand the essence of the mechanism. A little researcher with a screwdriver in his hands is a natural and normal phenomenon for children of both school and kindergarten age.
Research activity creates the conditions for mental development, then smoothly passing into self-development. An experienced teacher knows and understands that this process should not be interfered, it is enough to direct it in the right direction.
Many domestic psychologists are inclined to the idea that research is the highest form of development of cognitive activity, when the child does not randomly try to understand what is arranged, but purposefully, trying to plan the result, goes to his intended goal.
The structure of search activity is presented as follows:
- a task transferred from an adult or put forward by the children themselves, requiring a solution;
- analysis of conditions conducive to solving the problem (this operation can be performed by children both independently and with the help of an adult);
- putting forward hypotheses about the occurrence of the problem and how to solve it;
- the choice of verification methods and the actual verification of methods for solving the problem;
- conclusions, results, analysis;
- new tasks and their discussion.
Research activities are carried out according to the following algorithm:
- formulation of the problem;
- definition of the topic, setting goals and objectives;
- hypothesis;
- development of an action plan;
- direct experiment to confirm or refute the hypothesis;
- analysis of the measures taken, conclusions, further development of ways to solve the problem.
The research activity of schoolchildren and preschoolers, however, like all people, involves action according to the above algorithm.
As for the interests and topics for research, older preschoolers prefer experiments in which causal relationships are visible. So, in a playful way (and the game is the leading activity at a given age), thinking develops. The main task of an adult is to try to interest the child in an unusual experience or effect, to give the preschooler the opportunity to conduct an experiment.