Preschooler and schoolboy
The children are growing up. Here is one of them - already a schoolboy, and the second will also soon go to school.
The schoolboy has new duties: teaching at school, doing homework. But the game interests are also strong, especially if the younger brother is playing in front of his eyes.
True, adults refer to the schoolboy's game not always approvingly: "You're already going to school, but playing like a small one, in cars"( in the war, in dolls, etc.).
As we have already said, the game does not end with the transition of the child to school, it is still important and necessary for him.
A schoolboy's game is a relaxation after lessons, an unusual system of school requirements. First-graders play with younger brothers and sisters with pleasure, and not the last place in their plots takes the game to the school, through which they learn new reality. In this game, a first-grader, of course, a teacher, and younger - students.
But less and less leisure, and the game moves to the street, combined with a walk( now independent, unaccompanied by a teacher, mother, grandmother).
Children-schoolboys play still very intensively till 10-11 years, in a court yard - with contemporaries and children more young, houses - with younger brothers and sisters( and it is simple with toys).
Therefore, in relation to the game, parents should not draw a sharp boundary between the older child who went to school and the younger, still a preschool child. Both should have leisure and play space.
The junior high school student will still be happy to play role-playing and directing games with his brother. But playing in a role-playing game with an adult - this, perhaps, seems to him no longer the most suitable occupation.
But to play verbal games with rules, the "notion" the younger schoolboy will not refuse. Therefore, an adult can combine a preschooler and a schoolboy with this game.
Preschool, as we said, it is needed to master the ability to deploy interesting game stories, and the younger schoolboy this game can come in handy for another. At school he will have to write essays( although at first simple), clearly state his thoughts, telling the learned material in class. For all this, the "notion" is very useful.
Moreover, an adult can open the "secret" of the addition of a fairy tale to the schoolchild - explain the propp scheme to him. You can already use the methods recommended by D. Rodari in his "Grammar of Fantasy" to work with schoolchildren: to compose different stories according to one scheme( so that some are fabulous, others realistic), to illustrate all the fictitious stories together. If the process of co-inventing is interesting and attractive for the preschooler, then for the schoolboy we should already focus on the result( which was the story - interesting or not, short or, conversely, too long, how could it be made more interesting, etc.)).
In a junior schoolchild, a game in "the notion can go on as an independent activity( he can do without an adult), in which he will involve the preschooler( controlling them instead of an adult).
If one of the children in the family is a preschool child, and the second has already reached adolescence( or older), their interests and opportunities are so divergent that a joint game becomes unlikely. Of course, the elder brother or sister can perform "custodial" functions in relation to the baby, read books to him, explain something, talk, etc.
However, the teenager has many of his studies, the center of his life is communicating with peers, the desire forcommunity with them in thought and deed.
A joint game with a toddler, imposed on a teenager by an adult, will be perceived by him as a compulsive, painful occupation, and this negative emotional background, of course, will affect the baby. Such joint activities will not benefit either one or the other. And teenagers, who themselves play with children with pleasure, are, in general, a rare exception.
Therefore, do not rely on the fact that the teenager will completely replace for the preschooler a sensitive, understanding adult who consciously directs his play with the purpose of developing the child.