Here is a small survey done in the group of five-year-old children who I am going to work with during the 2016-2017 school year.
As I got the opportunity to work with this group, I began to develop my plan of work, form educational projects, thought of packets of games, set clear goals and tasks, but everything changed as soon as I first met my pupils. Their world is different with live vivid environment, unexpected questions and approaches coming out of their inner needs and problems. I put all my pre-designed projects and game packets away. So I remained with my five-year-old children face to face, and my task was to secure their development. I was supposed to get to know them better and to construct the real directions of their development by taking into account their interests and peculiarities.
It is important that we should make children’s environment educational in order not to keep them away from games, not to make education artificial and to create more favorable conditions for five-year-old children’s development. Although it was difficult for me to find the simplest steps leading to the realization of educational aims, its organization was creative and pleasant. I have also come to a statement: in a real development environment there can’t be registered only the learner’s development without the registration of teacher’s constant development.
The amount of time allocated for teaching in April and May was little so I tried to make the meetings with children as tangible as I could. Every time I tried to find new solutions so that the children would be engaged in games and activities corresponding to their interests.
With the help of these game activities I tried to develop the children’s imagination, creativeness, logical thinking, communicative and simplest technological skills.
Activities with five-year-old children
1. Organization of science activities
· Friendship of colours: an experiment with plant oil, water, water colors, and pills causing bubbles in water
· Volcano: an experiment with vinegar and sodium bicarbonate
· ԶատEaster letter: an experiment with eggs
· 2. Organization of technological activities
· Animals’ quarrelling : we are painting with water colors
· My planet: we are portraying an application
· Easter ritual: we are painting on the disposable plates
· Our small greenhouse: we are designing flower bowls
· I am a sculptor: we are creating our clay portraits
3. Developing the ability to count, compare and measure
· …I would like to turn to the Sun …
The effectiveness of a new educational tool: tablet
The five-year-old children were so much inspired by using the tablet, their new tool of education.
We began using the tablets in the five-year-old groups just at the first meeting. We gradually learned to work with the easiest programs. We learned to work with the program Paint, and then we learned to use the recorder and the camera. The tablet is an effective means of organizing educational activities. Working with tablet becomes part of learners’ activities. It completes the learner’s activities with photos, video lessons, video films and logical games. The tablet helped me to find out the learners interests and I did preparatory work so that it didn’t cease to be educational at home either.
· The animals’ quarreling: audio visual games with animals, puzzle games
· Volcano: a video game “How to avoid eruption”
· The tablet used as a recorder
· Our small greenhouse: the tablet used as a camera
· Travelling with Giovannino: Drawing with the program Paint
Thanks to the realization of interconnected ways of activities we covered an interesting and creative road of development. My pupils performed science experiments, worked with clay, planted flowers in the flower bowls, experimented the tablet as an educational tool, learned to give and take an interview, and they did all these by playing.
Meetings with children helped me to get to know not only the children but also myself. I found myself in different situations and had to orientate quickly and find ways out by applying modern pedagogical approaches and eliminating creative projects.