About children’s drawing (M. Ozerova)

From the author

In the second grade, like all children, I loved to draw, but I was not lucky with the school teacher. Once, on assignment, I drew a crow and received a “troika” for my efforts. The teacher said, «The bird’s paws look unnatural.» What is «unnatural», I did not know at the age of eight, but from that time I began to think about how adults perceive children’s pictures incorrectly. When I grew up and began to work with children, I often remembered «unnatural paws» and tried to give freedom to inept children’s strokes.

Many years later, with a pedagogical education and work experience, I came to the conclusion that parents should be taught to draw together with the child. It is they who need to be freed from the “correct” school patterns. From creative workshops for parents, this book was born — as a guide for those who believe that they are unable to draw, but really want to help their child open up in creativity.

Why do children start to draw

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The smallest children, not being able to properly hold a pencil or brush in their hand, try to scribble on paper. Why do they do it? After all, a one-year-old child is not able to depict something meaningful, and his parents will not see drawings with houses for several more years. Many researchers of children’s creativity asked this question and put forward various versions of the origin of children’s drawing.

Proponents of the «motor» theory believe that drawing for young children is an expression of a constant desire for movement. Drawing, the child gets rid of excess energy. The «intellectualistic» theory believes that the drawing is a reflection of knowledge about the subject, and not its image. In the theory of “complex experiences”, drawing is a means for expressing feelings. The child depicts his emotional state, not objects. The «imitative» theory implies that children draw without natural needs, out of a desire to imitate the actions of adults.

Each of these justifications makes sense. But if we confine ourselves only to the “motor” theory, it is not clear why a child does not have enough running or jumping to release energy. If you consider drawing as imitation, it is difficult to explain why kids draw on the walls.

Most likely, the first attempts at drawing are complex actions. The child does everything at once: develops motor skills, imitates adults and tries ways of self-expression. He is aware of himself as a separate person (usually this happens during the period of the so-called «crisis of the first year of life») and feels the need to leave a visible mark on the world. Drawing enables him to see the results of his own actions.

What is drawing

Drawing is not just a popular form of children’s creativity, although it is valuable as such. This is a way of self-expression without words, a story about experiences that are still difficult to comprehend, a direct transfer of one’s state with the help of artistic means. Throughout preschool childhood — from birth to six or seven years — speech is not developed so well that the child can formulate and clearly express what he feels. Drawing gives children a chance to depict their state, attitude to something, relive a pleasant event or get rid of negative emotions.

The influence of drawing on the development of the child

Intelligence

At preschool age, the child’s thinking is figurative. The more new images he creates, the better his intellectual abilities and mental operations develop in the future. The strongest stimulus for development at this time is creativity, but, unfortunately, parents often consider games and creative activities unimportant, replacing them with meaningless cramming and the development of mechanical memory.

Now quite popular are various methods based on the premature formation of logical thinking. This approach to learning is contrary to the natural process of development of the psyche. From how thinking developed during the period of operating with images, its readiness for the next, logical, stage depends. A unique property of human thinking — creativity — develops in childhood, in creative activity. Drawing allows the child to create many images, change them at will, look for new associative links between objects and their images. The search for associations and the generation of images is an excellent mind training that successfully replaces any methods of early intellectual development.

Fantasy and imagination

Drawing develops imagination — the ability to mentally represent visual pictures. Thanks to this, a person can process past experience and create new connections between the images received. The more such connections are formed in the brain, the better thinking develops.

Fantasy is needed by the future adult — it allows a person to make bold assumptions, invent and create something fundamentally new. In drawing, it develops very well, because the child needs to think through the image in detail before he can depict it. What a child is able to transfer to paper does not convey the entire world he imagines. That is why children often see more in their drawings than what is drawn — they fantasize, inventing different stories about their pictures. Parents should not be annoyed by such «fantasy»! This ability must be maintained without becoming a boring bore, pointing out to the child the inconsistencies between a fictional image and an inept drawing. On the contrary, it is better to join the game and try to «see» the transformation of the image.

The development of speech

Even before the child begins to depict something concrete, he already “tells” about his scribbles and sees familiar images in them. While drawing, children often comment on what they are depicting, and the drawing becomes a living picture — a drama, the characters of which act out a performance.

Parents should carefully listen to the stories of the child and ask leading questions, be interested in the characters, plot, details. Speaking while drawing (“now I’ll take white, then pink, add some water”) helps the child to be aware of his actions and better coordinate them. In turn, speech affects the drawing: researchers of children’s creativity argue that «silent» drawing develops less intensively, the images in it are poorer in details, often are stereotyped and borrowed. Drawing together with adults helps to strengthen emotional contact, find a reason to communicate, and enrich speech.

Development of perception

Perception in childhood is still imperfect, and drawing stimulates its development, forcing the baby to study objects for the image and discover new qualities in them that he had not noticed before. While drawing, the ability to observe and analyze an object is trained, which is very useful for the development of thinking.

Features of children’s drawing

Drawing is associated with the most important mental functions of the child — perception, motor coordination, speech and thinking. It develops these functions and relates them to each other, helping the child to organize ideas about the world. In drawing, experience gained in any other activity is used.

The content of the drawings reflects the values ​​of the family, the social and cultural experience of children. It speaks about the degree of mental activity of the child, the features of his development, his inner position and ideas about himself.

Children’s drawing changes with age, passing through several stages. And only on the last of them — plausible — the child really depicts objects and phenomena. Prior to that, in the drawing, he broadcasts his own idea of ​​these things and his attitude towards them. Children’s pictures are direct and emotional, their author draws his experiences. Therefore, portraits of loved ones or images of objects made by children under a strong impression (after visiting the zoo, for example) are so successful.

Despite their originality, children’s drawings are subject to «internal canons». Often there are graphic images or patterns common to different children. Many people recognize what their peers tried to portray, without intelligible external signs of the subject.

Girls and boys draw differently: girls depict the actual objects, boys depict the relationships and connections between them, the dynamics. Girls are more emotional, attentive to details, decorate objects more often; boys prefer to find fundamental solutions, build a composition, change the overall shape. Girls are better at using colors, boys are better at perspective.

What determines the development of children’s drawing

The development of drawing is influenced by three main components of drawing: visual perception, hand-eye coordination and graphic activity. The most important factor is visual perception. A child’s drawing reflects the features of his development; the representation and transmission of a visual image depends on it.

Infancy

From birth, a child reacts to light and can follow a moving object, a source of light, for a very short time. Newborns are able to focus within a range of 17 to 25 centimeters and see blurry objects beyond this distance. It is believed that the mother’s face is ideally in focus when the child lies in its place — at her breast. Already at the age of two weeks, the baby is able to recognize the mother and prefer her face to all others.

Approximately by the fourth or fifth week, when the ability to see the object as a whole, in the totality of properties, develops, there is a transition from sensation to perception. The child can focus on stationary objects, and by two months — on one point. By three or four months, the ability to concentrate with a glance on an object is not inferior to the ability of adults, and the child follows moving objects for a long time.

At five months, children distinguish between primary colors, consider an object close up with both eyes. The second half of life is devoted to the development of distant space. Crawling and walking allow the child to compare the distance covered with what he sees, due to which a three-dimensional perception is formed. But the eye of the kids is not very well developed, so they make a lot of mistakes in estimating the length, height, width (this also explains the fact that the first drawings almost do not take into account the borders of the sheet — the child does not seem to notice them).

In infancy, vision and motor skills (motor activity) are in constant interaction. The development of motor skills is closely related to the development of visual perception and coordination of movements. For example, at four months old, a child can reach for an interesting object by controlling hand movements with a glance. And by about the age of one year, the baby is able to take the object after looking away from it. This is called «grasping blindly». He can also perform an action on the representation — perception allows him to focus on the qualities of an object that he previously saw and remembered.

At the same time, the perception of a small child is situational — he does not recognize well-known objects in an unfamiliar situation. If a familiar person puts on unusual clothes, the child does not perceive his image. Therefore, children surprise adults so much by crying at the sight of dad in a hat or dark glasses.

Early childhood (XNUMX to XNUMX years old)

Throughout the entire period of early childhood, perception is inextricably linked with objective actions. The object is perceived not by a separate visual impression, but through a comprehensive study by available means: touch, manipulation, tasting, and so on. The child can determine the size or shape of an object if he uses it for some action. In other cases, perception may be erroneous or inaccurate.

It is difficult for a baby to depict an object that he has only seen (for example, in a picture in a book). In addition, he does not perceive perspective and scale, and distant objects appear to him really small. On the other hand, a well-known object at a distance does not seem smaller to him. Thus, motor-tactile impressions prevail at this age over visual ones, and the consciousness of the illusory nature of visual perception is absent.

The child does not share reality and its depiction, which is the reason for adults’ amusing attempts to «pick» the berry drawn in the book. The drawing is not considered a substitute for a real object, but acts as a completely autonomous object.

At the beginning of this period, that is, closer to a year, children perceive unfamiliar objects or phenomena, relying on one (sometimes insignificant) quality. For example, a boy is riding a bus and for the first time sees a fur collar on the passenger sitting in front. Pointing to the collar, he says: «Meow!» The fluffy fur reminded him of a domestic cat.

The child does not yet know how to consistently consider a new object and highlight various properties, and his attention is focused on one feature that is most noticeable to him. By this sign he recognizes the object. Usually such recognition is based on shape, color or texture. Towards the end of early childhood, the examination of the subject becomes more detailed, and the child tries to isolate several signs, not being limited to what first caught his eye.

During all this time, the ability to establish connections between the concept of an object and the object itself, as well as between several objects, develops. After a year, the child can find with his eyes the object that he is told about. Looking at the plot picture, he first lists individual objects, but by the age of three he catches well what is happening on it (for example, not “grandfather and a turnip”, but “grandfather pulls a turnip”). A “visual orientation” appears — the baby can choose an object by eye, and not through numerous trials (which ring to put on the pyramid next). Anticipation of the dynamic relationships of objects develops: the child can understand in advance whether it will be possible to drag a thing through a hole, mentally correlates the shape, size and distance.

Also, the task of visual selection according to the model becomes available for him — when an adult shows an object and needs to find something with similar properties.

In a word, at this age the child is constantly getting acquainted with the properties of things in activity, and this helps him accumulate a stock of representations-images, which is very important for mental development. Perception is the most active form of cognition in early childhood.

Preschool (three to seven years old)

During this period, motor skills give way to visual perception, which becomes the leading one and is paired with speech. A great achievement of preschool childhood is the ability to abstract. The child moves from situational perception to generalized. If earlier a familiar object was «familiar» only under familiar conditions, now it is recognized even when the surroundings change. Also, children distinguish between the shape of an object and specific content — for example, they can see a rectangle in the outline of a window or door. The eye is still not sufficiently developed, and it is difficult for the child to estimate the distance «by eye» or to find out the size of distant objects.

In addition to the contour of the object, the child begins to perceive its structure, position in space, the ratio of parts. But at the same time, it can still “see” the object by one insignificant feature. To identify and list the key features of a new, unfamiliar object, the baby is still beyond the power. Usually he names it on the basis of past experience and refers to similar objects — categorizes.

By the end of preschool childhood, perception becomes «internal», that is, it no longer requires support by objective actions. The child can mentally compare objects by color, shape and size. He also accompanies perception with words — talks about the subject. Communication with speech helps to make perception more meaningful. Now the child is able to formulate the purpose of observation, plan the process, convey what he sees. Consideration develops, perception becomes purposeful and controlled, arbitrary.

Junior student (XNUMX to XNUMX years old)

In younger schoolchildren, perception ceases to be the dominant mental function — now thinking plays this role. But the perception is still very emotional: the child “sees” better and remembers the image, accompanied by a strong experience.

At the beginning of the period, perception is still situational and holistic. For example, for first-graders, the word «triangle» can mean one that is located with the top up, isosceles or equilateral. If they see an image of an acute-angled triangle with its apex down, they often find it difficult to determine the figure. Children confuse letters and numbers that are similar in spelling. All this is a consequence of the fact that they notice only the general appearance of a figure or sign, do not analyze the elements, structure and spatial relationships. Difficulties in abstraction are manifested in the way children objectify an unfamiliar form — they look for a household analogue and a word for a geometric figure (a cone — a cap, a cylinder — a glass).

At the end of the period, the observation operation is improved. The so-called «spatial vision» develops — children learn to estimate distance and size by eye, realize the illusion of reducing distant objects and correctly represent their real sizes. There is a sense of perspective.

Gradually, perception becomes synthesizing — connections are established between the elements of the perceived object. The child learns to analyze the object, highlight the essential features and compare them, formulate their observations. This helps to focus attention, stimulates arbitrariness and selectivity of perception. Now not only the external attractiveness of the object matters, but also its content, interestingness.

At this age, children perceive not only the plot of the illustration, but also the features of the composition. They understand the idea of ​​the picture, they can tell what is happening, highlight the main and additional details of the image.

Adolescence (ten to sixteen years old)

Perception becomes more and more abstract, now it is connected with conceptual thinking: what is perceived is ordered with the help of concepts. A perception based on logical thinking appears, which relates new objects to previously created categories. The concept reflects the image of the object, its relationship with the outside world. The teenager is aware of how he perceives and controls perception, which at this age is completely arbitrary.

What is visual perception

Visual perception is a multi-step process. First, the image is projected onto the retina of the eye, then the visual information is converted in the neural layers of the visual system, from there it enters the cortical regions of the brain. Due to the «reverse» (generator) function of receptor cells, a visual image can also appear when an object is absent from the field of view. This is how a memory arises. It is worth noting that visual perception is not critical — the brain processes all the information that enters the retina. That is, we cannot help but see what is in the field of vision, but we are aware of little of this.

A person receives visual information of different types. These are spatial (volumetric) visual images, flat images, signs and symbols, as well as dreams and illusions.

All images form the basis for our knowledge of the world, they are necessary for the acts of analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization that are continuously taking place in the brain. By processing individual images, the brain forms abstract concepts — this is how the thinking of an ordinary child without visual pathologies develops. Seeing a number of identical objects, such as chairs, he summarizes the information and begins to name everything that fits his idea of ​​a chair with the appropriate word.

In drawing, if we consider it as an activity, we can distinguish three main stages. First comes the perception of the object — the child examines the object. The receptive part is the retina of the eyes, the receptors of the retina send impulses to the central nervous system. Then the information is processed: an image is formed in the visual area of ​​the cerebral cortex. Next, the child proceeds to the image, performs motor actions. At the heart of the process is perception, on which all other stages depend.

Unlike adults, who absorb 80 percent of information through the visual channel of perception, tactile and motor ones are also important for a child. To get an idea about the subject, the baby needs a variety of information, sensory knowledge. If visual impressions are reinforced by motor and tactile experience, the visual image is formed more fully and is depicted in more detail. This is clearly seen in drawing classes: when a child can touch an object, play with it, he depicts it in more detail, modifies it, enriches it with details. If only he sees, the image will be poor and less thought out.

Memorization of a visual image

Visual memory is one of the forms of figurative memory, its peculiarity is that the remembered image changes to one degree or another. This memory is difficult to manage, it is involuntary. When memorizing, image transformations can occur: an increase or decrease in details, a change in shape, color or spatial position.

Best of all, vivid, unexpected images that evoke a strong emotional response (positive or negative) are best remembered. An image that constantly falls into the field of vision is also firmly remembered — it is assimilated involuntarily and almost without changes. For example, some adults after many years are able to describe to the smallest detail the pictures or images that they constantly saw in childhood (a drawing on a children’s table and the like).

Several mnemonics are based on the ability to form visual images. For example, in order to remember a fact, you need to come up with a vivid symbolic embodiment for it. When a person in the imagination connects several such visual images, the brain fixes the relationship. In the future, one has only to remember one of the links of this association, the brain will reproduce all the previously connected “pictures”.

In childhood and adolescence, figurative memory is the leading one; in adults, it is weaker than verbal-logical memory.

Formation of a visual image

Sensory experience plays an important role in the construction of a visual image. During preschool childhood, the child’s thinking is based on the work of his perception. The fullness and brightness of the imprinted image depends on the extent to which its various channels are involved. For children’s perception, the kinesthetic (motor) channel plays a decisive role. The visual image depends to some extent on the movement of the object in question, or whether that object can be manipulated. The more dynamic pictures of the surrounding world the child sees, the richer the visual images (provided that other methods of perception are involved in the study of the object). Therefore, in childhood, observation of natural objects, close scrutiny, emotional impressions are more important than the assimilation of already processed visual information.

Now quite popular are the methods of teaching a child using didactic cards (for example, Glenn Doman), which depict objects and their relationships. Their disadvantage is the lack of interaction with the outside world, an empty sensory «background». In the game and work with cards, the baggage of sensual images that develop thinking is not filled. Therefore, when choosing between “original source” or “processed information”, it is always better to give preference to the original. That is, it is more useful for a child to play with a single domestic kitten than to memorize hundreds of animal names from cards and identify them from images.

The ability to create images develops primarily in the game and creativity. It also affects the quality of the reproduced images that the child receives — cartoons, book illustrations, games and toys.

Glenn Doman is an American neuroscientist and founder of the Human Potential Institute. Widely known for the development of adaptive techniques for children with lesions of the central nervous system and brain. Later, these techniques began to be used for the education and early intellectual development of healthy children. The essence of the concept is that every day, with increasing intensity, the child is shown cards with images of objects (plants, animals, planets, etc.), dots or words. The cards are divided into thematic series. Doman and his followers believe that in this way the child will receive encyclopedic knowledge by the age of six. It is proposed to start training no later than three to six months (during the period when the knowledge of the world around the child occurs through the emotional sphere, and not sign systems.

Computer and TV

Preschoolers usually use the computer for playing or learning. I note that it is much more useful to teach a child to play ordinary — story, board, mobile — games, since it is in such activities that development takes place. In the second case, when parents want to quickly introduce the child to modern technologies and new ways of learning, they limit his ability to receive the necessary information with the help of the senses. The child learns in motion, relies on the tactile and motor image of the object, including visual perception. Therefore, teaching kids at the computer does not create favorable conditions for the development of intelligence. For a preschool child, the basis of development is the generalization of sensory experience.

TV firmly occupies a leading position in the list of items considered necessary for a child (as an option, it is replaced by a demonstration of cartoons or films on a computer). There is an opinion that watching cartoons develops fantasy. Unfortunately, this backfires. If we take into account that 24 frames flash on the screen in one second, then for a ten-minute cartoon we get a huge number — more than fourteen thousand. And many modern animated episodes run much longer than ten minutes.

Each image that enters the retina of the eye is sent for processing to the brain, to the cortical visual centers. And in a short period of time, the brain receives an incredible amount of drawn images, not having time to critically process the incoming information. Thus, these images acquire the character of firmly assimilated patterns. Even if parents strive to «balance» the child’s perception by letting him look at books or pictures, it is impossible to show tens of thousands of hand-drawn images a day.

In 1997, an interesting experiment was conducted in St. Petersburg. Primary school students were asked to make two drawings: on the first they were asked to depict any fairy-tale character, on the second — a character who became the hero of a popular cartoon. In the first case, the children’s drawings were varied and represented many of the author’s individual images, drawn in their own manner and without hesitation. In the second, all the children without exception tried to copy the cartoon image. The drawings looked like a repeated copy. Often children refused to draw, citing their inability, and even got upset, cried and were afraid that “it wouldn’t work out like that.”

A drawn image is assimilated by the memory as a whole and does not provide an opportunity to creatively comprehend or process information. Adults, on reflection, confirm that the cartoon image displaces all others, even if they saw different interpretations before or after watching the cartoon. If you conduct a small experiment among friends who watched the Soviet cartoon about Winnie the Pooh in their childhood, then when asked to draw Winnie the bear cub, you can most likely get one result — a copy of the cartoon character.

The woman who received this task «took» a copy of the cartoon. Before coloring, she repeatedly outlined and corrected the drawing with a pencil. When asked for what purpose, she answered: «To make it look like.» But Winnie the Pooh is a fantasy image, not a portrait of a real character. It cannot be «like» or «not like». The author of the drawing compared her presentation exclusively with the cartoon version.

The ability to generate one’s own ideas deteriorates. Children who watch a lot of TV usually do not know how to play a role-playing game, their imagination is not sufficiently developed. When drawing, they ask to give them a specific task — what exactly to depict and how. It’s hard for them to come up with a picture. These children are characterized by the use of templates, copying other people’s images, attempts to copy the cartoon style.

Watching TV is an abnormal, non-physiological process for our vision. During ordinary viewing, the eyes make many movements, repeatedly «circling» the object. The processing of impressions also occurs differently: in observing a real object, the eyes act simultaneously with other sense organs, and the image is multifaceted. When perceiving images from the screen, the child cannot establish relationships between individual pictures, which stimulates sketchy thinking, accustoms to passive perception, and leads to the separation of various functions (sight and hearing are involved in watching cartoons).

It must be remembered that in childhood, visual perception is very dependent on the work of the kinesthetic and tactile channels, and when watching TV, they are inactive. In addition, until the age of seven, a child actively learns sensory standards, and television images are often very far from realism. Therefore, for the full development of mental functions in preschool, and especially in early childhood, more time should be devoted not to TV, but to creative activity — drawing, modeling, puppet performances, games with finger and drawn puppets, shadow performances. Working with three-dimensional materials stimulates the kinesthetic channel of perception.

book illustrations

Although looking at book illustrations affects imaginative thinking incomparably less than television or computer images, it is important to remember that any drawing for a child is an aesthetic standard. Favorite books evoke emotions in the child, with which book images are easily assimilated as templates.

For young children, it is not information that is important, but the attitude of an adult, non-verbal communication. Therefore, it is better for them not to read fairy tales, but to tell them or at least tell them more often — in order to see their emotions and develop their imagination. When narrating, the same character can take any shape in the child’s fantasy, but in the picture accompanying the text, he remains unchanged.

The main task of the illustration is to help the child perceive the text, and not to create images that contradict the content or simplify it. Often the author’s interpretation of the illustrator does not correspond to the style or context of the work. Sometimes understanding is hindered by artistic expressiveness techniques — complex angles, deformation of the object, schematism.

Of course, it is important for a child to see an artistic, thoughtful image. On the other hand, it hinders the creation of one’s own images evoked by the text. Therefore, when choosing books to read, it is better to compromise: alternate illustrated works and books without pictures. And remember — the younger the child, the more realistic the illustration should be.

Be wary of images in scary stories or illustrations of tense moments in text. If a child listens to a fairy tale or reads a text, each time he rebuilds the image of an unpleasant character and «destroys» him, defeating his fear. He owns these images and can transform them as he pleases. If the character is depicted in a book, the image becomes static — it does not disappear or transform, and the child’s fear remains undefeated. An eerie image imprinted in the mind can develop up to obsessive illusions or phobias. It is not uncommon for children to try to physically destroy a scary picture — for example, they tear out a page of a book or paint over an image. Therefore, it is better not to show any frightening moments, but to speak.

Currently, quite a lot of children’s books are illustrated using primitive computer graphics, without due skill and artistic taste. They are filled with stereotyped, spineless, carelessly designed images.

Increasingly, instead of illustrations, a set of individual pictures offered by the image database is used, and these pictures within the same page may not be combined in style or color.

When choosing books for a small child, you need to consider that any image is perceived by him as a model. Such «drawings» destroy the sense of beauty in children.

From an adult’s point of view, young children are usually too loose with a book. Almost everyone, one way or another, tries to draw or “complement” the existing illustrations there. Parents can be advised to give their child a couple of books that are not a pity to make them unreadable. If there are none, then make simple books on your own — paste pictures on stapled sheets of paper. It is important to understand that the child has no desire to spoil anything: he simply imitates writing adults and tries to illustrate the book like an artist.

Toddlers are driven by the question “what’s inside?” Finding out is their first priority, and therefore they try to make out any objects, including books. It is not necessary to criticize the child for such behavior, it is better to distribute book wealth so that only those books with which he can do whatever he likes (for example, homemade products) are in the hands of the child.

Parents are usually afraid that the child will get used to treating all books this way. In vain: a child over two or three years old stops crumpling books or drawing in them and begins to copy reading adults. If an older child deliberately spoils books, here we can already talk about some behavioral problems. As a rule, by deliberately breaking the rules, children attract attention or take out bad experiences.

Comic Pictures

Imagery in comics is usually sketchy and grotesque. And the action is illustrated in a specific way — individual frames are shown, the connection between which the reader needs to establish independently. For a small child, this is not good, because he gets used to receiving fragmentary information and assimilates stylized images very easily. As a result, children often refuse to create their own images and constantly reproduce patterns that have settled in their memory.

Toys

Children identify themselves with fictional characters and fairy-tale heroes, but the identification is much stronger in the game, so the favorite toy becomes a friend and «mirror» of a small child. Children firmly remember the image of what they play with, and even project the qualities of the toy onto their own behavior. When choosing toys, you should pay attention to several important points.

Anthroposophical dolls have neutral, but at the same time good-natured facial expressions, they can be “assigned” any character and any emotion. Master Maria Timofeeva.

1. The main advantage of the toy is that it allows the child to manipulate it, and does not manipulate him. A detailed, detailed, well-thought-out toy is often too attached to a specific game situation and does not leave the child freedom and control over the game. The hairdresser doll with a comb in her hand is designed for a small number of play scenarios. And the same cube often serves as a house for children, and a typewriter, and cakes for a doll. That is, the less the toy itself is defined, the more definitions it receives in the game. In this sense, anthroposophical toys are good — they create clear images of a person or animal, but do not “freeze” in a separate plot.

2. It is desirable that the image that the toy symbolizes be calm and positive. Toys, frozen in a certain emotion (even enthusiastic), impose their own plot. Terrible images are necessary for children in fairy tales and fantasies, but in the form of toy monsters and animals baring their mouths, they have a rather destructive effect. If a child uses monsters in fantasies, he usually destroys them and conquers his fears. When scary toy characters participate in daily games, he gets used to them, adopts their «mood». Quite frequent are cases of children’s phobias due to the fact that in the children’s bedroom there was some kind of large soft toy in the form of a predatory beast. Preschool childhood is the age of collecting standards of perception, the development of aesthetic taste, and constant emotional communication with the terrible does not bring any benefit here. It is better for a child to create a game himself and “endow” any toy with terrible qualities and a harmful character, which can then “get rid” of evil spells and become a good little animal again.

Anthroposophic toy animals are maximally generalized: not Winnie the Pooh, but a bear in general. Master Maria Timofeeva.

3. For the youngest children (infancy and early childhood), it is advisable to buy toys made from natural materials. It is also worth making sure that the image is solid and recognizable. Transforming toys, animals of unknown origin, hybrid creatures at this stage only prevent the child from joining the reality, which is already new and interesting for him. The younger the child, the more freedom he needs in playing with the object. It is useful for kids to play with natural materials — cones, sticks, sand. From about a year to three years old, it is important for a child to try as much as possible the possibilities of the materials that fall into his hands. And the wider the choice of actions, the better his thinking develops.

Life

In addition to toys, a lot of household items fall into the field of view of the child every day. Sometimes adults strive to build a special world for the baby, filling his room with puppet, toy, unrealistic images. Children’s furniture, wallpapers, textiles, dishes are full of images of cartoon characters. When buying children’s things, you need to remember that in aesthetic isolation, children cannot learn about the world around them and develop fully. Unfortunately, modern industry does not always meet the requirements of good taste, and adults following it interfere with the natural development of visual perception and the formation of normal sensory standards.

Development of visual perception and memory

An adult’s drawing reflects only the visual properties of the object, the child drawing uses all his sensory experience. The expressiveness of the graphic image that he will create depends primarily on the ability to study the object in motion and with the help of touch. Also important are the emotional attitude to the subject and the individual characteristics of drawing. To create a “high-quality”, expressive graphic image, it is necessary that the child masters various image methods and can independently choose the appropriate one, be able to supplement and change the image without stopping at the template. Based on this, you can understand how to develop drawing skills. For the development of visual perception, various exercises with objects and their images on cards are useful, and in early and preschool childhood it is preferable to choose objects.

Games for the formation of a holistic image of the subject in children

The child learns to determine the spatial arrangement of details and correlate them with other parts of the whole. You can use split pictures, puzzles, cubes with pictures, lotto, puzzles for building figurative images from geometric shapes. It is useful to consider optical illusions. Classical examples are the US dollar vase, Escher’s paintings, Schroeder’s stairs, illusions of perception of size or movement. This series also includes stereo images and pattern recognition games. All these are fun and exciting activities that perfectly train visual perception.

Exercises to improve visual analysis, meaningfulness of perception

— Recognition of contour or silhouette images of objects (correlate the image of an object and its shadow).

– Recognition of dotted or dotted images of objects and geometric shapes.

– Recognition of crossed out images superimposed on each other.

– Search for a given figure in a number of others.

– Search for differences in images.

– Search for missing or extra details in drawings.

— Game «Find a couple.» Several toys are placed in front of the child, they offer to find two identical ones among them (in shape, color, size).

Exercises for the development of visual-spatial perception and visual memory

— Guessing objects in unfinished drawings, recognizing them by individual characteristic details.

– Distinguishing correct and mirror images.

— Identification of similar details in objects and grouping them on this basis.

— The game «What happened?» Pictures or objects for memorization are placed in front of the child, after which the adult quietly removes something, and the child, turning around, guesses the missing object.

— Game «What has changed?» (the same, only with remembering the location of objects).

Visualization exercises

— The game «Magic bag». An adult holds an opaque bag with small items in front of the child. The child must feel the object, name it and characterize it (rough, smooth, wooden, round, etc.). The same game can be played with objects lying in a bowl of sand.

— «What happens?» The adult invites the child to remember what objects he knows that have a certain quality (what is round, flat, soft, yellow, and so on).

“Name five.” You need to name five objects that are larger than the given one (table, chest of drawers, elephant), or five objects that are similar in shape to the given one.

“What does it look like?” This game can be played anywhere. Let’s say the stream of cars rushing under the bridge resembles a river. It is useful to represent the same object in different images. An adult can help the child find new associations to shake established stereotypes like «the house is like a cube.»