Development of imagination in preschool children

Development of imagination in preschool children. It is impossible to imagine a child without imagination. The world of children differs significantly from that of adults because children are capable of inventing and thinking outside the box. The ability to imagine helps develop creative abilities, find ways out of difficult situations, and it is easier to adapt in real life if you direct your imagination in the right direction.

Features of the development of creative imagination in a preschool child

The baby takes his first steps towards the ability to use his imagination at the age of three. Play becomes part of the child, wherever he is: at home, on a walk, visiting, on a trip. During this period, the child begins to understand that one and the same object can play the role of several, if you use your imagination. Three- and four-year-old children begin to tell fairy tales - this awakens their previously dormant imagination. But they don't know how to plan. It is difficult to find out from such a child what he is going to draw if the child took pencils and paper. With the help of imagination, the drawing, of course, will be born, but the image of the future “picture” will be built in the process.

Until the age of five, preschool children still do not know how to direct their imagination, but at five or six years old they are already good inventors who can consciously decide what they want to play, what they need to draw, what craft they want to make. Once the goal is set, the work begins. Often, in play, children try to embody the experience they have gained, their impressions of watching a cartoon or a play, or some life scene.

Often children create their own special world if something in the real world does not suit them: difficult relationships with peers or adults, including parents; phobias that the child tries to fight in a self-invented way; problems that are easier to solve in a fantasy world.

In any case, the development of imagination is very important for a child. This is one of the levers with which a little person learns to interact with the world.

Why do you need to develop imagination and teach to fantasize?

Agree, even adults sometimes like to dream and fantasize. How can a child cope without fantasies? Moreover, fantasizing in moderation is even useful for him. The child adapts faster in life, learns to think outside the box and look for a way out of difficult situations.

Another aspect is also important: by imagining, the child gets joy. It is only necessary that he does not mistake fantasies for reality and knows how to distinguish between them. But what kind of child doesn’t want to build a hut and imagine himself on a desert island, imagine that he is a pirate or a time traveler?!

Modern children are so overwhelmed by all sorts of trips to developmental centers, where they are pulled in all directions, that they often have no time left for their own fantasies. And they should sometimes immerse themselves in them, and at least for a while get rid of adult control: run in the park or read a book! Left alone, the child explores his inner world and finds potential for soul growth.

Imagination is a good way to overcome stress. By going into his inner world, the little person “processes” his emotions and feels better.

Imagination influences the improvement of memory, since, first of all, emotionally charged memories and images remain in it, which the little person can well imagine.

Imagination involves a constant search for yet unexplored paths. Having a certain amount of knowledge, children are able to choose from it what is really interesting to them and develop it, creating something fundamentally new. Old and long-known information serves as an impetus for the creation of new images. The more information, the more opportunities to develop your imagination.

With age, a child endowed with good imagination and fantasy will acquire:

extraordinary thinking;
the ability to find several solutions to a problem;
visualize goals and find ways to achieve them;
anticipate risks and possible outcomes of events;
quickly navigate a difficult situation.

Types of imagination

Experts distinguish several types of imagination.

Creative

Human consciousness allows you to compose incredible images, without relying on knowledge and experience. Such imagination, with its further development, can even become the basis for a person’s future profession related to writing.

Recreating

This type of imagination is based on existing knowledge; images that the child became acquainted with in classes, in communication with relatives and friends appear from memory and are developed.

Wild fantasy

Uncontrolled imagination, where reality and fantasy replace each other. The child constantly thinks about something and declares that all this actually happened.

Types and functions of a child’s imagination

In psychology, a distinction is made between cognitive and emotional childhood imagination. The emotional is aimed at regulating the feelings experienced and the formation of the personal Self, and the cognitive contributes to the understanding of the surrounding reality. Both types are involved involuntarily in early preschool age. Only by the age of 6 does a child learn to deliberately come up with a plan in order to consistently implement it.

Involuntary

Adults are often amazed at children's free imaginations and are puzzled why the child cannot or does not want to fantasize on a given topic. But before the age of 5, the reasons are exclusively objective - the youngest preschooler does not yet know how to control his imagination.

Involuntary imagination is characterized by the fact that the idea arises spontaneously and is associated with objects, stories or incidents that surprised and excited the child. It could be a fairy tale story or a cartoon character, a bright toy or an unusual event.

Imagination seems to lead the child’s thoughts along with it, giving him ideas for creating an image. Its main feature in early preschool age is the lack of control over the process.

free

Elements of arbitrariness appear upon reaching the age of five. Voluntary imagination is also called active imagination. Often the trigger is the task at hand: for example, performing the actions of your hero in role-playing games. To portray a cowboy, an astronaut or Malvina, the imagination has to work in full force - after all, the role must be depicted as accurately as possible.

You should not wait for a preschooler to awaken the ability to purposefully use his imagination. The adult’s task is to encourage the child to come up with images.

You can remember and discuss a children's work together, pay attention to individual characters, consider options for creating an image

Within the framework of arbitrary imagination, there are 3 types:

Recreating - the task is to imagine the child followed by a description of an object or item that he did not see. Example: a non-existent animal, a resident of Mars or the Moon.
Creative imagination - a preschooler creates new images based on personal perception, moving away from known patterns and pushing boundaries.
Dreams - from a child’s fantasies of what he will receive for his birthday to ideas of what he will become when he grows up.

Cognitive function

Imagination performs two important functions. Cognitive ensures the elimination of “blind spots”. A child’s mind has already formed a certain idea of the world around him, but many gaps have not yet been filled. The ability to operate with images “fills” these spots and helps to obtain yet unknown impressions.

In addition, imagination helps explain the meaning of a person’s actions if, due to his age, the baby does not understand why someone is crying, laughing or doing something incomprehensible.

The older the preschooler, the more he takes into account natural patterns in his fantasies.

It is important for him to come up with images in which, along with fantastic qualities, there would be real characteristics

Affective function

The affective function of the preschooler’s imagination is aimed at upholding and protecting one’s own self. The relationship between anxiety and imagination helps to avoid injury.

Emotional fixation on certain experiences unconsciously pushes the child to simulate a situation that is significant to him in one of the ways known to him:

1. An impact or situation that has a negative impact on the psyche is repeatedly played out. Numerous repetitions help to distance yourself from the event itself and turn from a participant into an observer.

2. If necessary, the child creates situations in which he feels like a hero. He puts himself in the shoes of numerous superheroes and saves worlds with a sense of agility, courage and power. Frequent repetitions of situations with victories and successes help a preschooler increase self-esteem.

Methods and techniques for developing imagination in preschool children

Since healthy imagination is important for the harmonious development of a child, adults should help develop this imagination correctly.

There are several effective techniques. They are based on the development of the child’s creative abilities, as well as his mental activity.

This:

Applied activities,
Literature classes,
Didactic games,
Development of horizons,
Development of tactile abilities,
Art, music, dance classes.

Applied activities are one of the methods not only to awaken a child’s imagination, but also to direct him in the right direction. So, drawing or modeling classes will help teach your child to come up with and implement an idea. Construction will make it possible to create something fantasy, but this object can already be touched, it can become the object of games. Let the child come up with things that do not exist in the real world, but this is much more interesting. A fictional thing may have characteristics that the author himself gives it.

A good option to develop imagination is fairy tales that the child himself composes. An adult just needs to help, give a start to imagination. Let this be a simple story, the very beginning. And only then the child must figure out what will happen to the characters next, what adventures await them. And if a child comes up with a fairy tale and draws at the same time, clearly showing the plot, even better.

Didactic games play a great role in the development of imagination. An experienced teacher can interest a child by inviting him to study and play at the same time.

So, you can use the following techniques.

How to develop a child's imagination?

Role-playing games, observing people, creating their own “masterpieces” and many other activities are suitable for developing children’s imagination.

Simulation of situations.

Role-playing games have a huge impact on the development of children's imagination. The main thing here is that the child understands the simulated situation. These are well-known games of daughter-mother, doctor and patient, student and teacher. If a child attended some interesting event or traveled along the river on a boat, then they can also easily be turned into an interesting game. You can simply imagine that you are traveling, and let the child name the items that he will need for this.

Observation and fantasy. The child is able to observe the world around him and at the same time “complement” what he sees with his imagination. For example, come up with a story about someone who lives in an old house at the end of the street.

Another option is to “transform” one thing into another . Ask your child what object can temporarily serve as a microphone, spoon or vacuum cleaner. If he has a good imagination, you will get the most unconventional answers.

Puppet Theatre. One of the children's favorite games is puppet theater. It’s not at all necessary to “splurge” on special dolls. Use regular toys or finger puppets. And a blanket or curtain can “turn into a screen.” Usually children are delighted with such performances. After all, you can not only recycle well-known fairy tales, but also invent new ones by connecting your favorite toys.

Introduction to creativity

. All children love to draw, sculpt, make appliques, sing and dance. So why not combine business with pleasure? Let them do what they love. They just need a little help. Even if the plasticine crow looks more like a penguin, it’s okay. Set new challenges for your child. Let him make animals for a plasticine zoo or draw a larger house where his favorite toys can live.

Outdoor games

. A large yard or park is a great place to develop your imagination. In the park you can collect leaves for a herbarium, acorns, chestnuts or unusual twigs for crafts. In winter, it’s good to build a snow castle in the yard or make an unusual funny snowman.

At home, you can ask children to draw a building, a tree, or a fluffy kitten that you saw on a walk. Let them imagine what will happen if candy falls instead of rain, snow falls in the middle of summer, and the kittens grow wings. Visit more exhibitions, go on excursions, and ask them to talk about everything they saw.

Developing imagination through non-traditional drawing

Unconventional drawing methods are unusual, interesting and useful. The child learns to see the miraculous in the most ordinary things. So, he learns that, it turns out, you can draw, for example, with your palms, a comb and a sponge, and not with a brush, with biscuit cream, and not just with paints. This awakens the imagination, the child has a desire to try new and unknown things.

Here are the simplest ways to draw unconventionally:

Drawing with a candle.
Drawing with splashes through a straw.
Drawing with stamps made from bottle caps, sponges, chewed paper.
Finger painting.
Isothread: the thread is dipped into the paint, pressed against the paper, and the resulting print can be expanded into a real design.
Drawing with a comb.
Drawing with a cotton swab.
Children of any development will enjoy drawing this way. Moreover, some methods help in the prevention of certain diseases, as well as in the correction of speech, breathing, and vision.

The role of imagination in a child's life

Manifestations of imagination in a person’s life depend on many factors:

person's age;
level of mental development;
individual characteristics of human development, expressed in the presence of any disorders of psychophysical development, stability of motives for human activity, features of the structure of communication, character traits and temperament;
development of the learning and education process.

The process of accumulating a child’s experience occurs gradually and is distinguished by a certain originality in comparison with the existing experience of an adult.

It is also necessary to remember that a child and an adult have different interests and, accordingly, the child’s imagination works completely differently than that of an adult.

Note 1

The role of imagination in a child’s life is much more significant than that of an adult; it is with the help of imagination that children learn about the world around them, filling existing gaps in knowledge with the help of imaginary objects and phenomena, thus creating a holistic picture of the world.

Finished works on a similar topic

Course work Children's imagination 470 rub.
Abstract Children's imagination 270 rub.
Test work Children's imagination 190 rub.

Receive completed work or specialist advice on your educational project Find out the cost

During the process of growth and development, a child's increasing cognitive needs are largely satisfied through imagination. Imagination is a kind of connecting link between what is accessible to the child’s perception and what is not yet accessible to his direct perception. Thus, we can conclude that imagination is the very mental process that contributes to a significant expansion of the boundaries of a child’s knowledge.

In addition, imagination allows the child to become a “participant” in events that are impossible in his real life. With the help of such fictitious “participation”, intellectual, emotional, and moral experience is enriched, it allows you to more deeply organize the process of cognition of the surrounding world, natural, objective and social reality.

Development of imagination by means of construction

There are many construction sets on sale that both children and adults enjoy playing with. Of course, there is no need to set complex design tasks for the child. But construction kits with proposed assembly schemes can be the start of an interesting hobby for a child. And if an adult gets involved in the design, then the design itself can turn into a game.

Design helps:

develop spatial imagination,
gain knowledge about shape, size, the first rudiments of knowledge about geometry,
develop fine motor skills, which is useful for the development of thinking,
develop independence, perseverance,
develop imagination.

It will be useful for preschoolers to play with cubes, which will allow them to get a first idea of shape, color, size; mosaic, which teaches you to pay attention to little things; block constructors that create three-dimensional objects for games; Lego, with the help of which children become acquainted with 3D modeling skills.

Preschoolers' imagination

Ekaterina Borisovna Bannova

Preschoolers' imagination

Table of contents

Introduction….….2

1. The concept of imagination… . 3

2. Types and functions of a preschooler’s imagination… .…4

3. Forms of manifestation of a preschooler’s imagination... . ….5

4. Development of imagination in preschoolers... . 7

Conclusion….….11

Bibliography…. ….12

Appendix….13

Introduction

Imagination is the most important aspect of our life. Almost all human material and spiritual culture is a product of people's imagination and creativity .

Imagine for a moment that a person had no imagination. We would lose almost all scientific discoveries and works of art. Possessing a rich imagination , a person can “live” in different times, which no other creature in the world can afford. The past is recorded in memory images, arbitrarily resurrected by an effort of will, the future is presented in dreams and fantasies. Children would not hear fairy tales and

wouldn't be able to play many games. How could they learn

school curriculum without imagination ? It’s easier to say - deprive a person

imagination and progress will stop! Perhaps, if we can understand how creativity begins to take shape, the imagination develops in childhood , what determines this development, we will be able to find a path to creative freedom for all people - freedom in words, in feelings, in thoughts, in self-expression. If we understand what is especially important for the formation of a child’s abilities, his feelings, his ability to think, we can help him and give him the opportunity for the most complete development. It is necessary to open up as many paths as possible for the child and, of course, help him enter the world of creativity, imagination and fantasy . This means imagination , fantasy is the highest and most necessary ability of a person. At the same time, it is this

ability needs special care in terms of development. And it develops especially intensively between the ages of 5 and 15 years. And if the imagination is not specifically developed during this period, then a rapid decrease in the activity of this function occurs subsequently. Along with a decrease in the ability to fantasize, a person’s personality becomes impoverished, the possibilities of creative thinking decrease, and interest in art and science fades. The purpose of this work is to get acquainted with the mental function of imagination , ways of its development and optimization of learning for preschool children .

As studies by L. S. Vygotsky, V. V. Davydov, E. I. Ignatiev, S. L. Rubinshtein, D. B. Elkonin, V. A. Krutetsky and others have shown, imagination is not only a prerequisite for children’s effective learning of new knowledge, but is also a condition for the creative transformation of children’s existing knowledge, contributes to the self-development of the individual, i.e., it largely determines the effectiveness of educational activities in preschool educational institutions.

1. The concept of imagination

Imagination is the creation of images of objects and phenomena that have never been perceived by a person before.

Imagination cannot create out of nothing . It is built on transformed, processed material of past perceptions. These are images created by the greatest writers, inventions of designers.

Even fairy-tale images are always a fantastic combination of very real elements.

No matter how new something that is created by a person’s imagination , it inevitably comes from what exists in reality and is based on it. Therefore, imagination , like the entire psyche, is a reflection of the surrounding world by the brain, but only a reflection of what a person did not perceive, a reflection of what will become reality in the future.

According to E.V. Ilyenkov, the essence of imagination lies in the ability to “grasp”

the whole before the part, in the ability to build a complete image on the basis of a separate hint, the tendency.
A distinctive feature of imagination is a kind of “departure from reality
,” when a new image is built on the basis of a separate sign of reality, and not simply reconstructed existing ideas, which is typical for the functioning of the internal plan of action.

Imagination is a necessary element of human creative activity, expressed in constructing an image of the products of labor, and ensuring the creation of a program of behavior in cases where the problem situation is also characterized by uncertainty. Depending on the various circumstances that characterize the problem situation, the same problem can be solved both with the help of imagination and with the help of thinking. From this we can conclude that the imagination works at that stage of cognition when the uncertainty of the situation is very great. Fantasy allows you to “jump over”

through some stages of thinking and still imagine the end result.

Imagination is inherent only to man. According to E.V. Ilyenkov: “Fantasy itself, or the power of imagination , is one of not only the most precious, but also universal, universal abilities that distinguish a person from an animal. Without it, it is impossible to take a single step, not only in art, unless, of course, it is a step on the spot. Without the power of imagination , it would be impossible to even recognize an old friend if he suddenly grew a beard; it would be impossible even to cross the street through a stream of cars. Humanity, devoid of imagination, would never launch rockets into space.”

2. Types and functions of a preschooler’s imagination

imagination has two main functions - cognitive and affective. The main task of cognitive imagination is to recreate objective reality, complete the construction of a holistic picture of the world, and obtain new impressions. With the help of imagination, children can creatively master the patterns and meanings of human actions, build a holistic image of any event or phenomenon.

The affective function of the imagination is aimed at affirming and protecting one’s self. Such protection can be carried out in two ways. First, through repeated playback (or playback)

traumatic influences or situations, the child seems to distance himself from them and begins to see them from the outside.
Secondly, children create imaginary situations in which they can assert themselves - they feel strong, brave, dexterous, omnipotent. Cognitive and affective imagination can be seen quite clearly in the child’s directorial play.
The next stage in the development of a preschooler’s imagination is the age of 6-7 years . By this time, the child has already mastered the basic patterns of behavior and activity and gains freedom to operate with them. He is already free from learned standards and can combine them.

At this stage, purposeful planning appears: the child can already build a plan for their implementation before starting actions and consistently implement it, adjusting it as it progresses. A holistic image begins to be built by the method of inclusion, when the element given by the adult becomes only a minor detail of their own image of imagination .

Imagination can be defined as the ability to recombine and create new images. The main material for imagination is only a person’s own experience and knowledge. Since a child has much less such material than an adult, his imagination is not richer , but poorer. At the same time, imagination plays a much larger role in the life of a child than in the life of an adult—it manifests itself much more often and allows for a much easier departure from reality. The specificity of a preschooler's imagination lies in its increased emotionality: the child experiences imaginary events as acutely as real ones.

The first form of manifestation of children's imagination is games with an adult, included in an imaginary situation . most clearly manifested in the play of a preschooler (where children endow objects with imaginary functions , take on the roles of imaginary characters ) and in creative activities (drawing and verbal creativity)

.
In early preschool age, imagination is always based on real objects or actions; By older preschool age, imagination becomes possible on the internal plane , in terms of ideas.
There are two main functions of imagination - cognitive (reproduction and variation of real events)

and affective.

The cognitive imagination of a preschooler is associated with the rapid development of role-playing, drawing, and design. However, it is often of a reproducing nature, when the child acts according to patterns: he reproduces the same plots, and is inclined to draw template graphic diagrams. Affective imagination at this stage , as at the previous one, is aimed at overcoming the resulting psychotraumatic effects by repeatedly varying them in play, drawing and other creative activities. However, in cases of persistent conflict with reality, children often turn to substitute imagination . Both functions have their own line of development in preschool age .

Special pedagogical influences can contribute to the development of a child's creative imagination . To do this, it is good to use different versions of imagination (writing fairy tales, completing drawings of figures, designing according to plan, inventing plots, etc.).

3. Forms of manifestation of a preschooler’s imagination

Beginning and being formed in play, imagination moves into other types of activities of the preschooler . It is most clearly manifested in drawing and writing fairy tales and poems. Here, just as in a game, children first rely on directly perceived objects or strokes on paper that appear at their fingertips, and then they themselves plan their work. Children can change their idea several times during the drawing. The hump of a conceived camel can turn into the wing of a butterfly, which then becomes a bird, the moon becomes the sun, and the sun turns into a star or a flower. All these transformations are actively commented on in the speech of children and become clear only from these comments, since the images themselves vaguely resemble something specific. But children are not too picky about the quality of the drawing; their imaginations are much richer. Than images. Dots and dashes on paper represent forests, berries, wolves and hares, etc.

Verbal creativity opens up richer possibilities, not limited by any technical techniques. We have already noted that children are sincerely involved in literary works and live in this imaginary world . Many children themselves create various stories in which fantasy intersperses with reality.

With age, more and more space is given to speech in game plots, and action takes up less and less time. Imagination is increasingly separated from action and transferred to the speech plane. And since internal speech has not yet developed, the child needs a partner who mainly acts as a listener. This partner may not interfere in the game, but he is still needed as a support for the image. The child himself tells the content of the game and pronounces the lines of both his own and someone else’s character.

The child represents the structure or action of an object through his own action, taking on a role as an image in action. is very bright in the director's game . Children are happy to assign roles to toys and play out various stories with them. We can call this form of imagination subjective .

Accordingly, there is also a form that can be called objective. It manifests itself most clearly in construction, when a child, for example, is required to build a house for a doll. The dimensions of the house, room, and entrance must correspond to the height of the doll. If a child is busy solving a game problem, the house may be smaller than a doll. He will simply imagine that the doll lives there and lives comfortably. But when solving a design problem, this is impossible. The child’s internal position must be correlated with the real objective environment.

This is why play that develops imagination is so important for a child.

The influence of the game on the development of the child’s personality is that through it he becomes acquainted with the behavior and relationships of adults, who become the image for his own behavior, and in it he acquires basic communication skills and the qualities necessary to establish contact with peers. By capturing the child and forcing him to obey the rules corresponding to the role he has assumed, the game contributes to the development of feelings and volitional regulation of behavior.

By mastering the actions of the game, the child simultaneously masters the voluntary aspects of mental processes, as well as substitution actions. Also, the child gradually masters the human sign-symbolic world itself - first of all, the verbally outlined space that standardizes and socializes it, as well as a special sign-symbolic space where images of the imagination .

Formed in play, imagination moves into other activities of the preschooler . It is most clearly manifested in drawing and in the child’s writing of fairy tales and poems. Here, just as in a game, children first rely on directly perceived objects or strokes on paper that appear under their hand.

4. Development of imagination in preschoolers

A newborn child does not yet have imagination . Imagination develops in the process of a child’s life, in his activities, under the determining influence of living conditions, training and upbringing. To develop imagination, it is necessary to accumulate relevant experience and expand the range of ideas about the surrounding reality. This experience is acquired both through the child’s personal observations and through adults who pass on to him their knowledge about surrounding objects and phenomena and their creative experience.

Already in the 30s, L. S. Vygotsky proved that imagination develops gradually, as he acquires certain experience. Vygotsky argued that all images of the imagination , no matter how bizarre they may be, are based on those ideas and impressions that we receive in real life. He wrote: “The first form of connection between imagination and reality is that every creation the imagination is always built from elements taken from activity and contained in a person’s previous experience” Vygotsky L. N. Imagination and creativity in preschool age . - St. Petersburg: Soyuz, 1997.

In preschool age, the development of a child’s cognitive interests should proceed in two main directions:

1. Gradually enriching the child’s experience, saturating this experience with new knowledge about various areas of reality. This causes cognitive activity in the preschooler . The more sides of the surrounding reality open to children, the wider the opportunities for the emergence and consolidation of stable cognitive interests in them.

2. Gradual expansion and deepening of cognitive interests within the same sphere of reality.

In order to successfully develop a child’s cognitive interests, parents must know what their child is interested in, and only then influence the formation of his interests. It should be noted that for the emergence of stable interests, it is not enough to simply introduce a child to a new sphere of reality. He should have a positive emotional attitude towards the new. This is facilitated by the inclusion of the preschooler in joint activities with adults. An adult can ask a child to help him do something or, say, listen to his favorite record with him.

The feeling of involvement in the world of adults that arises in the child in such situations creates a positive connotation of his activities and contributes to his interest in this activity. But in these situations, the child’s own creative activity should also be awakened; only then can the desired result be achieved in the development of his cognitive interests and in the assimilation of new knowledge. You need to ask your child questions that encourage active thinking.

The accumulation of knowledge and experience is only a prerequisite for the development of creative imagination . Any knowledge can be a useless burden if a person does not know how to handle it and select what is necessary, which leads to a creative solution to the problem. And for this you need practice in making such decisions, the ability to use accumulated information in your activities.

Productive creative imagination is characterized not only by such features as originality and richness of the images produced. One of the most important properties of such imagination is the ability to direct ideas in the right direction, to subordinate them to certain goals. The inability to manage ideas, to subordinate them to your goal, leads to the fact that the best plans and intentions perish without being realized. Therefore, the most important line in the development of a preschooler’s imagination is the development of the direction of imagination .

In a younger preschooler, the imagination follows the subject and everything he creates is fragmentary and unfinished. Adults should help the child learn not just to fantasize fragmentarily, but to realize his plans, to create, albeit small, but complete works. For this purpose, parents can organize a role-playing game and, during this game, influence the child’s performance of the entire chain of game actions. You can also organize a collective composition of a fairy tale: each of the players speaks several sentences, and the adult participating in the game can direct the development of the plot and help the children complete planned. It is good to have a special folder or album where the most successful drawings and fairy tales composed by the child would be placed. This form of recording creative products will help the child direct his imagination to create complete and original works.

It is possible for a teacher in the older groups of a kindergarten to use TRIZ elements to develop the creative potential of children. Also, in special classes in music, drawing, design, and speech development, children need to be given creative tasks.

develop your imagination not only in special classes.

Play, which is the main activity of preschoolers . Adults should not just observe children's play, but manage its development, enrich it, and include creative elements in the game. At an early stage, children's games are objective in nature, that is, they are actions with various objects. At this stage, it is very important to teach the child to play with the same subject in different ways.

In addition, to develop imagination and creativity, there are special games that you can play with children in your free time. Interesting educational games were developed, for example, by B. N. Nikitin.

The richest source for the development of a child’s imagination is a fairy tale. There are many techniques for working with a fairy tale that educators can use to develop children’s imagination . Among them: “twisting” a fairy tale, inventing a fairy tale in reverse, inventing a continuation of a fairy tale, changing the end of a fairy tale. You can write fairy tales with your children. Speaking about the development of children's imagination with the help of fairy tales , one cannot help but recall the book by J. Rodari “The Grammar of Fantasy”.

So, how to develop the imagination of preschoolers ?

1. Use item substitutes. External support plays an important role in the development imagination If in the early stages of development (3 - 4 years)
the imagination of a preschooler is inseparable from real actions with toys, then in children 6 - 7 years old there is no longer such dependence. Their imagination may rely on objects completely different from those they replace. So, a child can ride a stick, imagining himself as a rider and the stick as a horse. After a few years, the need for external supports will gradually disappear. The child will be able to simply imagine actions with an imaginary object
2. Perform “objectification”

undefined object.
the method of “objectification”
at the age of 3-4 years. It lies in the fact that a child can see a completely specific object in an unfinished figure. So, in the task of completing the drawing, the child can turn a circle into a wheel or ball. By the age of 6-7 years, the child should be able to use this method freely.

3. Create images based on a verbal description or an incomplete graphic image. This ability is very important for the child’s future educational activities. The need to create images based on descriptions arises while reading a book and learning new words.

4. Spatial imagination . All objects in the surrounding world have spatial characteristics, and images of the imagination should reflect them. Therefore, it is very important to develop the child’s ability to “see”

image of an object in space. You can train this ability using games to imagine the relative placement of several objects in space.

5. Creation and implementation of a plan. Only consistent implementation of the plan can lead to achieving results. At this age there are already all the conditions for learning to act according to a pre-thought-out plan. Therefore, it is very important to develop this ability, to teach not just to fantasize aimlessly and in fits and starts, but to realize your ideas, create small but complete works (drawings, stories, designs)

etc.

With the help of imagination , children explore the world around them, coming up with explanations for everything new that they encounter in life. imagination needs to be developed from childhood, and the most susceptible period for this is preschool age .

Conclusion

So, we got acquainted with the most general aspects of development

children's imagination . We saw how important this function is for overall development

child, for the development of his personality, for the formation of life

experience. Due to the importance and significance of imagination for a child, it is necessary

assist in its development in every possible way and, at the same time, use it for

optimization of educational activities. The formation of imagination at an early age occurs as a change in the child’s innate activity into transformative activity. The decisive factor in this case is the need for new experiences and communication with an adult who opens up ways to receive impressions. When raising children's imagination , it is necessary to ensure that it is connected with life, so that it is a creative reflection of our reality. Getting acquainted with the life around him on walks, in conversations with teachers, the child then reflects what he perceived in his drawings, games, and in the process of this creative processing of accumulated experience, imagination .

It must be remembered that a preschooler’s imagination develops through activity: in play, in drawing, in classes in his native language. Therefore, the organization of these types of activities and their pedagogical guidance are crucial for the development of imagination .

an important role in the development of imagination . Listening to fairy tales and artistic stories, attending performances, looking at works of painting and sculpture that are understandable to him, the child learns to imagine the events depicted, and his imagination .

The development of imagination is not the result of direct instruction. It is due to the growing transformative activity of the child and the mechanisms of self-development of imagination : the opposite direction of varying and modeling elements of experience, schematization and detailing of images.

Bibliography

1. Borovik O. V.

Development of imagination . Guidelines.

2. Dyachenko O. M., Kirillova A. I.

3. Korobkova S. Teaching storytelling to children in kindergarten.

Application

Annex 1.

Basic types of imagination .

Imagination disorders and their causes

Children may suffer from a lack of imagination or, on the contrary, their imagination becomes uncontrollable.

Imagination deficits are usually experienced by children with speech impairments, because speech and thinking and imagination are interconnected. With speech pathology, the child thinks primitively, he is not able to create a new image, he cannot invent, compose, and also carry out tasks of an adult where he needs to use his imagination. These children usually have difficulty remembering terms, assimilating the acquired knowledge, and do not understand symbols.

Children who have low self-esteem may also have a deficit of imagination. They are afraid of doing something wrong, they are absolutely deprived of independence, which suppresses imagination.

In this case, teachers need to creatively overcome the child’s inhibition step by step, offering to develop abilities through play, the basis of which will be a situation familiar to the child. A good way out of this situation would be the theater. You also need to focus on cognitive activities to broaden the child’s horizons. Emphasis on emotions will play a big role. What impressed you will leave a mark on your soul, and you will want to learn more about it.

Violent fantasy, which can manifest itself in aggression, lies, fears, and the replacement of the real world with a fantasy world, can also interfere with the normal productive development of the imagination.

The reasons for this inadequate imagination may be the child’s internal fears, problems he has with family and peers, inability to get along with the outside world, as well as other psychological problems.

In this case, it is advisable to contact psychologists who will help create an individual program to eliminate the pathology.

Outdoor games

Even the most ordinary walk in the fresh air can turn into an exciting way to get to know the world around you and develop your creative imagination. Show your child how to sculpt sand figures, collect a herbarium from beautiful autumn leaves, make funny people and animals from acorns and pine cones, roll snowballs, build a snow fort, blow soap bubbles, and watch the movement of clouds. Play the pretend game with your child. Ask your child to imagine what would happen if it suddenly began to rain candy, if snow began to fall from the sky in summer, if the sky were green instead of blue, if bears lived in trees and cats could fly.

In a simple and fun way, they develop children's imagination and impressions of the walk, expressed in the form of a drawing. When you come home, ask your child to draw a beautiful large tree that you saw in the park, a bird of unusual color, or a snow fortress that you built together. Take your child on a variety of exciting excursions more often and always ask him to tell you what he remembers most and why.

Victoria Kotlyarova

Should a child believe in miracles?

Childhood is a wonderful time.
All the children believe in the existence of wizards, fairy-tale heroes and Santa Claus. However, at school, pragmatism and skepticism grow in proportion to age. Our test will help determine whether your child still has faith in miracles. Take the test

What influences the development of a child’s imagination

In order for the development of a child’s imagination to proceed correctly, it is necessary to create a comfortable atmosphere in which the child will learn to fantasize with pleasure and benefit, but will not cross the dangerous line between reality and the illusory world.

Develop speech, since thought processes are associated with speech functions.
Pay attention to the development of the child's fine motor skills. The more actively a child works with his hands, the better he speaks and thinks.
Eliminate loneliness, which, in turn, will eliminate the need for the child to create imaginary friends.
It is important to increase a child’s self-esteem, not by comparing him with other peers, but by comparing him only with himself, based on his achievements and actions.
Trusting relationships with parents play a big role. If a child is not afraid of punishment, then he will not have to lie. But you can encourage creative writing - fairy tales, stories, drawings, crafts.
There should be a lot of creativity in a child's life. These activities stimulate the imagination.

Games

Writing fairy tales best promotes the development of a child’s imagination.
We develop a child’s thinking and imagination using play techniques. Moreover, you can play with your baby not only at home, but also on the street.

An easy word consisting of three letters, for example, “cat,” is written on a piece of paper. The mother invites the child to compose three new words using the letters included in the given one. That is, new words must begin with the letters “k”, “o”, “t”. When the baby has completed his task, he needs to be given a new task, namely, to compose a short story or poem using these four words.
Come up with a fantastic question. For example, you can ask your child: “What will happen if a kind and cheerful dinosaur comes to visit us?” Let the child tell you how you would meet him, what you played with him. It is important that the little one takes an active part in the creation of this story.
If your child is already in school, you can work with him creatively on mistakes. For example, in a Russian language lesson, the teacher corrected a mistake in an exercise, draw the child’s attention to this word, ask him to come up with a story related to it.
Create a new version of the fairy tale. Your child probably has a favorite fairy tale; take five basic words from it, for example, “grandmother”, “granddaughter”, “forest”, “wolf”, “hunter”. Now add one more word that has nothing to do with the events taking place in the classic version of the fairy tale. Invite your child, using all six words, to make up another version of a story well known to him.
Observing the world around. When going for a walk, draw your child’s attention to what surrounds you. For example, you can see an unusual flower, invite your child to come up with a name or tell some story that could happen to this flower. You can also pay attention to the items at hand that are in your home. For example, taking your mother’s comb, let your baby figure out how else it can be used. For example, a toddler may answer that a comb could become a microphone.
Role-playing games. Playing out various situations from life perfectly develops the imagination. For example, you can play hospital or school, or hairdresser. A child can be in the role of a doctor, teacher, hairdresser.
Creative activities. Let your child draw, sculpt with plasticine, and create with colored paper. You can ask your child what exactly he is doing now, why he is using certain colors. Ask your child to draw on a given topic or create something new. You can also offer to depict non-existent characters so that the child can think about what, for example, an alien would look like, how many arms, eyes, and legs he would have.
Writing fairy tales. The best way to develop children's imagination is to write their own fairy tales. This process may include a number of stages:

change the plot of a famous fairy tale, think about how the story could end differently;
try to connect two famous fairy tales with each other;
imagine what will happen if a positive character in a fairy tale turns out to be negative;
look around - you are surrounded by a lot of interior items, try to revive them by composing fairy tales about tables and chairs with your child;
create an image of a character, it doesn’t have to be an animal or a person. Think through the image down to the details. The main thing is that the child enjoys the writing process.

The connection between imagination and creativity

The peculiarity of the processes of imagination is that they do not simply create the opportunity to reproduce individual human impressions in the same forms and combinations in which they were perceived, but create completely new combinations and forms. It is in this feature that the deep internal connection of imagination and creativity finds its manifestation, which also has a focus on creating something new, unique and inimitable. The product of creativity can be material values, scientific ideas or artistic images.

There are a huge number of different types of creativity in the world: scientific, technical, literary, artistic, etc. It should be noted that none of them is possible without the participation of imagination processes.

In the process of fulfilling its main function, which is to anticipate what does not yet exist in reality, imagination contributes to the emergence of intuition, conjecture, and insight as the central link of the creative process.

Imagination helps scientists and researchers look at the phenomenon being studied from a different angle, in a new light. In the history of science there are many examples of the emergence of images of the imagination, which were subsequently implemented into new ideas, discoveries and inventions.

In the process of creating new literary works, the author carries out the process of realizing his aesthetic imagination in images. It is their brightness, breadth and depth of the phenomena of the surrounding reality they cover that are subsequently felt by readers as something new and unique and evoke in them feelings of co-creation.

We should not forget about the role of creativity and imagination in teaching activities and pedagogical creativity.

Its peculiarity lies in the fact that the results of pedagogical work do not manifest themselves immediately, but over time. In this regard, it is necessary to present them in the form of a model of the child’s emerging personality, a certain way of his behavior and thinking in the future. It is these features of the pedagogical process that determine the choice of certain methods of teaching and upbringing, the necessary pedagogical requirements and influences on the child.

Every person has their own creative abilities, and they can vary greatly. Their formation is determined by a large number of factors, which include:

congenital inclinations;
features of human activity;
features of the environment and society;
conditions of training and education that influence the development of a person’s unique characteristics of mental processes and personality traits that contribute to creative achievements.

Imagination and creativity

Creativity is the process of creating fundamentally new or improved methods for solving tasks and problems. It becomes obvious that imagination and the creative process are very interconnected.

Imagination here is defined as the transformation of ideas about reality and the creation of new images on this basis. It works every time a person thinks about some object or phenomenon, without even coming into direct contact with it. Thanks to creative imagination, the transformation of this idea is carried out.

Creative thinking and imagination have their own specific characteristics. Through this process, it is possible to create completely new, unique representations based on the subject's own ideas and thoughts, which express the personality of the creator. It can be voluntary or involuntary. To a large extent, creative imagination or inclination towards it is determined from birth, but it can also be developed.

The development of creative imagination occurs in three stages. At first, a creative idea arises. In the mind of the creator, a fuzzy image first appears, an initial idea that can be created arbitrarily, without purposeful comprehension of the idea. The second stage involves hatching a plan. A person thinks about strategies for translating an idea into reality and mentally improves it. The third stage completes the incubation of the idea and brings it to life.

The development of creative imagination is carried out in the process of transition from involuntary to voluntary, from recreating to creative. During childhood and adolescence, creative imagination has characteristic features; it is special for its magic, fantastic judgments about the world and the absence of a critical component of thinking and rationality. During adolescence, complex changes occur in the body, and therefore in consciousness as well. Objectivity is developed, perception becomes more critical. Rationality of perception appears a little later, when a person becomes an adult. The adult mind begins to control the imagination, often too much criticality and practicality weakens the processes of fantasy, overfilling them with meaning, loading them with some kind of information that is actually unnecessary.

There are certain methods for developing creative thinking. The most practical method is to read literature and watch scientific films, expand the range of your knowledge, draw knowledge from different areas of life, memorize and analyze information. In this case, a large amount of materials for creative processes appears.

Imagine imaginary objects, try to carry out various manipulations with them. For example, imagine the sea, hear the sound of breaking waves, feel the breath of sea freshness, imagine entering the water, feel its temperature, and so on. Or another example, imagine a pear. Imagine its shape, size, color. Use tactile perception, imagine it when it is in your hand, feel its surface, aroma. You can mentally take a bite of it and imagine the taste.

In order for the imagination to be voluntary, it is necessary to work on it through regular training. To make the effect even greater, you need to look for sources of inspiration, ask friends for help, and ask about their ideas. Try group work to create ideas, sometimes the results are very unique, and a person becomes more active if the process of imagination occurs in a circle of other creative individuals.

Imagination and cognitive processes

Imagination is a cognitive process, the specificity of which is the processing of past experience.

The relationship between imagination and organic processes is most clearly manifested in the following phenomena: ideomotor act and psychosomatic disease. Based on the connection between human images and his organic states, the theory and practice of psychotherapeutic influences is built. Imagination is inextricably linked with thinking. According to L. S. Vygotsky, it is permissible to say about the unity of these two processes.

Both thinking and imagination arise in a problem situation and are motivated by the needs of the individual. The basis of both processes is advanced reflection. Depending on the situation, the amount of time, the level of knowledge and its organization, the same problem can be solved both with the help of imagination and with the help of thinking. The difference is that the reflection of reality, carried out in the process of imagination, occurs in the form of vivid ideas, while the advanced reflection in the processes of thinking occurs by operating with concepts that allow us to comprehend the environment in a generalized and indirect way. The use of a particular process is dictated, first of all, by the situation: creative imagination works mainly at that stage of cognition when the uncertainty of the situation is quite great. Thus, imagination allows you to make decisions even with incomplete knowledge.

In its activity, the imagination uses traces of past perceptions, impressions, ideas, that is, traces of memory (engrams). The genetic relationship between memory and imagination is expressed in the unity of the analytical-synthetic processes that form their basis. The fundamental difference between memory and imagination is revealed in the different direction of the processes of active operation with images. Thus, the main tendency of memory is to restore a system of images that is as close as possible to the situation that took place in experience. Imagination, on the contrary, is characterized by the desire for the maximum possible transformation of the original figurative material.

Imagination is included in perception, influences the creation of images of perceived objects and, at the same time, itself depends on perception. According to Ilyenkov’s ideas, the main function of imagination is the transformation of an optical phenomenon, consisting of irritation of the surface of the retina by light waves, into the image of an external thing.

Imagination is closely related to the emotional sphere. This connection is dual in nature: on the one hand, an image can evoke strong feelings, on the other, an emotion or feeling that once arises can cause active imagination. This system is discussed in detail by L. S. Vygotsky in his work “Psychology of Art”. The main conclusions he comes to can be stated as follows. According to the law of the reality of feelings, “all our fantastic and unreal experiences, in essence, proceed on a completely real emotional basis.” Based on this, Vygotsky concludes that fantasy is the central expression of emotional reaction. According to the law of unipolar energy expenditure, nervous energy tends to be wasted at one pole - either at the center or at the periphery; any increase in energy expenditure at one pole immediately entails its weakening at the other. Thus, with the intensification and complexity of fantasy as the central moment of the emotional reaction, its peripheral side (external manifestation) is delayed in time and weakens in intensity. Thus, imagination allows you to gain a variety of experiences while remaining within the framework of socially acceptable behavior. Everyone gets the opportunity to work through excessive emotional stress, discharging it with the help of fantasies, and thus compensating for unmet needs.