Diploma discusses preschool teacher’s ways of motivating children to learn mathematical concepts. In educational institutions, the children’s motivation for learning is very important. If children aren’t motivated, they will be less active in the activities and they’ve learned less. Preschool teachers often need to awaken interest of children, because only motivated children will listen, ask, think and learn something new. The preschool teachers have to planning activities according the age of the children, the differences between them and the children’s prior knowledge.
Each educator motivates children on their own way. They can do this with puppets, didactic games, riddles, picture books, bags of surprise and with websites, or otherwise. In an empirical part I study which ways of motivating children preschool teachers know, which ones most often used in the planning of mathematical activities, why and how often. I was curious about how they get the knowledge for creation motivation to learning mathematics. The results of the survey questionnaire showed that more than half of the respondents think it is very important to motivate children before learning mathematical concepts, because, as they say, with introductory motivation we invite children to the activity and encourage to participate actively in next activities. Preschool teachers most often motivate children with didactic games, because with them they easiest motivate children and achieve the greatest success. Didactic games are also quickly accessible and very diverse. The least common way of motivating children to learn mathematical concepts is the World Wide Web.
Most preschool teachers plans introductory motivation according on the age of the children. Children of different ages namely in their behavioural, physical and mental characteristics and abilities, which needs to be checked advance and activities adapted. There is no significant difference between educators with different years of working in choosing the ways of motivation.
Most preschool teachers knowledge of motivating children to learn mathematical concepts get through professional literature, some from other preschool teachers and through seminars and other professional education within kindergarten. In spite of everything, most of them would like to additionally qualify of ways to motivating children.
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