Associate Professor, PhD E.I. Popova
Ershov Ishim pedagogical institute (branch) of Tyumen state university, Ishim

Keywords: healthy lifestyle, federal state educational standard (FSES) of pre-school education, educational area "Physical development", program, project.

The federal state educational standard of pre-school education is aimed at ensuring and maintaining proper physical and mental health levels of children, forming the values of healthy living and developing physical qualities of children. The content of the educational area “Physical development” is made so that children could acquire skills in the following activities: motor activities including physical exercises geared to improve physical qualities, such as joint mobility and coordination skills; activities promoting musculoskeletal system formation, developing important physical attributes (balance, coordination, gross and fine motor skills); learning the appropriate motor performance, which does not cause damage to the body (walking, running, pad jumping, left and right torso turns); forming the concept of sport; learning sport games and their rules; developing the skills of motivation and self-regulation in terms of motor performance; establishing the values of healthy lifestyle, acquiring the subject-related norms and rules (on nutrition, motor regimen, development of resistance to cold, acquirement of healthy habits, etc.) [4].

It is recognized that, in preschool physical education, the focus shifts to formation of physical qualities, skills and abilities of a child, while the issues of personal skills building are merely declared in statements as being conducive to its formation.

Thus, the pilot projects "Old Outdoor Games”, “Olympic Education for Senior Preschoolers” and educational program “Healthy Choice” were approved within the framework of the municipal innovative platform for implementation of FSES PE and conducted in Ishim child day-care institution, Tyumen region (Municipal Pre-school Educational Institution “Child Development Center – Day-Care Institution #5”).

The program “Healthy Choice” is based on the health improvement approach, according to which health is described as the state of complete physical well-being rather than just the absence of disease or handicaps; it is a positive approach built upon social, personal and physical abilities of an individual [7].

Program purpose: setting conditions for cultivating healthy lifestyle values in senior preschoolers.

Program objectives mostly involve formation of children’s readiness for self-determination regarding the issues of health, healthy life choices; formation of positive attitude towards “supporting healthy lifestyle”; teaching children the methods of dealing with real life problems; development of ability to effectively interact with peers and adults. 

In accordance with the main conception of the program (integrity of biological, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of healthy lifestyle), every subject is taught at four levels: physical, psychological, social and spiritual [6]. 

The lesson plan includes the following topics: “Healthy lifestyle”, “Communication”, “Feelings”, “Protection of feelings”, “Anger management”, “Healthy choice”, “Personal boundaries”, “Friendship” and “Personal uniqueness”.

The framework of the topic “Healthy lifestyle” includes the following issues: healthy lifestyle; benefits of physical, psychological, social and spiritual health.

The framework of the topic “Communication” includes the knowledge on the communication methods that are physically, psychologically, socially and spiritually healthy.

The framework of the topic “Feelings” includes the following issues: significance of feelings; body symptoms; specific feelings of an individual (anger, fear, happiness, surprise, bewilderment, resentment, loneliness, sadness).

The topic “Protection of feelings” includes in its framework the following issues: risks in communication; physical and psychological methods of dealing with negative or uncomfortable feelings; protective behaviour, through which one can suppress feelings.

The topic “Anger management” includes in its framework the following issues: physical techniques of anger management; psychologically and socially safe techniques for releasing anger.

The topic “Healthy choice” includes the following issues: benefits of healthy choice; specifics of overcoming real life problems.

The topic “Personal boundaries” includes in its framework the skills to define personal boundaries.

The topic “Friendship” includes the skills of making friends with people who are reliable, faithful and assist in pursuing the healthy lifestyle.

The framework of the topic “Personal uniqueness” includes the following issues: personal individuality; physical, intellectual, social and spiritual qualities and capacities; unique qualities and capacities of other people [5].

According to the program content, preschoolers will be able to:

•  acquire health saving knowledge and skills;
• give themselves a positive self-concept (elements of self-acceptance); recognize various qualities in themselves at the level, which is feasible in terms of tender age;
• be self-confident; experience the feeling of safety and equality;
• be good-natured and benevolent towards other people; communicate in a flexible manner (“I am able to look at a problem through the eyes of another person”, “I am able to team up and make common cause with other people”, “I am able to negotiate and match my own plans with the plans of other people”);
• apply stress management strategies;
• lead healthy lifestyle.

The project "Old Outdoor Games” is designed to teach children the rules of active games. The distinctive feature of the project is the potential of outdoor sport games and its implementation. At the stage of project development, we considered the fact that the outdoor games subculture implies establishing the community of mixed-age children, which simulates complex social relationships that take place in the real life. However, despite the obvious educational and socializing potential of outdoor games, they are not used in pre-school educational institutions to the fullest extent.

Active games not only represent physical challenges requiring such physical qualities as agility, speed, strength and endurance, but also play an important role in the children’s discovery of human relationships. Thus, we have provided the open playgrounds within MPEI “Child Development Center – Day-Care Institution #5” designed to be the site of gaming activities for children and parents, the event-driven space. Consequently, the mini project “Time of Outdoor Games” was developed; it is based on the event-driven method, which basically “cultivates” the child-parent event-driven communities, drives the personal development of children and their parents and maximizes the potential and harmony of their coexistence [1]. Game practice stands for the key cultural practice of the project.

The children learnt active games and its rules through the quest game “Adventure to the World of Outdoor Games”. As a universal game technique, the quest comprises competitive mechanisms providing settings for active participation in active games, making children follow the certain game rules and search for optimal solutions to exercises of different complexity degrees for motor skills building.

As part of the preparatory stage, parents along with their children organized and held the entertainment event “Recalling Outdoor Childhood”; a list of outdoor games was made; playground visual markings and game equipment were prepared (circles, squares, rounds, hopscotch markings, bats for the Russian folk games: the bat-and-ball game ‘lapta’, the bowling like ‘gorodki’, the analogue of cricket ‘chizh’, etc.); several teams consisting of children and their parents were organized. The teams completed a number of quests (“Ball games”, “Tag”, “Jumping games”, “Throwing and tossing games”, “Hide and seek”), during which the participants performed various tasks tuning in the outdoor games. The final quest “Secrets” involved the children game based on treasure stashing and hunting.

The project implementation delivered the following results:

• the quest game “Adventure to the World of Outdoor Games” was essential not only for formation of children’s demand for motor activities and development of their physical qualities, but also brought children and parents together; moreover, it turned out to be a good icebreaker for making friends among the participating families;
• universal game rules followed by children and parents made children feel their significance, while to their parents it was the way to switch from the role of a disciplined and superior adult to the position of a child;
• in case if the parents took the time spent with their children as something special, they began to see not only their own point, but also learnt what the child thought about it; 
•  mental and emotional well-being of children improved and so on.

It is important to emphasize that the skills and experience acquired by parents and children, as well as the manners of interaction among them, were of spontaneous and natural effect on the real life of the families.

We have used the potential and options of the Olympic education in the project to cultivate in preschoolers the basic concepts of sports.

According to L.I. Lubysheva, the Olympic education program should include at least three principal aspects: educational, motivational and practical.

The 1^st aspect: teaching about the Olympic Games, history of the Olympic movement, humanistic ideals and Olympic values.

The 2^nd aspect: gaining children's interest in sport, forming their need for sport activities, sport achievement motivation.

The 3^rd aspect: formation of skills and competences for practical acquisition of the principles and values of Olympism through active participation of children in traditional and innovative models of physical education and sport activities [2, 3].

The aspects mentioned above were considered in our project “Olympic Education of Senior Preschoolers”.

During the project implementation, the children have learnt the specifics of certain sports by gaining the insight into the Olympic Games: their history, symbols, rituals, winter and summer sports and Olympic championships through mini projects, discussions, multimedia presentations, videos, extracts from TV shows, photo collages, educational games, quizzes, competitions, “Olympic lessons”, Small Olympic Games as part of the educational activities exclusively, educational events, joint educational activities, practical and creative activities.

The project results: lapbooks “Winter Olympic sports”, “Summer Olympic sports”; didactic scrapbook containing the information about athletes (with sections “The 20^th century’s sport legends”, “Best Russian athletes”, “Famous athletes of Ishim town”); multimedia presentations on the history of the Olympic Games; children’s art exhibition on Olympic sports, etc.

The project results include establishment of the children’s concept of Olympic sports, champions, Olympic Games and Olympic movement; building the children’s vocabulary (biathlon, bobsleigh, luge, snowboarding, baseball, triathlon, decathlon, pentathlon, handball, international competitions and so on); motivating to physical education classes and, last but not least, forming the conduct in compliance with the Olympic values.

There is every reason to believe that our program “Healthy Choice” and projects “Old Outdoor Games” and “Olympic Education for Senior Preschoolers” are available for implementation in any pre-school educational institution. 

References

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