Development of child’s cognitive abilities in project activity on environmental subjects

Introduction. An increasing emphasis in education is placed currently on the development of cognitive abilities of children, their cognitive, creative activity. The solution of this problem at the first stage of general education is associated with learning technologies .In spite of developing opportunities of project activities on environmental topics and implementation of such projects in the education in preschool institutions are required more in-depth study despite the rather large volume of available publications on this problem. The purpose of this work is to identify the pedagogical conditions for the successful development of senior preschoolers’ cognitive abilities in project activities with environmental content.
Materials and methods. The study of children's cognitive abilities was carried out using the following diagnostic methods: “Unusual tree” (author – N.E. Veraksa); “The Fourth Extra” (author – V.V. Kholmovskaya); “Nonsense” (author – R.S. Nemov); “addition of phrases” (author – E.L. Agaeva). The professional competence of teachers in the aspect of the studied problem was determined during the interview.
Results. Project activities on environmental topics have great potential in the development of preschoolers’ cognitive abilities due to the fact that they provide a solution to the problem, which is based on a contradictory situation; imply that the problem is a starting point for the development of the situation; involve a transformation of the situation; provide for the expression of attitude to the surrounding reality.
The development of children’s cognitive abilities in preschool age is carried out primarily due to the mastery of intellectual operations. Involving Children into project activities on environmental topics contributes to the development of mental operations of analysis, generalization and classification according to essential features, the ability to establish logical connections and relationships existing in the environment, cause and effect relationships.
Discussion and Conclusions. The pedagogical conditions that ensure the development of cognitive abilities of older preschool children in the activities of the project are the selection of natural history information that meets the factors of novelty, complexity, the presence of contradiction in it, as well as the implementation of pedagogical technology based on a holistic approach to organizing children solve search and research and creative nature by incorporating into different types of activities, consistent development of the ability to navigate the flow of information, to construct their knowledge.

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