The main activity of a preschool child is play. While playing, the child learns new things, learns to do something on his own, create and interact with others. And this does not require complex expensive toys — for example, sand carries a huge potential for the development of a child.
Remember: when you were little, you probably disappeared in the sandbox for a long time: sculpted Easter cakes, built sandcastles and highways, buried “secrets”. These simple activities brought you a lot of pleasure. This is because sand is a pantry of possibilities. When constructing something from this material, you can not be afraid to make a mistake — you can always fix everything or start over.
Today, children can play with sand not only on walks, but also at home: the use of plastic kinetic sand (it contains silicone) opens up new opportunities for development. With sand play, you can:
- help the child master simple grammatical categories (singular and plural nouns, imperative and indicative moods of verbs, cases, simple prepositions),
- to acquaint children with the signs and qualities of objects and actions, with their verbal designations,
- to learn to compare objects according to the individual most clearly distinguished features,
- learn to communicate using phrases and simple non-common sentences in speech, compiled on questions and visual actions.
You can use sand to introduce children to the rules of the road: create a street layout with road signs and crossings together
Introduce your child to new material. Introduce him a new friend — the Sand Wizard, who «bewitched» the sand. Explain the rules of the game: you cannot throw sand out of the sandbox, throw it at others, or take it in your mouth. After class, you need to put everything back in place and wash your hands. If you do not follow these rules, the Sand Wizard will be offended.
As part of the first lesson, invite the child to touch the sand, stroke it, pour it from one palm to another, tamp and loosen it. Introduce him to the main properties of sand — flowability and stickiness. What kind of sand is better to sculpt: from wet or dry? What kind of sand leaves hand and finger prints? Which sand is better sifted through a sieve? Let the child find the answers to these questions on their own.
Sand can not only be poured, but also painted on it (after pouring a thin layer on a tray). When a child draws from left to right, his hand is preparing to write. In parallel, you can tell the baby about wild and domestic animals. Invite him to depict the traces of the studied animals, hide animals and birds in sand holes. In addition, sand can be used to introduce children to the rules of the road: create a street layout with road signs and pedestrian crossings together.
Game examples
What other sand games can be offered to a child at home and how do they contribute to his development?
Game «Hide the treasure» helps develop fine motor skills, increases the sensitivity of the hands and prepares them for writing. As a «treasure» you can use small toys or pebbles.
Game «Pets» stimulates the child’s speech activity through dialogue. The kid will have to settle the animals in sand houses, feed them, find a mother for the cub.
During the game «In the Gnome’s House» Introduce the children to the tiny house by pronouncing the names of the pieces of furniture in a diminutive form (“table”, “crib”, “high chair”). Draw the child’s attention to the correct use of prepositions and endings in words («put on a high chair», «hide in a locker», «put on a bed»).
Game «Visiting the Sand Giant» allows the child to get acquainted with magnifying suffixes: unlike the tiny furniture of the Gnome, the Giant has everything big — “chair”, “wardrobe”.
Game «Adventures in the Sand Kingdom» suitable for the formation and development of coherent speech. Make up stories with your children about the adventures of a toy hero in the Sand Kingdom. At the same time, both dialogical and monologue speech will develop.
Playing in «Let’s Plant a Garden», the child can plant toy carrots on the sand beds if he hears the right sound — for example, «a» — in the word that you name. Then the game can be complicated: the child will have to determine exactly where the sound is located in the word — at the beginning, middle or end — and plant the carrot in the right place in the garden. This game contributes to the development of phonemic hearing and perception.
Game «Who lives in the Sand Castle?» also contributes to the development of phonemic hearing and perception: only toys with a certain sound in the name are accepted into the castle.
Game «Save the fairytale hero» helps the development of differentiation and automation of speech sounds. The child must save the hero from the enemy — for example, the evil toothy Wolf. To do this, you need to correctly and clearly pronounce certain words, phrases or sentences. To complicate the task, you can invite the baby to repeat tongue twisters.
Elements of a fairy tale: Gnome, Giant, Wolf, Sand Kingdom — will not only bring variety to classes, but also help reduce muscle and mental stress.