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.
There was a misconception that imagination flourishes in children younger age, and then it gradually dies away, giving way to sober thinking. On this occasion, the great Russian teacher and psychologist K.D. Ushinsky wrote: “...They think that with age it (imagination - A. 3.) weakens, fades, loses liveliness, richness and variety. But this is a big mistake, contrary to the entire course of development of the human soul. A child’s imagination is poorer, weaker, and more monotonous than that of an adult.”
Only under the influence of education can something be formed creative imagination, which is characteristic of the activities of a worker, scientist, artist.
The first manifestations of imagination can already be observed in a child. early age, at the end of the second - at the beginning of the third year of life. Based on traces of previous irritations, through new combinations of them, the first images of imagination begin to arise in the child. These beginnings of imagination are reflected in the first story games preschoolers, as well as in the interest that they show in the simplest stories told to them by adults. So, a baby at the age of one year and eight months, who has already learned to use a spoon somewhat, takes a match instead of a spoon and “feeds” it to his grandmother and mother who are here, as well as a porcelain dog and a bust of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. This is how the imaginary “feeding” occurs.
Listening to the fairy tale “The Thieving Magpie,” a two-year-old boy imagined the entire content of this story so vividly that he was overcome with pity for the fifth, offended finger, deprived of the “magpie.” Wanting to somewhat correct the injustice, at the end of the fairy tale he declares: “And his mother also fed him.”
These examples show that already in pre-preschool age, along with memory images, images of imagination begin to arise in the child.
However, at the first stages of its development, the imagination turns out to be very weak and poor in content. The child in his imagination is still very much bound by what he perceives in this moment circumstances and the limited supply of his small personal experience.
Thus, children of one and a half to two years are still unable to listen to a story about any distant things and events, but they listen with pleasure to small stories that resemble scenes from their own life that they have recently experienced. The weakness and limitation of the imagination of preschoolers is also manifested in their games. These games usually reproduce some simple actions that children have repeatedly observed at home or in kindergarten(putting children to bed, washing, feeding, etc.).
Unlike a preschooler, a young child finds it difficult to supplement any object missing in the game with a fictitious, imaginary one. So, if the baby is used to feeding the doll from a small cup while playing at lunch, then in the absence of this cup he is lost and does not know what to do. The initiative in play for children of this age usually comes not from themselves, but from adults. Children's first games are those that adults or older children played with them.
Thus, the imagination of a preschooler is initially still very limited and is distinguished, on the one hand, by its passive recreating nature, and on the other hand, by its involuntary character.
In preschool age, under the influence of upbringing, in connection with the expansion of the child’s experience, the development of his interests and the complication of his activities, the further development of children’s imagination occurs. This development is not only quantitative, but also qualitative. The imagination of a preschooler is not only richer than that of a young child, but it acquires new features that were absent in preschool age.
In their inventions, preschoolers are more inventive than pre-preschoolers; their imagination is not only reproductive, but also creative.
Even in cases where the teacher offers preschoolers the plot of the game, they do not mechanically reproduce it, but creatively develop and complement the proposed topic.
After the excursion to the railway station, the teacher offers the children middle group kindergarten: "Let's play railroad." The children happily agree and, with the help of the teacher, figure out the roles. One will be the head of the station, another will be a passenger, the third will be a driver, etc. And Misha declares: “I will be a driver, I will carry people and things to the station.” He creatively expanded the plot of the game, came up with a role for himself and the range of responsibilities that he would perform.
The preschooler’s imagination becomes less dependent on what the child perceives at the moment. The baby in his imagination is extremely dependent on the things and toys that are now available. A doll catches his eye - he begins to rock it; They give him a cart - he drives it back and forth.
In the imagination of a preschooler, a general plan, verbally formulated by a teacher or a group of playing children, begins to play a large role. He begins to subordinate his actions to this plan.
While playing railroad, the preschooler imagines that the chair is a carriage or a steam locomotive. But then, when playing with dolls, the chair turns into a house, and toy utensils and dishes are conveniently located under it. Finally, when, when playing at a store, you need to place a cashier somewhere, the chair becomes a cash register, and through the hole in its back they accept money and issue checks to customers. Within the limits of the game’s plot that captivates him, a preschooler can already subordinate the work of his imagination general theme, the main idea of collective gaming activity.
The imagination of a preschooler acquires the features of some purposefulness and a certain arbitrariness. All these changes in children's imagination do not arise immediately, of course. Imagination goes through a number of qualitatively unique stages in its development throughout preschool childhood.
A younger preschooler's imagination is still in many ways similar to that of a pre-preschooler. Although the plot of the game, for example, of a three-year-old child is richer and more meaningful than that of two-year-old children, it is still limited to the reproduction of a rather narrow range of actions and events observed by children at home and in kindergarten. Games of cooking dinner, washing, dressing and feeding dolls, etc. are often repeated.
In children of this age, the dependence of the imagination process on the objects and phenomena perceived at the moment is great.
In his imagination, the youngest preschooler still has little independence, little initiative.
In order to introduce a new plot into a game or into a drawing of a younger preschooler, an adult usually has to not only reveal the topic of his activity, but also organize the appropriate environment, clearly show how to perform individual actions, help choose an appropriate role in the game, etc.
Having insufficient practical experience, younger children are still poorly differentiated between images of imagination and ideas about actually perceived objects and phenomena.
Junior preschooler sometimes confuses the imaginary with the real; what he made up with what he actually saw and experienced.
They say about the great Russian actor K. Stanislavsky that when he was about three years, he “terribly frightened everyone by saying that he “igouku puaguatiu” (i.e. swallowed a needle). My God, what happened here! “Where do you feel it?” “Here,” he points to his chest. "And now?" “Now here,” shows a completely different place. Get the doctor quickly. Trouble! Horror! In the end it turns out that Kostya didn’t swallow any needles and that he just made it up.” Apparently, under the influence of the conversations he heard, the child so vividly imagined that he had swallowed a needle that he himself believed in the reality of his fiction. This kind of confusion between the imaginary and the real also occurs in older children. However, in most cases, older preschoolers already know well what is done or said “for fun” and what is “for real”, what is fiction and what is reality.
In middle preschool age, imagination changes significantly. In connection with the expansion of the child’s experience, the development of his interests, and the complication of his activities, the imagination acquires a more creative character. The plots of children's games, drawings, and independent stories become richer and more diverse.
In them, the child reflects not only what is happening in her immediate environment, but also much more distant events from the life of the factory, collective farm, the Soviet Army and Navy. In his imagination, a child of this age achieves significantly greater independence and initiative. He no longer simply reproduces, with some variations, themes borrowed from adults or older children. He creatively modifies them, complements them with new ones, and begins to look for ways to implement his creative ideas.
However, reaching fairly high stages of development, imagination in middle preschool age, as in children of younger ages, can proceed successfully only when it is directly related to the external activities of the child.
In order to imagine, a child needs to do something: play, draw, build or tell a story. When depicting a horseman, a child can easily imagine that the umbrella is a horse, and the wardrobe is a stable. But for all this he must ride on an umbrella, otherwise his imagination stops working and refuses to serve him.
Even when recreating in his imagination the images of heroes and events described in listened stories and fairy tales, the preschooler is not a passive listener, but an active participant in the perceived stories, intervenes in the narrative, gestures and makes various remarks, strokes the images of positive characters with his hand, tries to blacken out the faces of negative ones with a pencil characters, etc.
He still does not know how to imagine, so to speak, to himself, outwardly remaining inactive, as a schoolchild or an adult does.
In older children preschool age imagination rises to a new, higher level of development. Under the determining influence of upbringing, the child’s experience is further enriched, giving him the opportunity to reflect a wider area of the surrounding reality in his games and visual activities.
Becoming more creative and purposeful (which is expressed, for example, in subordinating one’s imagination to the requirements of the role taken on, the rules of the game, etc.), the imagination gradually acquires relative independence from the child’s external activities.
Sometimes interesting transitional forms are observed. Imagination, for example, still flows mainly during the game. But the game itself is already manifested not so much in external actions, but in the internal plane, in terms of ideas.
Korolenko describes how he and his brother played traveling as children. Having climbed into an old carriage parked in a landfill, they sat in it for hours, outwardly doing almost nothing. The brother occasionally urged imaginary horses, and little Korolenko sometimes uttered a few words, addressing imaginary people he met. The main content of the game unfolded entirely internally, mentally. They imagined the distant countries they visited, the dangerous incidents they had to endure along the way, etc.
Imagination, inextricably linked with the child’s activities, in the course of development turns into a relatively independent mental activity.
The development of imagination in a preschool child is important for preparing him for school. None schooling cannot occur successfully unless it is supported by a sufficiently developed imagination.
As already indicated, in order to understand a lesson in geography, learn a chapter from a history textbook, or solve a problem in physics, you need to be able to imagine an object or phenomenon from a description, that is, recreate it in your imagination.
Thus, educational activities makes great demands on the imagination. While schooling requires imagination, it also contributes to its further development. Thanks to mastery of the basics of science, thanks to the accumulation of extensive knowledge, the student’s recreating imagination becomes more accurate, and the creative imagination becomes more focused, deeper in its content.
Imagination does not develop by itself, but requires certain conditions and, above all, proper organization educational work. In the absence of proper pedagogical guidance, the development of imagination is greatly delayed or begins to go in an undesirable direction.
Goncharov perfectly described in Oblomov what a perverted character the imagination acquires in a child who is brought up far from real life, protect from “everything that really exists”, introduce only the world of fairy tales and fantasies.
As a result, “the boy’s imagination became peopled with strange ghosts; fear and melancholy have settled in the soul for a long time, perhaps forever. He looks around sadly and sees everything in life as harm, misfortune, he keeps dreaming of that magical side where there is no evil, trouble, or sorrow, where Militrisa Kirbitievna lives, where they feed and clothe so well for nothing.”
Thus, thanks to improper upbringing, a type of inactive dreamer, a fruitless dreamer begins to take shape.
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 and in conversations with teachers, the child then reflects what he perceived in his drawings and games, and in the process of this creative processing of accumulated experience, the imagination is formed.
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.
Plays an important role in the development of imagination artistic education children.
Listening to fairy tales and fiction stories By attending performances and looking at works of painting and sculpture that are understandable to him, the child learns to imagine the events depicted and his imagination develops.
A.V. Zaporozhets. “Psychology”, M., Uchpedgiz, 1953
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I have said many times that I am not particularly involved in the systematic development of children. And the only thing that I personally can do, and that I like, is to stimulate the development of imagination in children. It's so interesting and fun that I enjoy it myself. If you remember, it is imagination that is the basis thanks to which other intellectual processes (memory, thinking) can easily and quickly develop.
So, let me remind you why the rest of the development system passes me by:
- I'm just being lazy. Yes it is. And this is the first point. Sometimes there are influxes of desire to do something with children. And then I use these influxes, we all enjoy doing everything we can together. And children, from the rarity of such activities, squeal with pleasure and grasp everything on the fly. It would seem a little selfish, but it brings so much benefit!
- Children themselves have enormous potential for curiosity. And I try not to suppress their natural need to learn with activities I have invented. At the same time, if the child himself asks to do something (he wants to know the letters, asks for numbers, wants to know the structure of the rocket), then I answer and tell. Children themselves become the initiators of lessons and activities.
- Play is important for preschoolers and younger schoolchildren. Not classes in game form, namely the game itself. And this is their main occupation and main lesson.
And yet there is one thing that I try to develop, although this verb does not fit very well (I try, rather, to stimulate). This is the development of imagination in children. And here we are not talking about making an applique or drawing a house with the sun. In my opinion, “repeat and do as I do” classes can hardly be called real, creative. They are interesting, useful, important, but this is not real creativity. True creativity involves creating something that has not yet existed. So, what ideas and principles do I use when stimulating the development of children's imagination? 
Developing Imagination in Children: Ideas and Principles
Games. Everything should be a game. Not in a playful way, but through play. It may or may not have rules. Moreover, children create these games themselves. I can start, but they continue.
If the child doesn't want to, we don't do it. something that develops the imagination. There is no point in developing such a skill by force; nothing will come of it anyway. By the way, if I don’t want to do it, I don’t do it either.
No special classes, everything is included in life and games. There is nothing more boring than sitting and deliberately doing monotonous exercises. Any of the methods described below can be applied anytime, anywhere.
The ideas, I think, are clear. And then it’s possible useful development torture a child. But, as you understand, I am against this. Now let's move on to specific examples. By the way, here I will talk more about the development of creative imagination in preschool children, this is closer to me. For older children, you can come up with more games. When my children grow up, I will write an article about this too.
Development of imagination in children. Traditional activities:
Fairy tales. Reading books with fairy tales is one of the oldest methods of developing imagination. A child, like many adults, lives the whole story as if they themselves were there, inside a fairy tale.
Role-playing games. Almost all preschool children love to play this. Imagine that you are a butterfly (puppy, KAMAZ, space rocket) and you fly to another clearing (planet). Tell your child the beginning of the story, that he met someone there, something happened. And then let the child come up with the plot himself. Young children will more often rely on your tips, and older children will invent their own. Let them have incredible adventures, escape from villains or find treasures. Probably every child has his own favorite game. I don’t limit children’s imagination; they can invent whoever and anything they want. Sometimes I come up with something interesting with them and together we “go down into the dungeon to look for treasure.” And we do all this, we lose, we crawl. Children are so captivated by this most ordinary but important game that they truly believe in everything and live the whole story. 
Free drawing. When a child draws himself and whatever he wants, even if it’s scribbles. Let the child mix colors and draw different shapes. It doesn't matter what he draws, it's the process that matters. And then you can ask what it is drawn. and let the kid answer what his drawing looks like.
Games to develop imagination in children: my examples
Non-existent. Suitable for quiet games. We decide that we will invent non-existent animals (objects, inventions, plants, people). We choose one thing and begin to fantasize. The children themselves describe who or what it is, what it does, what its name is. For example, let’s invent a non-existent animal: “His name is GINKOZYAVA. This is a purple caterpillar, but with wings like a bat, and its belly bifurcates, and then connects again, it looks like there is a hole in its stomach and it can carry something in this hole. She has eyes in front and behind so she can see clearly, and she also has fur, but it does not grow everywhere, but only in a narrow strip like a mane.” Even children 2.5-3 years old get involved and start coming up with very original things.
What useful things can be done from... We choose a simple object (pencil, piece of paper, apple core) and come up with unusual inventions from this object. For example, a pencil: with a small file you can cut out doors, windows and rooms and make a home for ants or other small insects.
Your own tales. If we get a little bored with ordinary fairy tales, we begin to invent our own. These can be very short mini-fairy tales or entire large works. Moreover, my three-year-old child is able to come up with and tell a little story, and my 5-year-old daughter comes up with full-fledged fairy tales with a plot. Here are some examples of mini-fairy tales:
Once upon a time there lived a fish. And she was rainbow-colored, all her scales were multi-colored like a rainbow. But she was bored in her lake because she was the only one so bright. One day one of her old scales yellow color fell out and fell on another fish. And suddenly this fish began to become colored too. The rainbow fish then rushed to the pebble and quickly scratched its back on the stone so that the old scales would fall out faster, and then it spread these scales throughout the lake and scattered them on all the fish, frogs, fry and other living creatures. After some time, the entire pond was filled with rainbow animals. And the fish began to live very happily.
Just imagine... Often in simple tasks and games I ask the following question: imagine that you are a comet (rocket, ant, wind, house, bucket, fire), what would you do? You can’t imagine how interesting it is to watch a child’s reaction when he imagines himself as something or someone. More is written on his face than he can say. After one such question there can be a long explanation with an incredible number of interesting events. Then all this can smoothly transition into playing this creature. Children love this. Example: “Imagine that you are a yellow leaf that comes off a tree in the fall, where would you fly?” My children answered: “I would fly to Moscow. Then she would fly there and fall to the ground. then she would fly, then she would come back. Then you would pick me up and take me for yourself, put me in a locker for beauty. I would be red and green, shaped like fire, only I would have 4 tips.” 
Developing Creative Imagination: Develop Yourself
In the beginning, especially if you haven't played these types of games before, you need to set an example of how to play. Come up with all these non-existent animals and unusual situations yourself. And over time, the kids will connect to you. And you will be surprised at how rich the imagination of children is.
In fact, there may be more games, it all depends on your imagination. Developing imagination in children is not a strictly regulated activity; it can be anything, as long as it brings joy to you and the children, as long as it provides a wide scope for imagination. Especially in childhood, all the fruits of the imagination are felt so vividly that each child lives many different lives and stories, and this in itself develops the child.
Irina Permyakova
PS. And yes, if you want more varied activities, either for yourself or for older kids, I have .
Imagination plays a huge role in human life. It was precisely this richness, the ability to think outside the box and the ability to generate the most daring ideas that gave humanity the opportunity to move to new levels of development and life. It is easier for a person with good fantasy and imagination to find new contacts, communicate, make friends, and realize themselves in creative professions. But imagination is not an innate quality; it needs to be developed from childhood. “I am a Parent” will tell moms and dads how to develop a child’s imagination, how to teach him to think outside the box, and what tools can help with this.
Fairy tales and stories
All children love fairy tales. Some already know how to read them on their own, while others prefer warm family tradition listen to mom read a book out loud before going to bed. You can develop children's imagination in a fun and interesting way. Try to read the fairy tale to your child only up to a certain point, and then ask him to independently come up with how the story of the book characters ended. The same can be done with a favorite book that has already been read - let the child try to imagine what happened to the fairy-tale characters next, behind the pages of this story. At first these will be just guesses and assumptions, but gradually they will turn into long and exciting stories, full of adventures and new characters.
This game is good because it can be used not only fairy tales, but also cartoons, surrounding objects and anything else. You can play “stories” anywhere: at home, at a party, on a walk, on the bus, in line at a clinic or store.
Observing the world around you
Great for developing imagination and observation of the world around us. When you meet a girl with a dog on the street, ask the child to come up with a name that would suit her pet, what his owner likes to do, and in what places they prefer to go for walks. Having seen an unusual house, ask your child to fantasize: who lives in this house, what the rooms in it look like, what is served for lunch in this house, etc.
In the game of “observation” you can use the simplest means at hand. Let the child figure out how to use an ordinary stick, tablespoons, or stool for other purposes. You will definitely get funny and unconventional answers about how a stick can be used as a knight's sword or used to measure the depth of a puddle, spoons can be used as musical instruments, and when you climb on a stool you can make loud noises.
Role-playing games
They work well to develop children's role-playing imagination. It is important that the child understands the simulated situation. If your child has been to a doctor’s office at least once, he understands what the doctor does, and you can invite him to play hospital: you will be the patient, and the child will be the doctor who examines him and makes a diagnosis. Then you can switch roles. In the same way, you can play teacher and student, hairdresser and client who wants beautiful hairstyle, a fashion designer who comes up with an evening outfit for his favorite doll, waiter and restaurant visitor. You can imagine that you and your baby are going on a long trip and ask your child to list the things that he will take with him and what they will be useful for.
Children learn best the world in a playful way. Organize. It is not at all necessary to buy special devices for this; ordinary toys and budget finger puppets are quite suitable. An improvised “stage” can be made from stools covered with a blanket. Invite your family and friends, use the scenarios of well-known fairy tales and come up with your own exciting stories and new characters. The child will be delighted!
Creative process
Perfectly develop children's imagination and the simplest creative activities:, coloring books, modeling from plasticine, writing poems and stories. If your child shows an interest in creativity, encourage him to try and come up with new ways. Be sure to ask your child what he draws or sculpts from plasticine, and why he uses those particular colors. Set new tasks for him: to draw the same house, but surrounded not by a summer landscape, but by a winter one, to mold a friend for a ready-made plasticine bear, to paint the same picture, but with different colors, to depict an unusual creature and tell about it.
Available means
Use all kinds of materials at hand to develop your child's imagination. Invite your child to assemble a construction set without using instructions, but relying on his intuition to create fun zoo from cubes with animals, lay out an unusual pattern from the mosaic. You can play fun game“Complete the picture”: take a blank sheet of paper and make some kind of sketch, outline, or simply draw a squiggle on it and invite the child to finish your drawing. Show him how a couple of circles can turn into a kitten or a bunny, and several lines can easily and quickly turn into a car or a house.
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 and collect a herbarium of beautiful autumn leaves, make funny people and animals from acorns and cones, build a snow fortress, inflate bubble, watch the movement of the 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
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.
“How to develop a child’s imagination”
Today there is a tendency to underestimate such a mental process as imagination. Parents are mainly concerned about two issues – the health of their children and their preparation for school. Solving the latter, they begin to educate the baby almost from the cradle, turning the environment into a small school.
Real life example. The mother of a baby, not yet a year old, hung a table of consonant sounds of the Russian language above his crib. Let us remind you: the classification of sounds is quite serious - not just deaf and voiced, but labial, front-lingual, back-lingual, etc. This was argued more than convincingly: “So that the smart one grows up!”
Thus, the child’s life is subordinated to one task - to prepare as best as possible for school. Alas, this approach does not justify itself, and the number of children is growing every year -
yes, smart, well-read, able to use a computer and, probably, knowing what labial, frontal and backlingual consonants are - but completely unprepared psychologically for the role of a student. What's the matter?
The mental development of children proceeds spasmodically, in certain periods, each of which is based on the previous one and is ensured by the leading activity of each stage and its age-related new formation. If for some reason at one stage the child has not mastered a certain type of activity, or the specific traits of his personality have not developed, then at the next stage he will experience serious difficulties.
The leading activity for preschool age is play, and the developmental psychological development is imagination. Consequently, if the child has not finished playing, has not completed his fantasy,
has not mastered all types of games, he will not be able to study easily at school. Ready for school - yes-
Leko is not the sum of some knowledge, skills and abilities, it is a certain chain mental development, which is characterized, among other things, by the consistent appearance of “smart” emotions, the ability to anticipate the outcome of a situation, the ability to go beyond its limits and, thus
way to manage it.
The Meaning of Imagination
Imagination is the ability to create new images based on experiences, memories of different sensations and feelings, it is the ability to see the world in a multifaceted and broad way. It is closely related to the perception of the environment, emotions and memory, so its development is of great importance for general development preschoolers.
Imagination performs a number of specific functions:
· representing reality in images and using them to solve problems. This function is associated with thinking and is organically included in it;
· regulation of emotional states. With the help of imagination, a person is able to partially satisfy many needs and relieve the tension generated by them;
· participation in voluntary regulation cognitive processes and states, in particular perception, attention, memory, speech, emotions. With the help of evoked images, a person can pay attention to the necessary events. Through images, he gains the opportunity to control perceptions, memories, and statements.
· formation of an internal plan of action - the ability to carry them out in the mind, manipulating images;
· planning and programming of activities, assessment of its correctness, and the implementation process.
By helping a child develop imagination, along with other abilities, adults help him find himself and his place in life in the future.
Ways to develop imagination
Psychologists distinguish three types of imagination, depending on the method of its formation:
1. Recreating - the image is formed on the basis of a story heard or a book read independently.
2. Creative - the child begins to fantasize without relying on any facts, only with the help of his mind.
This is the most productive type of imagination, the development of which should be pursued.
3. Uncontrollable - the child believes so much in the images created by fantasy that he begins to live in an imaginary world and literally foams at the mouth to defend its reality. This type of imagination is often characteristic of unbalanced children living in problem families.
There are many ways to develop creative imagination. All of them are quite accessible to parents and do not require special training, high costs or serious preliminary organization. The main thing is the desire, the desire to use every minute of communication with the baby to benefit, attention to his need to prove himself.
So, in order to stimulate the development of imagination in a child, the following is necessary:
1. Enrich life experience. The richer the palette of experienced impressions and emotions, the brighter the child’s fantasies. To do this you need:
diversify tactile sensations;
try new tastes and aromas;
travel;
go to concerts, plays, museums;
take walks in nature - in the forest, to the banks of a river, lake;
play improvised musical instruments - pots, spoons, cutting boards, glasses, etc.
2. Read (listen to an adult reading). Reading books about distant, mysterious countries, adventures, and people's lives contributes to the development of imagination - the child imagines plots, portraits of the main characters, countries in which certain events take place, in addition, his stock of words and images is replenished.
3. Make up stories. Thanks to this, the child learns to create his own stories and characters. And by making the baby the main character of the stories, parents strengthen his sense of self-worth.
4. Draw. Imagination is formed in the process of creative processing of what happened. By drawing, the child creates his own world, invents its characters, events, and builds relationships between them. It is important to discuss his works with him, ask him to tell the story of each character, what happened to them, what will happen.
All artistic activity is built on active imagination and creative thinking, which provides an unusual view of the world and promotes the development of abstract-logical memory and thinking, enriches the child’s individual life experience.
5. Come up with a variety of ways to use available materials. Absolutely everything can be useful in the game: a towel can make an excellent turban, a sheet and chairs can make a tent or a fortress, beads can become precious stones, a blanket is like a flying carpet, a TV box is like a house into which you can even put light, the curtains on the windows are like sails, and the apartment is like a ship. The simplest things around us, as a rule, turn out to be the most suitable props for play and stimulate the imagination.
6. Encourage children's games with fictional characters. By depicting the events of everyday, as well as fictional life, the child gains new knowledge. By portraying a wizard or a knight, he will not only feel strong and powerful, but will also understand that he can be anyone. Such games develop self-discipline: the child comes up with the rules himself and
strictly monitors their implementation, better understands cause-and-effect relationships.
By creating fictional situations and playing them to their logical conclusion, he learns to think creatively and solve various problems.
According to research, imaginative children not only continue to develop their imagination as they grow up, but they also become people who can effectively solve various problems. Testing such children at an older age shows that the “inventor” will always have ideas on how to cope with unforeseen circumstances and how to get out of a difficult situation.
7. Putting children in difficult situations. An example of a classic problem: “You are on a desert island. How to survive? Such tasks help to activate mental activity, imagination, form the ability to come up with extraordinary ways out of difficult situations, find ways to solve them in the world around them, not to lose heart or lose heart.
Games and exercises to develop imagination
A game - best view activities for preschoolers who develop creative imagination. Here are examples of games and exercises that can be done with both
as a child, or with a group of children, for example, at a birthday party.
Exercise “Continue the drawing”
Draw six circles of the same size on a piece of paper. Invite your child to complete each circle so that they make different drawings.
Alternatively, draw six squares, ask your child to come up with six different drawings that include these squares as part.
Game "Magic Figures"
The child is offered a variety of geometric figures from colored cardboard. The task is to figure out what they can turn into.
Game-exercise “Let’s invent new life old items"
The creative task is to come up with an unusual use for familiar, ordinary objects. This could be: a matchbox, a pencil, Toothbrush, buttons, light bulb, caps from juice bottles, etc.
Drawing game “Mysterious beast elephant”
The creative task is to come up with and draw an animal that can bear a name such as elephant. While drawing, you need to make up a story about it, including a description.
appearance, habitat, habits, etc.
Game-exercise “Wonderful transformations”
To conduct this, you can use drawings from P. Torrance’s test of creative thinking, or you can come up with your own by analogy. The child’s task is to complete the proposed figures.
Game "Magic Blots"
One part of the sheet is painted with thick paint, after which the sheet is folded in half and pressed against the table to make a print. The task is to carefully examine the resulting double image, figure out what it looks like, and if necessary, add details. Then you can come up with a story about what you see in the picture.
Game "Home Planetarium"
To play, you will need large paper or plastic cups (food packaging is an option) and small flashlights.
Many holes are made in the cups (packaging) in random order. Flashlights are placed inside and lit. The resulting structure must be suspended from the ceiling
in a dark room (you can use a closet - it will latently work out the fear of this room, because many small children are afraid of closets, thinking that different people live there
monsters). Thus, the light will break through the holes and you will get a picture of the starry sky on the ceiling. You can lie down on the floor with your child, watch the “stars,” telling each other mysterious stories about life and adventures on other planets.
Game "Pillow Friend"
For the game you will need: an old pillow, an inexpensive pillowcase, felt-tip pens, ribbons or ribbons (fringe), unnecessary small-sized children's clothing.
The pillow is tied in the middle with a rope or cord - this will be the basis for the body. Ribbons or ribbons (fringe) are attached to the top - this is hair. The details of the face are drawn with a felt-tip pen or cut out from fabric and pasted on. Now you can dress the doll - small shorts, a shirt or just scraps of fabric will do. New friend ready. The child can come up with a name and a story for it.
The game can be preceded (or, conversely, ended) by reading stories about Sipsik - a homemade rag doll, invented by the Estonian writer Eno Raud. A real fact from life: in Soviet times, many children, having learned the story about Sipsik, made themselves a similar doll and came up with stories for it.
Exercise “Changing the situation in familiar fairy tales”
Before telling a familiar fairy tale, they agree with the child to change something in it. First, the adult changes something himself, something that will encourage the child to invent something. For example: “Let’s make it so that when Cinderella ran away from the prince, she lost not a shoe, but something else. What did Cinderella lose, and how did the prince find her?
Through reasoning, trial and error, children and adults move together towards possible answers, this could be a ring, a belt from a dress, etc. Gradually, children will learn to change situations in fairy tales themselves.
Game “Make up a story from the point of view of an inanimate object”
The creative task is to come up with a story from the perspective of a pebble, bead, button, glass ball, window, handkerchief, etc.
Game "Fairy tale in a new way"
It is taken as a basis old tale. The child is invited to endow the main characters with opposite qualities. As an option, make sure that heroes from different fairy tales meet in one story.
Game "Who will notice the most fables"
The materials for the game are stories, poems, pictures with incredible funny situations. You can use K. Chukovsky’s poem “Confusion.” You will also need a set of chips (you can use improvised material - buttons, pebbles, beads, etc.)
Before you start the game, you need to find out how children understand the meaning of the word “fable”. Then the poem is read, slowly and with expression. Anyone who notices a fable while reading puts a chip in front of him. At the end of the game, the chips are counted and all the tall tales are explained.
Game "Encrypted Letter"
Children are invited to compose a coherent, interesting story or fairy tale according to a plan, a diagram, which can be a series of pictures with vague figures.
Game “What in the World Doesn’t Happen”
The creative task is to invent and draw something that does not exist in the world. At the end, there must be a discussion of the drawing, the author’s story about what he depicted is listened to, and together it is clarified whether what is drawn really does not occur in life.
Game "Gift"
Children are asked to come up with and then depict an object or creature using gestures and facial expressions and give it to someone standing next to them. The next child must guess what they gave him. He then does the same, passing his "gift" to another. The game is played in a circle.
Exercise “I want to see music”
To develop imagination, it is good to use games and exercises that involve different senses. So, in particular, beneficial influence music renders. Children are invited to listen to the play “April” by P.I. Tchaikovsky from the musical cycle “The Seasons”, and then tell what images and pictures arose while listening to music, come up with a story.
Game "Artists"
The game is preceded by a preparatory stage, in which children randomly stick a figure resembling a bean or a drop onto a sheet of paper. Next, it is suggested to draw an interesting picture, including a figure in the plot, and come up with a story based on the content of the drawing.
Game "Tale-Tale"
Children are asked to come up with a story in which the main characters are famous fairy tale find themselves in completely different circumstances - they can be both incredible, fantastic, and close to the lives of children.
A game " New fairy tale»
The creative task is to combine two sentences into a story that are not related to each other in meaning. For example, “Far away on an island there was a volcanic eruption...”, “...that’s why our cat remained hungry today,” “A truck drove down the street...”, “...that’s why
Santa Claus had a green beard”, “Mom bought fish in the store...”, “... so I had to light candles in the evening”, etc.
Game "Drawing with a secret"
The game is played in pairs or in a group. To draw, you will need a rectangular sheet of paper and pencils.
The first participant begins to draw, then closes his drawing by folding the piece of paper at the top and leaving some part to continue. The second one completes the drawing in accordance with the part of it that he sees. Again the drawing is closed, leaving only part of it. The game is played until the entire surface of the sheet is used.
Upon completion, the drawing is revealed in its entirety. You can come up with a name for what happened, a story, ask who had what thoughts when making the drawing, who imagined what.
Game "Mysterious drawings"
Cardboard measuring 20 × 20 cm is folded in half. Then take a woolen or half-woolen thread about 30 cm long. Its end, 8–10 cm deep, is dipped in thick paint and clamped inside the cardboard.
You should move the thread inside the cardboard, and then take it out and open the cardboard: you get a chaotic image that is examined, outlined and completed. Extremely
It is useful to give the resulting image a title.
This is complex mental and speech work combined with visual activities will contribute not only to the development of imagination, but also intellectual development children.
Game "Pictography"
A 25 × 25 cm screen is made from cardboard. Velvet paper or plain flannel is glued onto the cardboard. We are preparing a set of woolen or half-woolen threads of various colors. Threads
attached to paper or flannel with a slight movement of the index finger. You can make interesting stories from threads.
Imagination is the ability to create new images based on experiences, using memories of different sensations and feelings. It is closely related to the perception of the world, emotions and memory, therefore development of imagination is very important for proper development the child as a whole.
The child begins to navigate the world thanks to his senses (initially vision and touch). Various images are stored in the baby’s memory, which are combined with certain sensations and emotions - at first vague (a feeling of calm and warmth next to his mother or pain and fear from an unexpected fall).
Afterwards, these memories arise in the baby in various combinations, unconsciously at first, but gradually the baby will learn to combine them arbitrarily to evoke certain sensations, or uses them as symbols.
Around the age of 2 years, children's imagination begins to actively develop. First of all, the child’s play becomes more complex: the baby no longer just carries a soft dog with him, but puts it to bed, feeds it - that is, reproduces familiar actions in which he takes part every day, but now imagining himself in the place of an adult - the one who feeds and puts to bed.
Up to about the age of 3 years, the child’s imagination will be limited to familiar situations.
After the age of three, although play situations may very well resemble everyday ones, the child begins to replace play objects. The baby no longer needs a real spoon to feed his favorite toy - a stick that the child found will be enough.
Fantastic plots begin to appear in games that have no direct connection with the child’s experience of sailing on a ship, flying to another planet, etc.).
At the age of 3-5 years, a child does not draw the line between fantasy and reality, he really flies to other planets, fights with unknown opponents. Quite often, a child becomes so immersed in the world of his own imagination that it begins to influence reality. Parents have nothing to lose by supporting this game.
Than bigger baby As a child gains experience, the more complex and varied the plots of games, stories and drawings become. The little one uses familiar elements in different ways and comes up with new heroes for his adventures. At this age, the child still says all his thoughts out loud or acts them out.
At the age of about 5-6 years, the child’s fantasies gradually go inward, the child is already able to imagine a lot “to himself.” And this is a very important stage in preparing the child for school, because at school you will need to use your imagination voluntarily.
Over time, children's imagination will begin to work more constructively, the child's dreams will become more real.
With age, the child has good developed imagination has every chance of becoming a person who can:
1) Think flexible and innovative, approach any issue from a creative perspective.
2) Find several solutions for one problem.
3) Set goals, visualize them, plan ways to achieve them.
4) Assume the possible outcome of events, see several options for their development and possible risks.
5) Quickly navigate a difficult situation, find the necessary solution, and be smart.
How to develop a child's imagination?
In order to stimulate development of a child's imagination, the following is required:
1. Receive impressions:
- diversify tactile sensations (choose toys from a variety of materials, play games that contribute to the development of tactile sensations);
- try new tastes and aromas;
- travel;
- go to concerts, performances, museums;
- look at the forest, sky, water surface, guess what certain objects look like;
- play improvised musical instruments - pots, spoons, cutting boards;
2) Draw.
When a child draws, he builds his own world, he can tell a whole story about the characters, which he thought about himself while he was moving a pencil along a sheet of paper.
For drawing, you should use not only felt-tip pens (they do not allow you to transfer shades), but also pencils, different kinds paints, crayons.
Listening to an adult reading, as well as already reading on his own, the child quickly imagines all the plots and worries about the book characters.
Books with pictures help the baby quickly tune in to speech perception. Not only the plot, but also the images are very important. This is why many older children love books in the fantasy genre.
4) Tell stories.
5) Guess riddles.
6) Compose various interesting stories.
Note to parents
1. Children simply need time when they can just walk around the square, listen to music, lie on the bed with a book or without it, when their parents do not control them.
2. A real impulse of fantasy is possible only if the baby feels completely safe and is confident that he will not be judged or laughed at.
