Role-playing games are woven into the daily life of every person of any age. What can we say about preschoolers, for whom the role-playing game is the main activity and a condition for understanding the world around them. With the help of story games, the child expands his horizons, studies the sphere of human relationships, and develops communication skills.

Story games as a way to comprehend the world around

What is needed in order to better understand any business, to learn useful actions, to understand relationships? The most effective way is to get involved in activities and practice, to feel yourself in a specific role. The plot game successfully acts as a similar training field. And most importantly, a role-playing game is available to a person from preschool childhood.

In a role-playing game, separate actions are united by a theme that is revealed in a certain sequence of events. By acting out these events, the participants take on a role that suits their interests or inclinations.

It doesn't matter how old the performer is. Already at 3-4 years old, children understand how to behave within the framework of the role. The girl, imagining herself as a mother, lulls her doll and scolds that she does not want to fall asleep. The boy, having become a photographer for a while, demands that he be posed in accordance with his instructions.

By playing different roles, the child temporarily takes on different points of view. Role-playing actions and relationships help a preschooler to understand another person, to listen to his desire.

Playing a role teaches the child to share the experiences of those around him. Not only the actions taken are recreated, but also the emotional content to which the role obliges. If the plot of the game provides for congratulations on your birthday, it is customary to rejoice. If a preschooler chooses the role of a teacher, he will definitely demonstrate rigor.

The purpose of the role-playing game

The role-playing game in preschool age pursues several goals at the same time. One of them lies on the surface and is to involve children in an interesting useful activity.

The next goal is obvious to educators and psychologists, but adults who are not connected with pedagogy rarely think about it. Meanwhile, this goal is the main one. The game process creates conditions for orientation in how relationships are built in society, how human activity is presented in reality. Accordingly, the purpose of the role-playing game is to include the child in real social relations.

Role-playing games always have a certain theme. Most often, preschoolers choose "daughters-mothers", "hospital", "shop" or "supermarket", "school", "hairdresser's" and similar well-known topics. At the same time, children play in compliance with all the rules of behavior known to them in those situations that make up the game. From these facts follows another important goal of story games - to be a safe training ground for comprehending new knowledge and for expressing emotions.

Characteristics of the role-playing game in preschool age

Performing the functions of an adult in imaginary situations, a preschooler involuntarily includes the inner and outer aspects of human life in his system of knowledge. Role play in this respect is more informative for the child than any other.

The development of a role-playing game at preschool age provides significant changes in the game format from younger to older preschool age. For children 3-4 years old, household roles with one or two tasks are available. Let's consider what stages of development Role-playing games take place before the onset of school age:

1. Repetition of the same game with minor changes (lulling dolls, "boiling" porridge, "driving like a driver"). These games don't need rules. Each child freely chooses the role he likes and performs exactly as long as the interest lasts. This level corresponds to the principle of "play side by side" (and not together).
2. The second level still does not require compliance with the rules, but the children in the game are guided by reality and assign roles a little. If one child "cooks soup", then the second "makes salad". And for two "drivers" there is already an inspector, and not a third driver.
3. The new stage is filled with content: the distribution of roles and the observance of the logic of actions. Having undertaken to comb the dolls, the girl at the very least manipulates the hairstyle of each of them, since the dolls are sitting in line at the hairdresser, and they all need to be serviced. The "driver" does not just steer, but drives up to the stop, waits for all passengers and "carries" them to their destination. At this level, preschoolers play together.
4. At the fourth level, actions included in relations with others become the main content. Preschoolers begin to play in compliance with all the rules, their characters necessarily communicate according to the plot, and role-playing functions are multitasking.

Around the middle preschool age, special experiences appear, provoked by the storyline of the game or real relationships with partners in the game. Feelings and experiences are gradually comprehended, and the preschooler to some extent learns to control them, consciously manifest or restrain them.

Features and functions

An important feature of play activity is its desirability for the child. The preschooler plays when he wants to play. He also chooses the plot of the game on his own. In extreme cases, he agrees with the same children as himself.

The significant role of the role-playing game in the development of preschool children is determined by the following functions:

• Introduces social relations and real activities.
• Develops imagination and the symbolic function of substitution (situations are modeled, substitute objects are used).
• It is a suitable place for the manifestation of pent-up feelings and emotions (you can play "angry dad" or run away from the terrible Baba Yaga).
• Creates conditions for assimilation and rules of conduct.
• Develops the ability to empathize and understand other people.

All of these functions are relevant for a preschooler. Children interact with each other using role-play phrases and play activities, but gain real experience.

The structure of the role-playing game in preschool age

In any role-playing game of preschoolers, structural components can be distinguished:

• Plot and content
• Rules
• Game actions
• Set of used items

The plot is part of real life. In the preschool period, it progresses from everyday to social, from short to extended, from directly arising to planned. The plot is significantly filled in comparison with the younger age.

The role is the main "load" of the child in the game. Having chosen a character for himself, the preschooler understands that he needs to speak and act not in accordance with his desire, but from the position of the role.

Having volunteered to be a "doctor", you need to carefully serve the "patient". And having moved to the role of the patient, it is worth talking about well-being.

Rules are the basic regulations that must be followed in order for the game to take place. Younger preschoolers break them easily, so their games are short and simple. In older preschool age, children attach great importance to the rules and make sure that their partners do not violate them. They are not so strict with themselves. If they violate the agreement, they look for a justification for this liberties.

Game items, on the contrary, are extremely important for kids. They find a substitute for every real object. They don't know how to play "doctor" unless they pick up a stick or pencil as a thermometer. Older children are much more loyal to substitute subjects. Often it is easier for them to perform symbolic movements than to look for a suitable attribute.

The value of role-playing games in the life of preschoolers

This article lists the goals and functions that are implemented through story games. Obviously, all of them are aimed at the development of the personality of the child. The acquisitions of a preschooler through the performance of various roles are multifaceted. This is not only new knowledge and awareness of real relationships.

Plot-based role-playing game solves the main contradiction of preschool age, which is the acute desire to be like an adult and the impossibility of this in reality. But in the game context, the child can be in the role of an adult, a fairy-tale character, or any other hero.

Expanding plot dialogues, children develop. Communicating in the game, they develop. Moreover, if it is enough for one child to feel himself in a new role in order to build communication, then it is important for another to see a model of what to say and how to act. And these patterns are sure to be there as children watch other players.

In role-playing games, preschoolers develop useful patterns of social behavior, which they then apply in everyday relationships. The child not only gets acquainted with the rules of behavior, but also begins to realize their importance for maintaining good relations with others. Thus, in role-playing games, the natural socialization of preschool children is carried out.