A child develops most in the first years of life, so it is very important to offer him as many different incentives as possible to challenge mental processes. Play represents the major part of childhood and is at the same time the primary and free activity of the child. Play, of course, includes toys, which we know many, and it depends on us whether we offer a structured or unstructured toy to the child. If we decide on a structured toy, the child has less possibility to use the imagination, while with unstructured materials, we enable creativity and pose mental challenges.
Active learning includes the key learning strategies in the pre-school period; the environment (kindergarten) determines whether the child is feeling well and has enough resources for learning and exploring, and, whether it stimulates the child's interest in various activities. In a stimulating learning environment the child also has the support of an adult, who offers him positive interactions and helps him in becoming independent.
In the empirical part, the course of the entire project is presented, in which I created a stimulating learning environment through unstructured material - wool. The main features of creating an incentive learning environment are accurate observation, interaction with the children, identification of their interests and abilities as well as providing the appropriate incentives.
The children actively participated in the prepared activities, which I adjusted, supplemented and upgraded with natural materials on the basis of my observations and evaluations. I presented my expectations, the children's responses, solving mental challenges, the possibilities of improvement and the realization of the set goals. On the basis of the evaluations I found: that active learning, which is at the same time also stimulating, is the starting point for the development of each individuals' potential; that every nursery or kindrgarten teacher must be aware of the importance of his/her professional development; that the children are able to solve the problems related to the activities themselves if they are interested in them; the role of the kindergarten teacher is to use these interests on the basis of observation for the benefit of children.
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