Steps of creativity or educational games pdf. Steps of creativity, or Educational games - Nikitin B.P.

The development of any abilities, including creative ones, is a consistent, systematic work, step by step. Patient and thoughtful, but at the same time a joyful activity. The author of the book, which has been published in Russia and abroad for more than 30 years, was sure of this. The Nikitin family - the children and grandchildren of Boris Pavlovich and Lena Alekseevna - and the followers of innovative teachers continue to invent new games and tasks for existing ones. This book includes detailed descriptions of educational games, methodological techniques, tasks, supplemented by new developments, as well as Boris Pavlovich's reflections on the conditions for the successful and harmonious development of the child, the full disclosure of his creative abilities.

7th edition, revised and enlarged

The 6th edition was published under the title "Mind Games" in 2009

The work belongs to the genre Pedagogy. It was published in 1976 by the Samokat publishing house. The book is part of the Scooter for Parents series. On our site you can download the book "Steps of creativity. Educational games" in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format or read online. Here, before reading, you can also refer to the reviews of readers who are already familiar with the book, and find out their opinion. In the online store of our partner you can buy and read the book in paper form.

The author of the book, an innovative teacher whose pedagogical views
widely known not only in our country but also abroad,
talks about the experience of applying and using special games,
to successfully develop the creative abilities of the child.
The book contains a description of games that are a kind of "mental
gymnastics", the methodology for their implementation and tips for making.
This edition is updated with new games. 2nd edition published in
1985 under the name "Developing Games".
For kindergarten teachers, elementary school teachers,
parents.

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT

This book is about games, but unusual games. You can't buy them in the store yet.
but you have to do it yourself. They cannot be, like a toy, just given to a child and
say: Play! - The game may not run. They can not be shown to the child all
immediately, but only one at a time; and the next, maybe not earlier than in
a week or a month, and some even a year.
They have an unusually wide range of tasks, both in terms of difficulty and
variety of character, so a preschooler can get carried away with them,
both student and adult student.
Of these, you can make a test to check intelligence and design
abilities or the development of mathematical thinking.
They can be played alone, and together, and the whole family, and the company, and the whole
group in kindergarten or as a class in elementary school, and even spend
Olympiad for the championship, as in chess or checkers.
They can be called a sports complex, but ... for the mind, for development
child's abilities. Such complexes are not yet produced.
They, apparently, will appear only in the XXI century.
The games were well received by parents and family clubs, but circulation was
small, and even after the second edition (1985) there were not enough books.
Therefore, they rewrote the book, made notes and sent a lot of letters with
a request to publish it in a larger edition.
Abroad, the popularity of the book also grew rapidly. In 1986 she went to
Japan, translated to the USA.

15 YEARS LATER (from scanner)

On my own behalf, I want to note that this book is still actively cited on
various resources on child education education, but to find this
a book on the net was not possible for me personally.

The author expresses the hope that the games described in the book "will appear only
in the 21st century" - it has come and there are games, but their availability leaves much to be desired
the best. Prices are not available to everyone in cities, not everyone in the outback is available
assortment (namely, developing games). It is for the future "Lomonosovs"
and "Kulibin's" text part is recognized (with careful correction) and
the size is brought to the minimum possible, given the volume of illustrations.

The future of our children is in our hands.

ISBN: ISBN 5-09-003932-1

Publisher: Education

Year of publication: 1990

Pages: 160

Good quality

About the author: Boris Pavlovich Nikitin, the founder of the pedagogy of the future, educator and teacher, who was not only the successor of the best innovative traditions of Russian pedagogy, but also the recognized founder of new trends in the science and practice of education, the author of a number of pedagogical discoveries that were ahead of their own ...

Preface from the Nikitin family to the 7th edition, corrected and enlarged

You are holding a book in which the methodological and creative experience of Boris Pavlovich Nikitin is concentrated for more than 35 years - in fact, from 1962 to 1998.

Boris Pavlovich attached great importance to the invention and methodological development of educational games and worked with children of all ages and adults literally until his last days. He was convinced that such games were the future. And he turned out to be right.

Today, you can find "developers" in almost every kiosk. But "Nikitinsky games" occupy a special place in an endless series of educational aids. First of all, because behind them lies half a century of constant practice, analysis, and refinement.

It all started with the fact that two smart and observant parent teachers, Boris Pavlovich and Lena Alekseevna Nikitin, began to make fundamentally new games and manuals for their seven children with their own hands. All of them had a certain applied value, some of them were based on well-known psychological tests. However, their goal was not only to measure, a and develop the child's intellect by tasks of increasing, "gradual" complexity.

The first six games - "Fold the Pattern", "Unicube", "Attention", "Attention - Guess!", "Bricks", "KB SAM" - showed excellent results in practice and were described in a brochure published in 1976 . The number of games began to grow actively, and the book about them began to be widely reprinted. Thousands of young dads and moms throughout the Soviet Union actively studied educational games, processed, cut, painted and glued cubes, plywood and cardboard, drew tasks for them and worked with kids. Since the 90s of the twentieth century, "Nikitinsky games" have been successfully introduced into the practice of kindergartens in Japan and Germany. In the last lifetime edition (1998), Boris Pavlovich already describes 17 games and various manuals.

At the same time, all games and manuals did not stop being tested in our family: with children and grandchildren, children of numerous friends, acquaintances and guests, with teenagers and adults. Both children and adults not only played enthusiastically, but also came up with new tasks and passed special tests compiled by Boris Pavlovich on the basis of some games. Over the decades, Boris Pavlovich has accumulated a huge statistical and research base, constantly improving the methods of training. He himself masterfully played with the kids, emphasizing: “Do not turn educational games into a boring teaching aid!”

Children who grew up with these games became adults. Our own children have also grown up. Now the great-grandchildren of Boris Pavlovich and Lena Alekseevna play "grandfather's cubes" with enthusiasm. And as before, these games continue to turn to us with new facets and opportunities. Preparing this edition, for the first time without the participation of Boris Pavlovich and Lena Alekseevna, we made many unexpected discoveries, taking a completely new look at such seemingly familiar cubes. In addition, since 2015, eleven games have been released under our control, which also teaches us a lot.

Therefore, in the 7th edition of the book “Steps of Creativity. Developing games” comes out seriously revised and supplemented.

This included the entire author's text by Boris Pavlovich, which Lena Alekseevna once helped to write and edit. Including restored interesting illustrative examples from the very first brochure in 1976. We deliberately left detailed descriptions of "How to make a game yourself" - and not only in memory of those thousands of enthusiasts who have been making these games with their own hands for decades. Some allowances are not yet commercialized and some parents use their own resources. The book also includes the work of Boris Pavlovich "26 factors of formation and development of creative abilities" - a kind of summary of his many years of reflection, an invitation to parents and teachers to co-create.

There are also many new things.

We can see from our own kids that the tricks and stories that worked great in games twenty, thirty, forty years ago are no longer so effective. We observed, analyzed, tried - and found what works today.

Therefore, the book "grown" with new methodological techniques. Sometimes the additions were organically integrated into the author's text, sometimes they are listed as "Additions to the new edition". BUT new tasks to games, as we believe, have well supplemented the idea of ​​"stairs", made up for some gaps in the previous versions of tasks. In "Unicube" and "Bricks" the level of complexity now rises more smoothly, and quick wit, imagination, attentiveness "grow up" in the students just as rhythmically - that is, the creative aspects of the intellect, which Boris Pavlovich was so concerned about.

We are glad that great-grandchildren, who managed to take a completely new look at "Dice for All" and "Fold the Square", joined the family work. This revealed the incredibly interesting possibilities of the "Nikitinsky games" and presented a whole series of fundamentally new tasks.

In addition, for busy young parents who prefer a summary, we have developed several compact checklists that are included in the appendices.

Boris Pavlovich was convinced that if you start from an early age, then it is possible for a person to develop absolutely all abilities. Our life - the life of B.P.'s children and grandchildren - both confirms and refutes this categorical position. We grew up in the same conditions, but we all grew up very different in inclinations, hobbies, and professions. Someone successfully “hit” the periodic table, while the other can’t stand chemistry all his life, although the table hung on the wall for everyone. It's the same with educational games: some are still passionate about Cubes for All, others fondly remember Fractions, and some never tire of admiring the Table of Hundreds. At the same time, apparently, it was the “early start” that helped everyone to become infected with curiosity for life.

On the other hand, it is worth recognizing that among all the Nikitins, perhaps the most inventive inventors are still Boris Pavlovich and Lena Alekseevna themselves - who did not have special conditions for "early development" in childhood. And we continue to argue both with each other and with Boris Pavlovich: what is “invested” in a person before birth, and what is brought up after?

But all of us, the Nikitins, have in our blood - to love and want to do something together with children, trust them and respect their independent decisions. We are sure: it came from our parents and largely due to the diverse “developing” home space that they invented and created. An important part of this multidimensional space were those same games and manuals. They really prepare well for school, especially for mathematical disciplines, they give everything to “feel” with their hands - numbers, numbers, dates, parts of a whole, fractions and negative numbers, geometric shapes and lines. After them, everything is assimilated easily in the classroom - just as it was at home, together with dad and mom. And technology developing games, and the games themselves can be mastered by anyone who wants to - this is the whole book.

But there are no identical children, just as there are no identical fathers and mothers. Technologies are technologies, but Boris Pavlovich all the time urged to carefully observe the child, take into account his reactions and learn from him - then any joint activities of an adult and a child will yield rich results. And educational games provide a whole range of opportunities for this.

Let this book help you find the individual pace of development of your child and ways to overcome the most difficult “steps”. You will be better able to see and study his personality: character traits, inclinations, hobbies. And along the way, your own character will definitely manifest itself - and the zones of your internal questions: what am I doing right and what is wrong? Why here I and my child do not understand each other? Where can and should I help, and where should I feel and keep the boundary of his responsibility and independence?

Educational games are a great tool in your smart hands. Invent, observe, try, create in games and in life! I wish you success!

Nikitin family

July 2016

From the author. What is this book about

This book is about games, but unusual games. They were born in communication with children and with their direct participation, they were tested in our large family and in other families, in experimental studios, in the lessons of enthusiastic teachers. And invariably aroused interest not only in children, but also in adults. The very first attempt to introduce educational games, even in a small dose (2-3 times a week for half an hour), into the practice of working with the older group of the kindergarten showed that the rate of mental development of children can almost double.

They have been produced in Germany and Japan since 1990, and in Russia since 1997. If you did not manage to buy them ready-made, then do it yourself, the author gives a detailed description in the book. But you can’t just give them like a toy to a child and say: “Play!” - the game may not work. They cannot be shown to the child all at once, but only one at a time, and the next, perhaps not earlier than in a week or a month, and some even in a year.

They have an unusually wide range of tasks, both in terms of difficulty and variety of character, so a preschooler, a student, an adult, and a student can get carried away with them. Of these, you can make a test to test intelligence and design abilities or to develop mathematical thinking.

They can be played alone, and together, and the whole family, and the company, and the whole group in a kindergarten or a class in an elementary school. And you can even hold an Olympiad for the championship, like in chess or checkers. And in competitions between adults and children in fairness - on an equal footing! - in an intellectual duel, the little ones often win. And in these "battles" the eye, attentiveness, observation, ingenuity, mathematical and spatial thinking and many other qualities of human intelligence are actively developed.

Therefore, they can be called a sports complex - but for the mind, for the development of the creative abilities of the child. Modern education basically develops only one side in children - performance skills, but the more complex and important side, Creative skills, are left to chance and remain at a deplorable level for the majority.

In principle, every healthy child can be made creatively developed, but ignorance, and sometimes the traditional approach, does not allow this. Creative minds are still a rarity.

But here the experience of life overtook science and offers the first practical book of this kind. Who is not afraid of business - try it!

Written back in 1973, this book did not appear for a long time, and even the brochure "Steps of Creativity" (M .: Knowledge, 1976. - Series People's University. Pedagogical Faculty, No. 1) did not open the way for her. It was first published in German in Cologne (Germany) in 1980, and a year later - in Moscow, by the Pedagogika publishing house.

The games were well received by parents and family clubs, but circulation was small and even after the second edition (1985) there were not enough books. Therefore, the book was rewritten, summaries were made and a lot of letters were sent with a request to publish it in a large edition.

Abroad, the popularity of the book also grew rapidly. It was released in Japan in 1986 and had gone through 17 editions there by 1995.

In the 5th edition (1998; the last lifetime edition prepared by the author. - Comp.) the book comes out significantly supplemented: the chapter “A Little Theory” is restored in it, other chapters are expanded; the game "Unicube" was enriched with complex tasks, the number of tasks for the game "KB SAM" was doubled, the "Table of hundreds", "Table of Pythagoras", "Fractions", "Plan and Map", "Clock", "Thermometer", "Knots" were included ”- what can rather be called not games, but game aids that create a “developing environment” for the child.

These additions greatly expand the concept of "non-traditional education", provide more material, but also impose on parents, of course, more creative concerns. It is necessary not only to feel what each game and each allowance gives, but also to find out the intellectual capabilities of your kids - in order to choose the dose, and especially the time when to introduce the game or allowance. And then observe and, of course, stimulate the creative achievements of their children.

The book is designed to work with her, to make individual games, sometimes in several copies. Therefore, let the readers forgive the author for repetitions, and, conversely, different approaches and solutions in a different setting and with other children. This is inevitable if you are looking for the best options.

And here is what is important to understand from the very beginning: educational games are not at all some kind of elixir of talent, taking which “every other day, a tablespoon”, you can achieve the desired results. They cannot replace "dirty pieces of iron" and a workbench with tools, they cannot relieve you of the need for a creative approach to any life situations.

This is only one of the means of developing abilities, and it will be the more effective and useful, the less contradictions between the principles that formed the basis of these games, and the principles on which the entire system of communication with children in the family is built.

Where they are not in a hurry to fence off the baby from life and save him from difficulties, where they try to give him scope for research and activity, there educational games will organically enter the family's way of life and can become a powerful stimulus for the development of the child's creative abilities.

B. P. Nikitin, 1973–1998

A bit of theory

If you are not very interested in the theoretical side of the question of creativity and the peculiarities of its development, then you can skip this chapter and go straight to the description of games and the methodology for their implementation.

For those who want to get to know this issue better, who want to understand WHY it is possible and necessary to develop the child's abilities and WHY you need to start this ASAP, – We advise such comrades to read this chapter of the book carefully.

It will not only serve as a key to understanding many of the patterns used in educational games, not only will it give you the basis for your own creativity in the field of creating new children's games.

It is these pages of the book that will give you food for serious reflection on what the role of parents and educators should be in the most responsible matter of the formation and development of children's intellect.

About creative abilities, or about creativity and performance

“The essence of creativity is in predicting the result of a correctly set experiment, in creating a working hypothesis close to reality by the effort of thought, in what Sklodowska called a sense of nature; mathematicians call mathematical flair<…>. Building a hypothesis, creating an artistic image, a person either falls into the tone and time of nature, or takes a false note.<…>. Those who hit the tone succeed, those who take the wrong note fail. This is the essence of creativity."

These words belong not to a psychologist or a teacher, but to a remarkable inventor, metallurgical engineer V. E. Grum-Grzhimailo, they very figuratively characterize the degree of scientific character of each hypothesis.

We, like most parents, did not hypothesize. Fascinated by the development of our seven kids and especially their creative abilities, over thirty years we have developed our own view, our own approach and our own idea of ​​this process, which in many respects differ from the generally accepted ones. The discrepancies confused us at first and provoked objections from scientists. But. this approach has consistently led to high results in the development of children, and we have not abandoned our views.

And now it seems to us that we “fell into the tone and tact of nature”, that our ideas were the main thing that led to success, and we have no right to hide them from other fathers and mothers. Otherwise, only some parents, those who suspect that their children have some natural inclinations, will continue to develop the abilities of their children. And parents will generally not understand why it is necessary to start developing abilities. as soon as possible; and most importantly - what is needed for the development of abilities another method of communication with the child, something fundamentally different from the usual show, story, explanation, repetition, that is, learning.

Then the features of educational games, their dissimilarity to ordinary toys will be understandable and will not only bring parents pleasant moments of creative play together with the baby, but will also serve as the key for their own creativity, for inventing new tasks and even new games. Yes, and parents will see how much richer the conditions for the development of the baby in the family can be made and how the fruitfulness of parental efforts can grow.

What is creativity?

People do a lot of things every day: small and large, simple and complex. And each case is a task, sometimes more, sometimes less difficult. But with all their external diversity, and sometimes incomparability, all cases can be divided into two groups, if you approach them with one measure - is this an old task or a new one.

Here is a typist typing or a driver driving a bus down the street. At the same time, they solve their professional tasks. How to solve them, each of them knows well. First they studied, and then they practiced over the years of work. Professional tasks are old, well-known for them, and the usual work is called performing activity. By learning a profession, a person develops his performing abilities: attention, memory, the ability to copy the actions of others, repeat what they saw or heard, the ability to bring a professional skill to automatism, etc. These abilities allow a person to act in any habitual activity according to a once and for all established rule or pattern, sometimes even mechanically. It is not for nothing that typists, for example, while typing and without even slowing down the pace of work, can talk to each other; the driver, continuing to drive the bus, announces stops, makes remarks to passengers on the microphone, and may even joke.

But here they put a manuscript in front of the typist - a long text that must be arranged on one sheet in the most economical way or in some unusual way. This is unusual, she had not had to deal with this before: for her, this new task. Or the driver, who came to the garage in the morning, does not start the engine. A malfunction can be in the system and power, and ignition, and wiring, and in a variety of parts. Not a single textbook and instructor can foresee all possible breakdowns and malfunctions and teach the driver how it is done when learning to drive a car. So this is also new task. You have to think for yourself, find a solution. And although it is not very complicated, it can already be classified as creative.

The range of creative tasks is unusually wide in complexity - from finding a malfunction in a motor or solving a puzzle to inventing a new machine or scientific discovery. But their essence is the same: when they are solved, act of creativity, a new path is found, or something new is created. This is where the special qualities of the mind are required, such as observation, the ability to compare and analyze, combine, find connections and dependencies, patterns, etc. - all that together makes up Creative skills.

Creative activity, being more complex in nature, is available only to man. And the simpler one - the performing one - can be transferred both to animals and to machines, for it and the mind not so much is required.

In life, of course, everything is much more complicated, it is not always possible to separate different types of activity, and most often human activity includes both performing and creative components, but in different proportions. The worker at the assembly line is almost deprived of the need for creative activity: he must accurately perform the operations known to him. But a mechanic-adjuster of an automatic line or an inventor is almost constantly busy with it, and any of their activities is “impregnated” with creativity, since work in large quantities puts them new tasks Yes, and they themselves find them in life.

Who needs creativity?

And no matter how strange it may seem at first glance, more complex, yet not feasible for everyone and often requiring real asceticism, creative activity attracts people, and not only young people. Apparently, these great difficulties can also give great joys, and joys of a higher, human order - the joy of overcoming, the joy of discovery, the joy of creativity.

It is possible that this is both natural and highly symptomatic: after all, we live in an age of a scientific and technological revolution that has not yet been seen in the history of mankind. Life in all its manifestations becomes more varied and more complex; the further it goes, the more it requires from a person not stereotyped, habitual actions, consecrated by centuries-old traditions, but mobility of thinking, quick orientation, creativity to solve big and small problems.

Mobility is also required by modern production, where new professions appear literally before our eyes and those that require hard, monotonous, performing work are on the wane. It is easier for a person with a creative mindset not only to change professions, but also to find a creative "zest" in any business, get carried away with any work and achieve high labor productivity.

The acceleration of scientific and technological progress will depend on the quantity and quality of creatively developed minds, on their ability to ensure the rapid development of science, technology and production, on what is now called the increase in the intellectual potential of the people.

And before our state, school, educators and parents, a task of extreme importance is growing: to ensure that each of those who now go to kindergarten and who are yet to be born, grow up not only as a conscious member of the new society, not only as a healthy and strong person , but also - for sure! - an initiative, thinking employee, capable of a creative approach to anyone work that he would take on. And an active life position can have a basis if a person thinks creatively, if he sees around him an opportunity for improvement.

It turns out that all should become creators? Yes! Let some - to a lesser extent, others - to a greater extent, but necessarily all. Where to get so many talented and capable? Nature, everyone knows, is not generous with talents. They are rare like diamonds...

Boris Nikitin

steps of creativity. Educational games

Preface from the Nikitin family to the 7th edition, corrected and enlarged

You are holding a book in which the methodological and creative experience of Boris Pavlovich Nikitin is concentrated for more than 35 years - in fact, from 1962 to 1998.

Boris Pavlovich attached great importance to the invention and methodological development of educational games and worked with children of all ages and adults literally until his last days. He was convinced that such games were the future. And he turned out to be right.

Today, you can find "developers" in almost every kiosk. But "Nikitinsky games" occupy a special place in an endless series of educational aids. First of all, because behind them lies half a century of constant practice, analysis, and refinement.

It all started with the fact that two smart and observant parent teachers, Boris Pavlovich and Lena Alekseevna Nikitin, began to make fundamentally new games and manuals for their seven children with their own hands. All of them had a certain applied value, some of them were based on well-known psychological tests. However, their goal was not only to measure, a and develop the child's intellect by tasks of increasing, "gradual" complexity.

The first six games - "Fold the Pattern", "Unicube", "Attention", "Attention - Guess!", "Bricks", "KB SAM" - showed excellent results in practice and were described in a brochure published in 1976 . The number of games began to grow actively, and the book about them began to be widely reprinted. Thousands of young dads and moms throughout the Soviet Union actively studied educational games, processed, cut, painted and glued cubes, plywood and cardboard, drew tasks for them and worked with kids. Since the 90s of the twentieth century, "Nikitinsky games" have been successfully introduced into the practice of kindergartens in Japan and Germany. In the last lifetime edition (1998), Boris Pavlovich already describes 17 games and various manuals.

At the same time, all games and manuals did not stop being tested in our family: with children and grandchildren, children of numerous friends, acquaintances and guests, with teenagers and adults. Both children and adults not only played enthusiastically, but also came up with new tasks and passed special tests compiled by Boris Pavlovich on the basis of some games. Over the decades, Boris Pavlovich has accumulated a huge statistical and research base, constantly improving the methods of training. He himself masterfully played with the kids, emphasizing: “Do not turn educational games into a boring teaching aid!”

Children who grew up with these games became adults. Our own children have also grown up. Now the great-grandchildren of Boris Pavlovich and Lena Alekseevna play "grandfather's cubes" with enthusiasm. And as before, these games continue to turn to us with new facets and opportunities. Preparing this edition, for the first time without the participation of Boris Pavlovich and Lena Alekseevna, we made many unexpected discoveries, taking a completely new look at such seemingly familiar cubes. In addition, since 2015, eleven games have been released under our control, which also teaches us a lot.

Therefore, in the 7th edition of the book “Steps of Creativity. Developing games” comes out seriously revised and supplemented.

This included the entire author's text by Boris Pavlovich, which Lena Alekseevna once helped to write and edit. Including restored interesting illustrative examples from the very first brochure in 1976. We deliberately left detailed descriptions of "How to make a game yourself" - and not only in memory of those thousands of enthusiasts who have been making these games with their own hands for decades. Some allowances are not yet commercialized and some parents use their own resources. The book also includes the work of Boris Pavlovich "26 factors of formation and development of creative abilities" - a kind of summary of his many years of reflection, an invitation to parents and teachers to co-create.

There are also many new things.

We can see from our own kids that the tricks and stories that worked great in games twenty, thirty, forty years ago are no longer so effective. We observed, analyzed, tried - and found what works today.

Therefore, the book "grown" with new methodological techniques. Sometimes the additions were organically integrated into the author's text, sometimes they are listed as "Additions to the new edition". BUT new tasks to games, as we believe, have well supplemented the idea of ​​"stairs", made up for some gaps in the previous versions of tasks. In "Unicube" and "Bricks" the level of complexity now rises more smoothly, and quick wit, imagination, attentiveness "grow up" in the students just as rhythmically - that is, the creative aspects of the intellect, which Boris Pavlovich was so concerned about.

We are glad that great-grandchildren, who managed to take a completely new look at "Dice for All" and "Fold the Square", joined the family work. This revealed the incredibly interesting possibilities of the "Nikitinsky games" and presented a whole series of fundamentally new tasks.

In addition, for busy young parents who prefer a summary, we have developed several compact checklists that are included in the appendices.

Boris Pavlovich was convinced that if you start from an early age, then it is possible for a person to develop absolutely all abilities. Our life - the life of B.P.'s children and grandchildren - both confirms and refutes this categorical position. We grew up in the same conditions, but we all grew up very different in inclinations, hobbies, and professions. Someone successfully “hit” the periodic table, while the other can’t stand chemistry all his life, although the table hung on the wall for everyone. It's the same with educational games: some are still passionate about Cubes for All, others fondly remember Fractions, and some never tire of admiring the Table of Hundreds. At the same time, apparently, it was the “early start” that helped everyone to become infected with curiosity for life.

On the other hand, it is worth recognizing that among all the Nikitins, perhaps the most inventive inventors are still Boris Pavlovich and Lena Alekseevna themselves - who did not have special conditions for "early development" in childhood. And we continue to argue both with each other and with Boris Pavlovich: what is “invested” in a person before birth, and what is brought up after?

But all of us, the Nikitins, have in our blood - to love and want to do something together with children, trust them and respect their independent decisions. We are sure: it came from our parents and largely due to the diverse “developing” home space that they invented and created. An important part of this multidimensional space were those same games and manuals. They really prepare well for school, especially for mathematical disciplines, they give everything to “feel” with their hands - numbers, numbers, dates, parts of a whole, fractions and negative numbers, geometric shapes and lines. After them, everything is assimilated easily in the classroom - just as it was at home, together with dad and mom. And technology developing games, and the games themselves can be mastered by anyone who wants to - this is the whole book.

But there are no identical children, just as there are no identical fathers and mothers. Technologies are technologies, but Boris Pavlovich all the time urged to carefully observe the child, take into account his reactions and learn from him - then any joint activities of an adult and a child will yield rich results. And educational games provide a whole range of opportunities for this.

Let this book help you find the individual pace of development of your child and ways to overcome the most difficult “steps”. You will be better able to see and study his personality: character traits, inclinations, hobbies. And along the way, your own character will definitely manifest itself - and the zones of your internal questions: what am I doing right and what is wrong? Why here I and my child do not understand each other? Where can and should I help, and where should I feel and keep the boundary of his responsibility and independence?

Educational games are a great tool in your smart hands. Invent, observe, try, create in games and in life! I wish you success!

Nikitin family

This book is about games, but unusual games. They were born in communication with children and with their direct participation, they were tested in our large family and in other families, in experimental studios, in the lessons of enthusiastic teachers. And invariably aroused interest not only in children, but also in adults. The very first attempt to introduce educational games, even in a small dose (2-3 times a week for half an hour), into the practice of working with the older group of the kindergarten showed that the rate of mental development of children can almost double.

They have been produced in Germany and Japan since 1990, and in Russia since 1997. If you did not manage to buy them ready-made, then do it yourself, the author gives a detailed description in the book. But you can’t just give them like a toy to a child and say: “Play!” - the game may not work. They cannot be shown to the child all at once, but only one at a time, and the next, perhaps not earlier than in a week or a month, and some even in a year.