The spirit of children's games is autonomy, freedom, joy and creativity.

In practice, we often focus too much on games outside of children’s daily lives, pursuing too much the explicit “form” of games, but lacking the “quality” of game spirit.

Bringing the spirit of games to children

Mr. Chen Heqin once said: "Children are born to be active and live with games." Games are a way for young children to understand the unknown world. Method is the main means for them to master skills, become familiar with life, and understand people and things in society. It is also the normal way for them to receive education. In current children's education, the problem of "games for the sake of games" is quite prominent, with education and games disconnected and separated. For example, an activity class must be composed of several "game strings" to avoid the suspicion of "elementary schooling"; the class game area must be listed to ensure children's independent choice and individual needs; regardless of compliance or not, teachers cannot provide guidance to children. "Requirements"... This shows that games that are alienated from children's daily life are too pursuing the explicit "form" of the game and lack the "quality" of the spirit of the game. The author believes that games in kindergartens cannot be just technical methods and means, but the spirit of games should be placed on children.

It is not advisable to overemphasize the scientificization of knowledge, the proceduralization of processes and the regularization of behavior

In practice, it is not difficult to find that many teachers pay more attention to whether children follow the rules in games. Established, routine requirements. For example, in the game activity of "Observing Goldfish", a child "fed" the goldfish with hot water, which resulted in the "annihilation" of the goldfish in the tank. Because the child's behavior was in line with "child thinking" but not in line with "common sense thinking", the teacher was disqualified from being a student on duty. The child cried aggrievedly for a long time. Teachers do not fully understand children's real thoughts, actual cognitions, and development needs, and push children into the standard track of logic and rationality prematurely, which is inconsistent with children's physical and mental development rules.

The author believes that "being able to play and having fun playing" should be the explicit feature of the game and also the value of the game. A real game should delegate the right of choice to children, including the selection of materials, allocation of roles, identification of partners, and formulation of rules, all of which should be established independently by the children. Of course, what to establish, when to establish, and how to establish all require teachers to use a keen professional perspective and lead children to discuss, determine, and implement when key events occur during the game activities, and this process will always be It is the derivation and formation of new conflicts, new experiences, new cognitions, and new discoveries for young children. The acquisition of all these abilities will become an intrinsic source of motivation to promote continued growth of young children, rather than just an immediate gaming experience.

For young children, the game process is the purpose

Games are non-utilitarian in nature, and the game process is the purpose of the game. The author once saw such a case: the teacher took the children in the class to the water play area, explained to everyone the operating materials in the water play area and matters that should be paid attention to when playing with water, and then allowed the children to play together freely. A child tried to use a tripod to prop up a water pipe and connect the upstream water to the downstream. However, he put the high and low tripods in the wrong order, causing the water to never flow downstream. The teacher filmed the game scene with his mobile phone and brought the problem back to the classroom. He then organized a discussion with the children and asked experienced children to "help them solve the problem." After the game was over, the teacher organized the children to return to the game site to continue the game. There are no preset concrete goals or tasks in the whole process, but it is not difficult to see from the children's focused behaviors that the child's whole body and mind are full of tension, especially when encountering problems and solving problems with the help of peers, the sense of gain is transcendent. Without any material satisfaction, this may be the true meaning of the game.

Removing games with utilitarian goals, teachers allow children to fully gain experience in the physical world in a pre-designed game field with specific images and where problems can arise, and continue to gain abstraction through the collaboration of teachers and peers. Through the overall cognition of symbols and culture, children can develop as a "whole person". There is no external restraint or coercion. It is more about the children's own needs. It is driven by interest, "need" for knowledge, and "driven" by questioning. Children can experience life independently in "real play" , control the world, and acquire cognition.

Any formal game will inevitably be "thankless"

"Formal games" generally have the following situations. The first is to solidify the game location. The doll house, construction area, art area, and music area are all fixed locations previously arranged by teachers. Children who want to play games should play in this location. Otherwise, they will be "skimming" and "disobeying discipline." The second is fixed game time. Some kindergartens have clearly fixed the area activity time after the first activity class in the morning, and they are not allowed to play casually at other times. The third is to solidify the game theme. Teachers are used to solidifying some game themes, such as "hospital", "food street", "tea house", etc. Children can only "play" based on these contents, making the game a routine. The above phenomena are actually asking children to cooperate with teachers to complete established "game actions", and children can only do what the teachers intend. In this process, children's original whims, joyful experiences, and hearty jokes are all controlled by the program and format. Although teachers will also put some effort into the form of games, the changes in the external form do not give children the wings to fly freely. It is difficult for children to find more "fun" in the time and space that are not free and loose.

Children do not do things according to their own interests and needs, but are forced to do things in order to please the teacher and be a good child.

Practice has proven that any formalized game will inevitably be “rewardless”. The theme content, exquisite materials, and environmental arrangements that teachers have painstakingly prepared place children "outside the environment" and they are unable to appreciate their splendor.

How to de-formalize games? On the one hand, children are encouraged to play freely. Once the stage of the children's play environment is set up and prepared, the child's cognitive events will have the possibility of "infinite encounters". Teachers should not excessively "interfere" and "restrict" artificially, but should encourage children to play freely in a natural state and try to interact with materials in the game scene, so that children can immerse themselves in the game, continue to discover, and boldly explore, and then form new ideas. Cognitive and stable learning qualities. On the other hand, it promotes the completion of cooperation within the group. Teachers must skillfully set up game activities that can only be completed through cooperation, and guide children to acquire standardized social interaction experiences and gain positive emotional experiences through different game forms such as role substitution, partner mutual assistance, and real-life simulation. It is important not to let children repeat the experience at a low level just for the sake of the number of game forms, let alone to separate the educational factors and wrap them in the "coat" of games, making the games instrumental and formalized.