The dissertation is devoted to the urgent theme of formation in senior preschoolers of creativity in child development centers. The author describes the theoretical foundations of formation of creativity in senior preschool children. By analyzing the psychological and pedagogical literature, the essence of the concept ‘creativity of children of the senior preschool age’ is defined as a person’s specific ability to generate unusual ideas, to deviate from conventional schemes, to quickly solve problem situations, which motivates the wish of thinking, verbal combination, expressing variants of problem solutions; manifestation of a child’s transforming activity.
It has been established that children’s developmental centers are a favorable developmental environment for the formation of creativity in children of the senior preschool age. The education and training of a child in development centers is one of the prerequisites for the successful development of a preschooler’s personality; secures favorable influence on raising the level of creativity of children of the senior preschool age.
An analysis of the practice of educational activity in the centers for the development of the child made it possible to identify contradictions between the teachers’ conviction in the need to develop the creative potential of the preschoolers’ personality and the lack of the teachers’ ability to do this. Unsatisfactory work on developing creativity of preschool children can be attributed to teachers’ insufficient competence, their inadequate level of development of creative potential, absence of appropriate scientific and methodological support.The reasonably informative structure of creativity has been identified, which is represented by interrelated and mutually agreed components: cognitive, which is understood by senior preschool children as commonly accepted ways of solving the problem; emotional value, which encompasses interest in solving problem situations; practically active, which manifests itself in the ability to move away from the sample, the template. The criterion of the cognitive component is defined by the development of hypotheses and ideas for the purpose of solving the tasks. Indicators: understanding the essence of the problem, the wit and the speed of finding new ways to solve the problem, knowing the common ways of solving problems, the ability to analyze and synthesize. The criterion of the emotional-value component is the desire and inspiration in solving the tasks. Indicators: the desire to show creativity, interest in the unknown, interest in solving emerging problems, the need to defend their views. The criterion of a practical activity component is the application of various strategies in solving problems. Indicators: the ability to build an algorithm for solving a problem, the ability to offer diverse ideas in an unregulated situation, the ability to defend their opinions and accept the opinion of another, the ability to improve, create new forms, objects based on the known. According to the developed structure, three levels of formation of creativity in children of the senior preschool age are distinguished and characterized: high, medium, low.The state of formation of creativity in the elder preschool children in the centers of development of the child is investigated. The results obtained at the ascertaining stage of the pedagogical experiment showed the need to increase attention to issues of formation of creativity in older preschool children and to determine the pedagogical conditions for this process. There is a need to educate pedagogical teams of child development centers; intensifying the cooperation of teachers with parents on the formation of creativity in senior preschool children; raising the scientific level of methodological support of the pedagogical process in the specified context. The educational opportunities of child development centers are disclosed. For the first time, the theoretical substantiation, development and experimental verification of the content-methodological support and pedagogical conditions for the formation of the creativity of senior preschool children (development of a developing environment favorable for the formation of creativity, the orienting of the content of practical activities of pupils for the development of their creativity (implementation in educational process of creative tasks), raising the competence of teachers and parents.
