Observation is one of the basic natural science procedures in the preschool period. Natural objects provide numerous sensory stimulations, affecting a child’s development of observation skills due to their diversity and variety of shapes, colours, sensory stimuli and scents.
In my final thesis, I studied the following question: How do the 5 to 6-year-old children observe natural objects. I was studying it on the example of observing blossoming plants. I was finding out what were the variables that children recognized as important in the process of observing and distinguishing among similar natural objects. Moreover, I was studying if the difference between the two genders existed while observing the plants.
There were 61 children included in the study, 33 boys and 28 girls, aged 5 to 6 from Nursery School Trnovo in Ljubljana. Every child was tested individually and was given a task to find a pair to the given 9 test plants, among 31 plants altogether. I marked the answers with points. The results were quantitatively and qualitatively processed and presented in the form of graphs and tables. After the research, I provided activities for children which enabled them to improve their observation skills while observing blossoming plants.
The results showed that 5 to 6 year-old children were good observers of blossoming plants, namely the majority of children found the correct pairs. While observing, children noticed some characteristics of plants more important and some characteristics less important. The analysis of the incorrectly chosen plants showed that the colour is the variable that was mostly focused on while observing. The results of the research also show that there exists the difference in gender while observing blossoming plants by preschool children. Namely, girls were observing more carefully than boys.
The results of various researches show that observation skills develop with age and they can be improved with practice. That is why nursery school teachers should offer children plenty possibilities to observe objects that improve observation skill already in the preschool period. Blossoming plants are certainly among that objects.
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