Children's scientific education activities refer to the inquiry process in which children perceive, observe, operate and explore the surrounding things and phenomena with the support and guidance of teachers, and find problems and answers. Teachers make full use of the surrounding environment, create conditions for children, choose content suitable for children's learning, provide sufficient materials, and use different methods to design and organize various scientific inquiry activities in which children participate; It is a process to help children actively acquire scientific experience, construct concepts, develop intelligence and develop scientific attitudes.
With the promulgation of the "Outline" and the deepening of kindergarten curriculum reform, kindergarten science education activities have also moved from closed to open, from static to dynamic, from simple knowledge transfer to providing more space for children to explore independently. Kindergarten science education is an important part of children's all-round development education, which not only enriches children's knowledge about nature, but also stimulates children's concern and interest in nature, and initially forms children's correct attitude towards people and things around them, which is of great significance to children's development.
Today, with the implementation of the Guiding Outline of Kindergarten Education, it is necessary to explore the goal orientation, content selection and methods of preschool science education. By creating a suitable environment and various activities for scientific enlightenment education, children's interest in science can be stimulated, and children can learn the ability to solve problems in exploration activities and acquire the knowledge and skills they deserve.
Second, make clear the goal orientation of kindergarten science education.
In our current science education activities, due to the influence of traditional science education, we often only emphasize the teaching of scientific knowledge and the cultivation of scientific skills; Some regard how much scientific knowledge is taught and how many scientific skills are mastered as the main criteria for evaluating the effect of science education. This practice of "giving up the basics" takes a lot of time and has little effect. Therefore, we must be very clear about the goal of kindergarten science. In this regard, there are clear provisions in the Guiding Outline of Kindergarten Education. Let's review it together.
Interactive question 1:
What is the goal of science in the Guiding Outline of Kindergarten Education?
First, they are interested in things and phenomena around them; Curiosity and thirst for knowledge;
Second, be able to use all kinds of senses, use your hands and brains to explore problems;
Third, the process and results of exploration can be expressed and communicated in an appropriate way;
Fourth, we can feel the quantitative relationship of things from life and games, and experience the importance and interest of mathematics;
Five, care for animals and plants, care about the surrounding environment, close to nature, cherish natural resources, have a preliminary awareness of environmental protection.
Interactive question 2:
Among the five goals put forward in the outline, can we extract what is the core of the goal of kindergarten science education? (That is, what is its focus and what is the main goal of kindergarten science education? )
The outline emphasizes that the main goal of kindergarten science education should be to sprout children's interest and desire for exploration; Stimulate children's interest, emotion and desire to explore science through science education activities; Let children accumulate initial scientific knowledge, learn simple scientific methods, cultivate scientific spirit and form initial scientific quality in the whole process of scientific inquiry activities.
It can be seen that the core of the goal is: interest in science, exploration of scientific desire and cultivation of scientific spirit.
Thirdly, it is clear that the choice of content should be close to children's life and reflect the life-oriented educational content.
"Outline" points out that children's science education is scientific enlightenment education, which focuses on stimulating children's cognitive interest and inquiry desire. We should try our best to create conditions for children to actually participate in inquiry activities, so that they can feel the process and methods of scientific inquiry and experience the fun of discovery. Science education should be closely linked with children's real life, and make use of the things and phenomena around us as the objects of scientific exploration. Children's scientific inquiry covers a wide range, involving animals, plants, materials, weather and natural phenomena. Teachers should accurately grasp the inquiry contents, key experiences, related scientific concepts and principles involved in children's inquiry activities.
Interactive question:
In the content requirements of the "Outline" in the field of science, what language is used to emphasize that the content of kindergarten science education should be close to children's life?
There are some requirements for educational content in the Outline, such as "using common things and phenomena around us", "about the number, quantity, shape, time and space in the surrounding environment", "starting with the scientific and technological achievements that children are familiar with in life and in the media" and "starting with small things around them", which are concrete manifestations of the requirements for the life-oriented science education for children.
However, in practice, we often find that the educational content or operating materials preset by teachers for children in teaching are far from their lives, or beyond their age characteristics and cognitive laws. Although we wasted a lot of time explaining, the children were not interested. For example, in an exploration activity about the elasticity of objects in nave, teachers and students jointly collected materials such as rubber bands, springs, rubber bands, sponges, table tennis, wood blocks, stones, nails, cloth and so on. The teacher asked the children which materials are elastic, and some children said that table tennis is also elastic because it can play so high. Other children say that table tennis is not elastic. At this time, the teacher was puzzled, because theoretically table tennis should be classified as an inelastic object, but intuitively speaking, table tennis is elastic. Explain to explain, the child still doesn't understand, and finally it goes away. The reason is that it is difficult for teachers to choose the content, because the flexible exploration of table tennis is beyond their ability for middle school students, and there is no need to put table tennis in this activity.
Therefore, when arranging the contents of science education activities, teachers should choose the contents that are common in children's lives, can arouse their interest, are easy to operate and are easy for them to understand and master, so that children can truly experience that what they have learned is useful to themselves and the people around them, which is what they want to know and understand at present. My little hands, interesting joints (middle class) and understanding of the five senses in provincial textbooks are all very close to children's lives. Some of the contents of scientific activities are preset by teachers and some are random. Teachers should be good at seizing some opportunities to educate children during the day's activities. For example, when we lead children for a walk, we can guide them to observe the changes of flowers, trees and weather, and inspire them to associate themselves with the changes of clothes, diet and environment of people around them and perceive the obvious characteristics of the four seasons; During the break, we lead the children to play the game of "finding shadows". Children can naturally find out when they can see shadows and when they can't. Sometimes the shadow is in front, and sometimes the shadow is behind. Children love to eat ice cream and have some experiences that "ice will melt into water". Once, while playing with ice cubes, I took a glass and filled it with ice cubes. I asked my children how much water would be in the cup if the ice melted. Many children told me without thinking that a glass of ice would turn into a glass of water, so I put the glass in the sun. Soon, the children were surprised to find that a glass of ice was only half a glass of water after melting. The children further perceived the phenomenon of "melting" unconsciously, and at the same time understood a truth: some things are inaccurate by guessing, so you have to try it yourself and have a look before you can draw a conclusion.