In this thesis I want to present project work through which a child gets familiar with a new material – wood. Quite a number of educators have problems with treating new materials and working with them. At the same time I would like to stimulate the children’s motor function by working with wood. Thus I decided we would make a motor board from wood that will strengthen children’s fine and gross motor skills. Many a thing can be made from wood. This was already proven by children aged 4 to 6. We began making the motor board in the kindergarten in Jevnica. By doing that we wanted to show and prove that children can make various things from wood as well. Before doing this the educators of the kindergarten Litija were given the questionnaire which helped me learn about how and how much they use wood. Having the answers to this questionnaire I found out that the majority of the educators do not use wood as a material for making products but they incorporate it in playing with unstructured material. They list reasons such as injuries, not knowing how to treat it, the children’s age and others for not using wood. In the theoretical part of this thesis I described the development of motor function, the use of wood and tools used by the children to work with wood, how the project work took place and, most importantly, that the making of the board is a game, which is a part of technical education. In the empirical part of it I described the activities which were used to learn about wood as a material and to make the motor board. The activities were performed in the group called ‘Jurčki’ with 22 children, aged 4 to 6. Through these activities we carried out the project work where the children autonomously researched, shared ideas, solved potential problems, trained their own imagination and gained new experience. Based on observation of children playing with the game, I came to the conclusion that they enjoyed the game, encouraged and helped each other while playing, etc. The game contributed new knowledge as well as mutual cooperation where kids gained not only motor but also social skills
By writing this thesis I want to encourage all educators to begin working with wood, because the children enjoy using this material immensely. At the same time I am already looking forward to the next technical project.
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