Plants in meadows and forests most actively grow and bloom in the summer, when classes with preschoolers are not conducted. Therefore, wild plants can be studied by children either by observation together with their parents during a visit to the park and the forest, or through didactic games that are held during the school year in a preschool. Educators lay the foundation of knowledge, train the correct pronunciation of plant names, as well as the ability to distinguish between meadow plants, herbs, endangered flowers.
In the teaching room of each kindergarten, herbariums of flowers of the meadow, field and forest should be stored. They are replenished and updated annually so that teachers can freely use them throughout the school year. Didactic games are held both with dry plants and with lotto cards, on which they are depicted as close as possible to their present forms.
- Draw a flower. Children are offered illustrations in which the wild plants of the meadow are depicted in half. It is necessary to finish their second half, choosing the right shade of color, displaying the shape of the leaves, stem, flower in accordance with the drawn shape. After that, the children gather in groups with the same types of flowers, i.e. form bouquets.
- Flower clearings. Hoops are spread out in the music hall - meadow flowers “whose names are familiar to children” “grow” in them. This is chamomile, buttercup, bell, cornflower, Ivan tea, etc. The number of flowers in the hoop should be within the first ten: 6 bells, 8 daisies or 10 buttercups. To the music, children, portraying insects, “fly” through the clearing, but with the end of its sound they should take a place in the house with flowers. The teacher specifies in whose house they got, how many flowers grow there. If children attend the younger or middle group of the kindergarten, then the number of flowers can be reduced: 2 cornflowers, 3 daisies, 5 dandelions, etc.
- Find out by smell. The teacher offers the children to smell dried wild-growing plants (at the same time, their smell only intensifies if they are stored in cloth bags). Children remember the smell and name of plants, and then try to guess them with their eyes closed. It is better to pick herbs and flowers with a strong smell (valerian, melissa, clover, dandelion).
- Collect medicinal plants. Cards with the image of various herbs and flowers are laid out on the table. Children are invited to collect useful plants for Aibolit in a basket from which they can prepare medicine: St. John's wort, chamomile, plantain, nettle, coltsfoot. You can give tasks to collect primroses, garden flowers or flowering berry plants.
- Red book of plants. Children can make small books themselves, in which they will sketch or paste illustrations depicting wild plants listed in the Red Book. In the game, children can exchange books and find those of herbs or flowers that grow in a meadow, in a forest, call them: lily of the valley, valerian.
- Find the plant by sound. The teacher calls the sound, and the children choose cards with the image of plants that have such a sound in their name. A preschooler must say in which part of the word this sound is: at the beginning, middle or at the end. A teacher selects a correctly selected card in an envelope with the appropriate sound. The game continues until all the cards are in their envelopes.
Didactic games with preschoolers can be held during classes, preparing projects on a given topic, in their spare time, as well as as part of additional classes in ecology, during entertainment and holidays. The requirements for the games can be familiarized with parents to consolidate the knowledge of preschoolers at home.