Games and exercises to develop thinking in preschool children

Didactic games for the development of thinking

Thinking is one of the highest forms of human activity, and is also a socially determined, mental process inextricably linked with speech.
In the process of mental activity of each person, certain techniques or operations are developed: analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, specification. There are three types of thinking:

1) visual and effective (children learn about the world by manipulating objects);

2) visual-figurative (children can already imagine objects or phenomena in the environment);

3) verbal-logical (children use concepts and know how to reason).

Visual and effective thinking develops with particular intensity in a child from 3 to 4 years old. Children become familiar with the properties of objects, learn to operate objects, establish relationships between them, and also solve a variety of practical problems.

Based on visual-effective thinking, a more complex form of thinking is formed - visual-figurative. This is thinking in images, ideas, transforming a situation into a figurative form. It arises when the child has sufficient experience of practical actions and, instead of realities, he resorts to mental attempts to change the situation, imagining the necessary actions and the results obtained. Also, visual-figurative thinking allows the child, for example, to use schematic images or count in his head.

By the age of six to seven years, verbal-logical thinking, which is associated with the use and transformation of concepts, begins to develop more intensively in preschoolers. Thinking now appears not only in the form of practical actions, and also not only in the form of visual images, but, above all, in the form of abstract concepts and reasoning. However, verbal-logical thinking is not the leading one in preschoolers.

All types of thinking are closely related to each other. When solving problems, verbal reasoning is based on vivid images, and at the same time, solving even the simplest, most specific problem requires verbal generalizations from the child.

Reading fiction, designing, various games, modeling, drawing, etc., that is, everything that a child does before school, develops such mental operations as generalization, comparison, abstraction, classification, establishing cause-and-effect relationships. , understanding of interdependencies, ability to reason.

In the development of thinking and other mental processes of preschoolers, 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.

Examples of games for developing the thinking of preschoolers.

1) “Gather a big family”

Pictures depicting animals, vegetables, fruits, transport, etc. are selected. These pictures are laid out in front of the children and the task is given to gather large families.”

2) “Favorite food”

Pictures depicting animals and food for these animals are selected. Pictures of animals and separate pictures of food are laid out in front of preschoolers; each animal is invited to lay out its favorite food.

3) “Find the baby’s mother”

Pictures of domestic animals are laid out in front of the children: dog, cat, pig, cow, etc. and separate pictures: kitten, puppy, piglet, calf, etc., it is suggested to find the baby’s mother.

4) “Call it in one word”

Pictures are laid out in front of preschoolers, and an adult asks them to look at them and name them in one word. For example: train, plane, car - transport; fox, hare, bear - wild animals; apple, pear, plum - fruits, etc.

5) “Magic bag”

Toys are selected in the bag: red, blue, green, yellow. Pictures depicting: a red apple, a blue cloud, a green grasshopper, a yellow chicken are laid out on the table; preschoolers are invited to choose friends for them by color by taking out the corresponding toys from the bag.

6) “Gather friends”

Children are given a set of pictures depicting various objects. The adult asks to consider them and put them into groups, i.e. suitable with suitable.

7) “Lay out the pictures”

Ready-made series of plot-based sequential pictures are used. Preschoolers are given pictures and asked to look at them. They explain that the pictures should be arranged in the order in which events unfold. In conclusion, the children make up a story based on the pictures.

8) “What’s extra?”

Select a series of pictures, among which three pictures can be combined into a group according to some common characteristic (animals, transport, flies, jumps, soft, cold, etc.), and the fourth picture is extra. Invite the children to find the extra picture. Ask why they think this way and how the pictures they left are similar.

9) "Alternation"

Invite preschoolers to draw, color, or string beads. Please note that the beads must alternate in a certain sequence, for example, by color: red, blue, yellow, green, etc. In the same way, you can suggest drawing a multi-colored fence, or laying it out on the table from multi-colored sticks, etc.

10) “Find the extra word”

An adult reads a series of words, for example: animals, vegetables, fruits, etc. and invites preschoolers to clap their hands when they hear an extra word; you can also choose a child who will explain why the word is extra, to which group he would associate it.

11) “Who is faster”

An adult, throwing a ball to a child, names a color, and the child, returning the ball, must quickly name an object of this color. You can also name not only the color, but also the quality (for example: taste, shape) of an object.

12) "Professions"

An adult shows children pictures of people’s professions and asks them to name what people in a certain profession do. For example, a doctor treats people, a builder builds houses, a teacher teaches something to children at school, etc. Showing can be replaced with facial expressions and pantomime.

13) “Tell me the other way around”

Offer your preschoolers the game “I will say a word, and you will also say it to me, only in reverse, for example, big - small.” You can use the following pairs of words: cheerful - sad, fast - slow, empty - full, smart - stupid, hardworking - lazy, strong - weak, heavy - light, cowardly - brave, white - black, hard - soft, rough - smooth and etc.

14) "Guess"

An adult asks you to guess which animal, vegetable, fruit, vehicle, etc. He says. It is imperative to give children a specific, clear description of each item. For example: This is a fruit. It is red, round, juicy (Apple).

15) “Guessing riddles”

Invite children to guess descriptive riddles on various topics (flora and fauna, natural phenomena, vegetables/fruits, objects, etc.) For example: Long-eared, shy, loves to eat carrots and cabbage (Hare); Red-haired, she has a fluffy tail, deftly jumps through the trees (Squirrel), etc.

16) “Migratory and wintering birds”

Preschoolers are presented with pictures depicting migratory and wintering birds, as well as two identical pictures depicting a tree. They need to put all the migratory birds on one tree, for example: swallow, starling, rook, cuckoo, lark, etc., and on another - wintering birds, for example: tit, sparrow, crow, bullfinch, etc.

17) “Flies, swims, crawls”

An adult gives children pictures depicting those who can fly, swim, crawl. Then he lays out pictures on the table depicting the sky, sea, grass and asks to match the animal, bird, insect, fish, etc. with the corresponding picture, asking the question: “What can he do...” (Bird, beetle... - fly; hare, grasshopper - jump...; snake, snail - crawl...)

18) “Find something similar”

Preschoolers are offered geometric shapes and various objects. The task is to form groups of objects based on their similarity to a certain geometric figure. For example, a circle is a ring, a lid..., a square is a box, a cube... etc.

19) "Domestic and wild animals"

Pictures depicting domestic and wild animals, as well as two pictures are laid out in front of the children: the first one shows a house, the second one shows a forest. They need to place domestic animals around the house and wild animals around the forest.

20) “Our favorite winter and favorite summer”

An adult lays out two pictures “Winter” and “Summer” on the table in front of the preschoolers, as well as pictures depicting various winter and summer clothes and accessories. Children need to relate to the season what people usually wear when it comes. (For example, “Winter” - fur coat, scarf, mittens..., “Summer” - shorts, T-shirt, hat...)

Author: Irina Bagmenko, Master of Preschool Education, Lugansk, Ukraine.

MAGAZINE Preschooler.RF

Ananyeva E.V. teacher - defectologist MKDOU d/m 428

Children with mental retardation have a delayed rate of formation of mental operations, which in the future will negatively affect their learning at school. It will be difficult for such a child to master the general education school curriculum. Therefore, it is very important that kindergarten teachers, as well as parents, begin to work as early as possible on the development of thinking in children with mental retardation. In preschool childhood, the leading activity for the comprehensive development of a child is play. Therefore, this consultation presents a selection of games aimed at developing thinking in children with mental retardation.

Thinking is a socially conditioned mental process that is inextricably linked with speech. In the process of mental activity, certain techniques and operations are developed (analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, specification).

There are three types of thinking:

1. visual-effective (cognition through the manipulation of objects)
2. visual-figurative (cognition through representations of objects, phenomena)
3. verbal-logical (cognition using concepts, words, reasoning)

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