As an important form of educational activity that focuses on individualized learning for children and implements personalized education in kindergartens, district corner activities have very important significance and value. They are an extension of the original curriculum organization form. Expansion also plays a complementary and balancing role in kindergarten curriculum, and plays a very important role in children's independent learning and teachers' professional growth. However, there are still many problems and confusions in the development of corner activities in kindergartens. The author talks about his own ideas based on the two main problems that currently exist in corner games in kindergartens-how to set up class activity areas and how to put in corner materials. Understanding, thinking, and practices in kindergarten.

Keywords: District corner activities, educational organization form, activity area setting, material delivery

With the deepening of kindergarten education reform and the deepening understanding of the importance of children’s independent learning, collective teaching The model is no longer unified in the form of kindergarten education activities. As an important organizational form for kindergartens to implement individualized education, district corner activities are receiving more and more attention and use. However, there are still various problems in the development of corner activities in kindergartens. Teachers still have many confusions and questions, especially: How to set up corner activities? Which corners should be set? How to deliver materials? etc. Below I will talk about some of our understandings, thoughts and practices based on the experience of our kindergarten:

1. The basic connotation of district corner activities

(1) The concept of district corner activities< /p>

Corner activities are where teachers use the characteristics of games to create situations that allow children to independently choose, operate, and learn individually or in groups, so that they can use, accumulate, modify, and express themselves in the interaction with the environment. It is a form of educational organization that allows students to gain a game-like experience while also gaining physical, emotional, cognitive, and social development.

For young children, it is an open, low-structured activity. Children can act independently based on their own interests, needs, and will. The content, time, rhythm, sequence and Activity partners and rules can be decided by children themselves or discussed and coordinated with their peers, and activities can be realized and generated during the process of playing with and operating, exploring and discovering, communicating and asking.

For teachers, it is an activity organized by teachers based on their understanding of children’s interests and needs and reflecting certain educational values. Teachers infiltrate their leading role through environment creation, material delivery, suggestions on activity content and form, and influence among partners. It requires teachers to "follow the children" at all times, observe the children's activity process, understand the results of the activities, and adjust the activity plan so that the content and materials of the corner activities are better positioned in the children's "zone of proximal development", and then more effectively Promote children's independent learning and experience improvement.

(2) The significance and value of carrying out district corner activities

1. The significance and value of district corner activities for kindergarten curriculum

A. Expanding the organization of the curriculum Form

For many years, kindergarten curriculum has been mainly implemented through collective educational activities, so collective teaching activities have become the main carrier or the only carrier of the curriculum. The disadvantage of collective education activities is that they cannot effectively promote the full development of every child at different development levels. Therefore, corner activities are an expansion of the original curriculum organization form. It is a kind of individualized learning for children. The form of educational activities can provide each child with a more personalized and targeted education plan. It can ensure that children can truly develop and improve under the premise of rich materials provided by teachers and consistent with their learning interests, needs and individual guidance.

B. Balanced curriculum content system

my country’s kindergarten curriculum mainly focuses on the five major areas of health, language, art, science, and society. It is necessarily limited and has nothing to do with collective education. Compared with other activities, corner activities have the characteristics of an open environment, rich materials, extensive content, and free form, and pay more attention to the process of children's experience construction and the selectivity of children's independent learning. Therefore, both in terms of content and organization, it can be interconnected with many activities, especially in some content systems that require children to operate, explore, and discover by themselves. It can undoubtedly play a complementary and balancing role.

2. The significance and value of corner activities for children and teachers

A. Subject participation is conducive to promoting children’s independent learning

Corner activities It is the best way to maximize the development of children's autonomy and initiative. In corner activities, children can carry out independent activities according to their own interests and abilities. The learning environment is loose and free. In a semi-closed barrier, children can freely choose, fiddle, operate, explore, and accumulate and build themselves through practice. experiences and feelings. In addition, corner activities also have unique spatial and temporal characteristics, which also help promote children's independent learning.

B. Active reflection is conducive to promoting teachers’ professional growth

Since district corner activities are a form of individualized or group-based educational activities, in district corner activities , what teachers face is every child.

During the district corner activities, teachers can start from the children's development needs and interests, strive to improve their educational behavior and abilities, change from a teacher of children's learning to a guide of children's learning, and fully explore the potential of children's learning. District corner activities It provides teachers with a way to promote independent thinking and improve professional abilities through active reflection in a limited time and space environment and in active teacher-child interaction.

3. The significance and value of corner activities in preventing the trend of primary schooling

A common phenomenon in kindergartens is that they focus on collective teaching and neglect games. They believe that only in collective teaching can they learn more Only collective education activities can reflect the characteristics of kindergartens. Most parents also believe that learning can only occur in collective teaching activities. Practice has proved that children like corner activities more and their abilities can be developed more effectively. Therefore, We must actively change the concepts of ourselves and our parents and understand that corner activities can give children a broader and free space for activities. It pays attention to the process of children's individual activities and respects the individual differences of children. They experience success and happiness in corner activities and gain confidence. The mind continues to strengthen and achieve all-round development.

2. Current problems and confusions that teachers have in setting up class activity areas and delivering materials

Through questionnaire surveys among teachers and inspections and observations of routine work , we found that frontline teachers have the following problems and confusions in the setting up of class activity areas and the delivery of materials:

1. I don’t know how to use the limited space to set up area corners (how to effectively use space to set up area corners? );

2. How to avoid mutual interference in area selection;

3. What should I do if the placement of corner materials does not attract children?

4. How to reflect the hierarchy of material delivery?

5. When should the materials be replaced? How to replace?

6. Is it better to place corner materials in real or simulated ways? (For example, when children are asked to make food, is it real or fake?)

In response to teachers’ confusion and questions, let me talk about my kindergarten’s thinking and practices:

3. How to set up the activity area?

(1) Common activity areas in kindergartens:

From the perspective of the nature of corner activities, we divide the activity areas into three categories:

Category 1 It is a learning activity. This type of corner activities mainly helps children to understand and understand the surrounding environment and accumulate life experience and cognitive experience, such as living area, calculation area, language area, science area, art area, etc.

The second category is game-based corner activities. This kind of corner activities mainly allows children to have good emotional experience and accumulation of social life experience. Such as structure area, role game area, performance area, etc.

The third category is a corner activity that integrates learning and games. This type of activity area often has dual functions of gaming and learning.

(2) Setting of activity area:

1. Number of area corners.

The newly issued "Chengdu Kindergarten Grade Rating Measures" stipulates that there must be more than 5 different types of game areas. Under the spiritual guidance of the "Measures", the number of corners set up in each class in our kindergarten is mainly determined according to the activity space, the number of children, and the age characteristics of the children in the class. Generally, there are 5-7 corners.

2. The layout of the area corners is reasonable, and the dynamic and static settings are appropriate

When setting up the area corners, our park makes a reasonable layout based on the nature and characteristics of each area. For example, we choose Xiangyang in the scientific area and natural area. , places close to water sources; the library area and art area are quiet areas, so we set them up in a quiet place with moderate light; the construction area, role game area, and performance area have a lot of activity and are prone to noise, so choose a looser activity space. . The boundaries between districts should be clear to minimize interference between districts when carrying out activities and avoid unnecessary disputes. The traffic routes to and from each corner should be smooth to avoid collisions and pushing. For example, we will not set up corners in the middle of the classroom or at the entrance of the classroom.

3. Creation of the corner environment

※Neat and orderly: Create a neat and orderly environment for children. Children will feel very comfortable and consciously regulate their own behavior. Help the class establish good routines. Therefore, every corner of each class in our kindergarten strives to be clean, tidy, and orderly.

※Three-dimensional transparency: Grasping the three-dimensional sense allows us to fully explore the role of the environment. For example, in the decoration of the activity area, there are homemade chandeliers hanging from the ceiling in the doll's house, fences and doors made of cardboard that can be opened and closed, there are strings of spring hanging flowers in the planting corner, and there are decorations related to the activities on the walls. , the ground has different settings according to different corners.

※Warmth and comfort: Teachers and children spend most of the day in the activity room, so the activity room should be comfortable and attractive, with a homey feel. When creating a corner environment, our garden tries its best to make the environment feel romantic and warm, such as: soft beds, cute cushions, warm floor mats, cute stuffed animals, charming small floral curtains, romantic Pink gauze curtains, etc., mostly use elegant and warm colors.

Our garden also gives full play to the role of parents. Each family presents a small plant to the class, either placed on a cabinet in the activity area, placed on a flower stand in a natural corner, or placed in a corner of the room. The teacher’s homemade decorations and handicrafts make the classroom full of life and as warm as home!

4. Reasonable arrangement of the corner content

The content of the corner is mainly considered from two aspects: First, multi-zone single content, that is, multiple activity zones are set up around one kind of content. For example, around the mathematics content, there are areas for understanding graphics, numbers (counting, decomposition of numbers, addition and subtraction), classification, sorting, finding patterns, jigsaw puzzles, clocks, etc. The second is to have multiple areas and multiple contents, and set up different areas according to different contents: such as cognitive area, structural area, performance area, doll house, etc.

5. Effectively utilize the public activity space in the park to create a public game area

During the development and creation of the corner game environment, it can be utilized according to local conditions. Public game areas are set up in all available three-dimensional spaces such as corridors, corridors, aisles, and stair corners in the park. Our kindergarten fully exploits the resources of the public area and uses the public hall to create a low-carbon life museum for children to create hands-on creations. It uses the wide corridors to create a food street with real working activities and a food street for children to fully explore. Scientific exploration space, etc. Each class also uses the corner of the stairs to set up a class construction area, and uses the corridor outside the classroom door to set up a performance area, small stage, etc.

4. How to place corner game materials?

1. Safety and artistry of materials

In the production and placement of regional materials, our park adheres to the principle of safety first. Choose materials that are non-toxic, odorless, and harmless to children, and thoroughly clean and disinfect before production; the materials are smooth, soft, and have no sharp corners. For example: bamboo sticks are replaced with straws, beverage bottles are thoroughly cleaned, etc. On the basis of ensuring safe use, we also pay attention to the artistry of packaging and production, choosing colored paper, ribbons, and soft materials to make toys as beautiful as possible. Let the children put it down.

2. Purpose of material placement

It is a major feature of activity area activities to implicitly embody educational goals in materials. On the basis of considering the age characteristics of the children in this class, teachers in our kindergarten clearly understand and grasp the stage training goals, and select and deliver materials in a targeted manner. That is to say, when materials are put in, based on a clear understanding and grasp of the current training goals of the children in the class, we can use this to selectively select and put in operational materials that will promote the development of the children. One material can be used for multiple purposes, that is, one thing can be used for multiple purposes. The multiple functions of a material can be fully exploited, and multiple ways of playing can achieve multiple goals. At the same time, a goal can also be achieved through the simultaneous action of several materials. For example, developing small hand muscle abilities can be accomplished by buttoning buttons, stringing beads, scooping, clipping, snap buttons, zippers, etc.

3. The exploratory nature of material delivery

Inquiry is not just about children's hands-on operations, but more importantly, children's hands-on operations based on brain thinking. It is children's brain thinking and hands-on operation. Operational interweaving of activities. For example: handing children a clock and asking them to set the time the teacher said is not an inquiry activity in the typical sense; if children are given various materials, such as clock faces, hour hands, minute hands, numbers, etc. Assembling a clock yourself is an exploratory activity. This is because in the first type of activity, children are engaged in a simple, mechanical hands-on operation, with very little brain thinking and little room for hands-on operation; while in the second type of activity, children not only need to perform Complex hands-on activities require constant thinking about how to assemble the various parts, how to fix the connections between the parts, and how to make the various parts move. In the second activity, children have a lot of room to use their brains to think and operate with their hands, so the second activity is an inquiry activity. Another example is to give children several airplane models and ask them to find out how many windows and wheels there are and what are the differences according to the teacher's requirements. This is not an exploratory activity in the typical sense; if the children are given various models Using materials, such as doors, windows, wheels, etc. in airplane models, allowing children to assemble an airplane by themselves is an exploratory activity. Those "semi-finished products" that can leave more space for children to operate and create can provide more space for children to search and more opportunities to use their hands and brains. Compared with "raw materials", "semi-finished products" contain certain clues. It can guide young children to complete their own works, and it adapts to the level of young children who lack experience in the objective world. Therefore, teachers in our kindergarten fully work on making "semi-finished products" to reflect the exploratory nature of corner materials.

4. Hierarchy of material delivery

Every child’s cognitive level, experience and ability are different. The biggest feature of the activities in the activity area is that it can cater for different abilities and interests. Provide young children with an activity environment suitable for their development. Therefore, we put different levels of activity materials in the activity area according to the physical and mental characteristics of children of different ages, so as to be targeted. When placing materials, provide materials with different difficulties and follow the requirements from shallow to deep and from easy to difficult to "refine" the materials and give full play to the advantages of active materials. According to the different abilities of children, we provide activity materials with different levels of difficulty for the activity area, so that teachers can provide targeted guidance and help to children with different abilities, better teach students in accordance with their aptitude, and promote children's learning at different levels at their original level. improve.

5. The dynamic nature of material delivery

The provision of materials cannot be static. It should be adjusted, increased or decreased regularly and irregularly according to the educational goals and the development needs of children.

6. Ecological nature of materials:

Our kindergarten has always advocated "saving education, spending less money on education". If you buy something, it is good, so teachers in our kindergarten Try to make full use of low-carbon waste materials in life, turn waste into treasure, and use one thing for multiple purposes. At the same time, it also penetrates the awareness of environmental protection into the hearts of children from an early age.

7. Emotionality and multiple values

Emotionality: Interest and emotion are the motivation for children to learn. Materials only have meaning when children operate and play with them. We strive to The life materials and meaningful information experienced by children are integrated into the materials, giving the corner materials fresh, vivid and real emotional meaning, germinating children's happy emotions and constructing positive behaviors. For example: for the "Dress Up Mom" ??game materials in small classes, the teacher provides children with mother's avatar and many materials to dress up their mother, such as: wigs, wool, various hairpins, headdresses, various clothes, fabrics, scarves, and necklaces. Beads, etc., let the children practice combing their mother's hair, wearing clothes, wearing necklaces, etc. to dress her up. This not only develops the muscles of the little hands and hand-eye coordination, but also cultivates the children's love for their mothers.

Multiple values: respecting the comprehensive development and personality development needs of children, the corner materials include cognitive, sports, life, science, society and other diverse values. At the same time, starting from the effectiveness of education, as much as possible in one game Integrate multiple values ??into it to fully reflect the significance of district activities.

For example: A teacher in the upper class of our kindergarten put homemade "Tetris" made of non-woven fabrics in the puzzle area, inspiring children to play in a variety of ways: