GENDER FEATURES OF PLAY ACTIVITY OF CHILDREN AT THE SENIOR PRESCHOOL AGE

Gender features are the features associated with the gender identity and the socio-cultural experience. In modern society, the misbalance in this relation is increasingly visible: the biological characteristics of men and women do not always coincide with the socio-cultural characteristics. The other extremity is the lack of flexibility in gender expression. In this regard, the question about the necessity of competent gender-based education of children arises.

To solve this task, parents, teachers and psychologists use various methods: reading fairy tales, conversations, music classes, physical training, and labor activity. This paper studies gender features of play activity of senior preschool children.

Based on the results of surveys and observations, the authors studied and analyzed play preferences of twenty boys and twenty girls and determined their levels of play development.

In the result of the study, various content, objective side and play styles of boys and girls were defined. It was determined that boys like noisy games and the large play spaces that cannot be always provided by parents and nursery teachers. Girls, on the contrary, win the adults’ favor for their calm games, neat play actions that, however, are often free of creative and inquisitive nature.

Thus, the knowledge of gender characteristics of children will help parents and teachers using gaming activities to define the abilities of each child and to correct at the proper time the deviations in their gender expression.