Tatyana Semenec

The development of the child’s sensory perception is one of the most important elements of his cognitive progress, which will determine the need for specially organized purposeful work on his/her development in the process of sensory education, including the work in the conditions of a preschool educational institution. The significance of this topic is determined by the interest of many psychologists and educators, both domestic and foreign. Today, there are several well-known sensory perception developing systems that are used in one degree or another in the education of preschool children. Among the foreign ones, this is primarily M. Montessori’s system; it is worth noting in the domestic pedagogy of the pre-war period the works of E. I. Tikheeva. The modern Russian system of sensory education of preschool children is based on the psychological theory of perception, and primarily the works of L. A. Wenger, whose ideas were developed by such teachers as A.P. Usova, N. P. Sakulina, N. A. Vetlugina, A. M. Leushina, V. I. Loginova. Didactic games are one of the most effective tools for the development of sensory perception at a young preschool age. The aim of this work was an experimental evaluation of the effectiveness of didactic games with Dienes blocks use in the development of sensory perception of primary preschool age children. To achieve this, we have developed and tested a program for the development of sensory perception of younger preschoolers using didactic games. We used logical Dienes blocks as the didactic material in the experiment, which are a set of basic geometric figures of different colors and sizes. A comparative analysis of the results of sensory perception development level diagnostics carried out at the ascertaining and control stages of the experiment proved the effectiveness of the implemented program, since the level of sensory perception of children in the experimental group into which we purposefully selected children with a lower level of sensory development significantly increased. In addition, we noted statistically significant negative dynamics of the number of children with a low level of sensory development. The results obtained prove the effectiveness of didactic games use, including the use of Dienes blocks, in the development of sensory perception of primary preschool age children. Besides, the developed and tested program may be used in the practice of preschool educational institutions.

The article discusses the technology of critical thinking in the process of organization of extracurricular independent work of students of the specialty «Preschool education» in the discipline «Mathematics». Critical thinking involves the formulation of sound judgments and make decisions through thorough and comprehensive analysis of information.