Playing is one of the most important activities in the everyday life of a child as well as an essential part of its development. The act of playing often includes objects – usually toys and board games. When children enter school, they are in their middle childhood, which means they still need a lot of play for their normal development (physical, cognitive, social, etc.). This is why it is important to integrate play also into school environment – as a component part of classes (in a form of didactic games) or as an activity during recess, when pupils need to relax and get ready for the next lesson.
During my recent work at different primary schools, I noticed that in some cases the conditions for pupils` play during recess were poor. Either the playing areas in classrooms were disorderly and sometimes too small or the school toys were in poor condition and in some cases out-of-date. After a thorough analysis of the existing literature, I did not find any research on the subject of analyzing toys and board games, which are available for play during recess to first grade pupils in urban and rural primary schools in Slovenia. Therefore I chose this particular issue as the subject of my master’s thesis. The objectives of the thesis are: to list and categorize all toys and board games available to first grade pupils for play during recess; to find out the condition these toys and board games are in; to find differences and similarities between toys and board games in rural schools compared to urban schools; to gain first grade teacher’s opinions about the meaning and role of toys and games as well as play as an activity in school environment; to describe the habits and experiences of first grade pupils with the use of toys and games during recess.
The study was made in the first grades of 14 primary schools, 7 rural and 7 urban schools. It involved all 14 first grade teachers and their pupils. I acquired the data from the teachers through a questionnaire (consisting of 10 questions). After observing first grade pupils' play during the main recess, I chose 4 pupils in every class (all together 56) for a semi-structured group interview with 5 main questions. I used a check list for listing and categorizing all the toys and board games, available to first grade pupils in every class.
The results of the study show that toys and board games are in a good condition and well taken care of in all 14 schools (only a very small number of toys and games are either broken, lost or out-of-date). I also observed that the collection of toys (different types of toys) differs significantly in terms of quantity and structure from school to school. No major differencescan be foundwhen comparing toys and board games in urban schools to those in rural schools (the biggest decline beingthe percentage of toys that encourage perception and movement – urban schools have about 10% more of those than rural schools). According to the results,first grade teachers are well aware of the importance of play in school environment and are satisfied with the quantity and diversity of toys and games, which are at disposal to their pupils. Furthermore, first grade pupils are also happy with the toy and games collection in their classes, although some of them wish to enrich the collection with new toys and games. Due to a small sample, the results of the research cannot be generalized, although they can be used as an indicator of the actual condition of the toys and board games in first grades of rural and urban primary schools in Slovenia.
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