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The relevance of the topic of the article. For the wide educational practice of kindergartens, the question of the psychological mechanisms of creative thinking is fundamental, since their formation begins precisely at the age of three to five years. If during this period of a person’s life the educational process is structured in such a way that the child’s creative thinking is not supported or even suppressed, then it will be very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to compensate for gaps in cognitive development at later life stages. It should be emphasized that, as a rule, teachers do not support creative thinking or even act to the detriment of it precisely because of a lack of understanding of the key principles of its development, which, in particular, are related to ensuring a balance of activities that actualize formal-logical, dialectical and symbolic structures of thinking.

The aim of the study. The work is aimed at identifying the features of the structure of cognitive abilities that make up the complex mechanism of creative thinking, which is one of the basic problems of psychology of cognitive development today. The question is posed of how dialectical thinking, formal logic and the ability to symbolize are related in preschool age. The assumption is verified that the use of Piaget’s tools, focused on fixing reversibility relations and the formation of the phenomenon of preservation, will reveal new aspects of the relationship between formal-logical and dialectical thought structures.

Description of the research progress. 272 preschoolers from Moscow and other regions of the Russian Federation were individually diagnosed. For data processing, methods of correlation analysis and verification of the independence of parameters according to the Pearson’s chi-squared criterion were applied.

Research results. The results of the study showed that the connection between the three lines of cognitive development of preschoolers is traced more consistently in relation to formal and dialectical thinking. With regard to symbolization, the connections are less consistent. The article concludes that normative, transformative and symbolic abilities are relatively independent lines in the cognitive development of preschoolers.

Conclusion. The data obtained indicate the complexity and heterogeneity of the mechanism of creative thinking and the heterogeneous structure of relationships between formal-logical and dialectical structures, as well as the ability to symbolize. Therefore, the program for the development of creative thinking for preschoolers should have a balanced character: by influencing one type of structures, we cannot expect that the rest will also develop as a result of this influence. To actualize the complex mechanism of a child’s creative thinking in the pedagogical terms, it is necessary to design problem situations together with the children, the resolution of which requires both the use of formal and dialectical logic and the ability to invent symbols, images, metaphors.

Relevance (context) of the subject of the article. The problem of creative abilities is becoming increasingly important in two contexts at once – both in the context of human self-realization, and in the context of the development of practices and production. A special place is occupied by the development of creative abilities in preschool age: even in the works of Lev Vygotsky, it was said about the importance of considering the germs of creativity in the game and fantasy of children. Today, within the framework of the cultural-historical approach, there are a number of scientific schools that study the possibilities of diagnosing and developing children’s creativity.

The aim of the study is to analyze the approaches to the study of children’s creativity in cultural-historical psychology in order to understand what answers to the questions posed by Lev Vygotsky, were discovered over the past decades, and what remained unanswered. It is also important to see how the questions themselves were transformed, since the raising of a new question is a sign of the development of science. The correlation of existing approaches is important for the development of new research programs in the logic of cultural-historical psychology.

Description of the research. The article analyzes various approaches to the research and development of creative abilities: V.V. Davydov and V.T. Kudryavtsev, D.B. Bogoyavlenskaya, N.E. Veraksa and O.M. Dyachenko, V.N. Druzhinin, L.F. Obukhova. The general and specific characteristics of the interpretation of children’s creativity in different approaches of the cultural and historical tradition are highlighted. The conducted research correlates with the questions about the creative nature of the human psyche and about children’s creativity, posed by L.S.Vygotsky.

Research results. The article concludes that despite all the differences in the approaches that have appeared in the logic of the cultural-historical tradition, they are united by the idea of the resourcefulness of preschool childhood and the importance of educational efforts aimed at maintaining the “sprouts of creativity”. In Russian studies, the question is raised about the means of creative abilities that allow us transforming the present situation (dialectical structures and symbols), as well as about the affective-volitional component of the creative process – the ability to detect a task. All this distinguishes the concepts that were born within the framework of the cultural-historical approach from the theory of creativity by J. Guilford and E. Torrance. At the same time, it is indicated that children’s activities (playing, storytelling, experimentation, etc.) are still rarely considered in research as a context for the manifestation of creative abilities.

Conclusion. The article concludes that it is important to conduct new research, both ascertaining and longitudinal, which will allow us to take the next steps in understanding how the means of developing creative abilities are mastered in children’s activities and how this affects the formation of creative abilities in subsequent ages.

The article analyzes articles on the development of creative thinking of preschool children. Conducted categorization allowed to formulate five modern approaches, which are the most common among researchers and teachers: work through art, educational environment, creativity training, problem solving, children’s narratives.

The author emphasizes that: a) when working with objects of the aesthetic cycle for the development of creative thinking, it is important to pay attention not so much to the beauty of the product, but to the quality of interaction with the teacher, the ability to act on children’s own ideas and the availability of materials, providing children with independence in making decisions about how and what to do most of the day; b) when organizing the educational environment, it is necessary to focus on dialogue and discussion practices, open tasks, the personal significance of the proposed activity for the child, a soft schedule with long periods when the child can be immersed in one lesson, professional freedom of the teacher; c) integration of problem situations that require experimental activities and the development of “science-based” ways to answer controversial questions is an effective way to stimulate curiosity in preschool age.

The article is devoted to the results of a pilot study of the relationship between the quality of the educational environment in preschool groups and the level of development of creative thinking of preschool children and the study of the development of creative thinking of teachers in solving pedagogical problems.

The study is based on the idea of the quality of education inherent in the Federal State Educational Standard of Preschool Education, the cultural and historical concept of L.S. Vygotsky’s and structural-dialectical approach, describing dialectical thinking as the ability to creatively transform objects and situations. The study was aimed at studying the possible relationships between the quality of the educational environment in preschool groups and the level of development of the dialectical thinking of children, as well as the ability of adults (teachers) to use creative thinking tools to solve professional problems: designing an educational action and developing dialogue with a child.

The study was conducted on a random sample of preschool departments of educational complexes in Moscow (a total of 103 children from 5 to 6.5 years old and 35 teachers). To assess the quality of the educational environment, we used the ECERS scale and the pilot version of the scale “Stimulating dialectical thinking”. To assess the creative thinking of preschoolers, a block of techniques was used to measure the level of dialectical thinking, and for adults, a methodology was developed and tested for studying mental strategies in solving professional pedagogical problems.

Background. Achieving the quality of preschool education is a priority area of the state educational policy. In this regard, the problem of finding effective mechanisms for the innovative development of the preschool educational system, which guarantees high-quality education for children, is being actualized. The solution of this problem dictates the need to appeal to the creative heritage of scientists recognized in the scientific community, whose works lay the methodological and methodological foundations of children’s education, organized from the standpoint of preserving the self-worth of preschool childhood. One of these scientists is L.A. Paramonova, whose scientific work has largely determined the leading lines of development of preschool education since the 1970s, and has not lost its relevance at the present time.

Objective. Scientific understanding of L.A. Paramonova’s creative heritage and consideration of its potential in solving topical issues of modern preschool education.

Methods. A retrospective and contextual analysis of L.A. Paramonova’s scientific work in the aspects of its contribution both to the development of science about childhood and to the development of modern practice of preschool education.

Results. The analysis of L.A. Paramonova’s scientific heritage has revealed a completely new approach to understanding both the essence of child construction and the mechanisms of its formation as a creative activity. Firstly, L.A. Paramonova’s construction, unlike other scientists, is considered as an independent children’s activity, and not as a game or a means of labor education. Secondly, she interprets construction not only as a practical activity for making specific crafts, but also as a general thinking ability that manifests itself in the creative process of creating various entities (structures, drawings, poems, etc.) and endowing them with individual meanings. This mental ability is the basis for the development of not only design, but also other types of children’s activities. The undoubted merit of L.A. Paramonova is the definition of psychological mechanisms for the formation of creative construction, which she refers to the development of imaginative thinking, productive imagination, the organization of children’s experimentation with new material, the formation of generalized methods of construction. Taking into account these mechanisms, she created a system for the formation of creative design in children aged 2–7 years. Of great importance for the further development of the problem of development in preschool childhood are the highlighted L.A. Paramonova (co-authored) the basic qualities of a child’s personality, acting as a psychological guideline for the organization of the developing educational process.

Conclusion. The new strategy presented in L.A. Paramonova’s researches for the formation of creative design in preschool children, as well as the developed basic qualities of the child’s personality, contribute to solving such fundamental problems of pedagogical and psychological science as the problem of the ratio of learning and creativity; development of children’s activities and the child in it; consistency in learning; determining the principles and content of developmental education in preschool as a child. Scientific work of L.A. Paramonova, who made a significant contribution to enriching the idea of A.V. Zaporozhets’s statement about the role of “specifically children’s activities” in the full-fledged development of a child has not lost its relevance today, and is significant both for pedagogical science and for the practice of preschool education.

Background. The development of creative thinking is one of the important tasks of early childhood education. It is important to understand the role children’s activities, particularly story-telling, can play in this development. Of particular interest are narrative practices that create a social situation that supports children’s writing.

Objective: to analyze the influence of the narrative practice of “fairy tales with provocations” on the development of creative (dialectical) thinking of older preschoolers and individual parameters of fairy tale stories that children create.

Methods. The study involved 60 children aged 6-7 years. To diagnose creative (dialectical) thinking, the “What can happen at the same time?” (Veraksa N.E.) technique was used; to diagnose creative thinking and the ability to create symbolic images, the “Fire” subtest was used (the “Three Stories” method by Shiyan O.A.). We proposed the narrative practice “Fairy Tales with Provocations” as a way to activate children’s creative thinking.

Results. According to the results of the initial diagnostics, no significant differences were found; the results of the children in the experimental and control groups did not have any of the study parameters. The final diagnostics showed that in the control group no significant positive changes were found compared to the initial diagnosis in any of the studied parameters, while in the experimental group significant positive changes were found at a significant level in everyone according to all measurable parameters: creative (dialectical) thinking, creative transformations and artistic (symbolic) image in narratives, as well as the structure of narratives.

Conclusion. The study showed that the narrative practice “Fairy Tales with Provocations” is an adequate way to develop creative (dialectical) thinking, and also has a positive effect on the stories that children create: they become more complex and structured, they contain more creative transformations and artistic (symbolic) images. All this suggests that such symbolic activities as writing fairy tales are an important space for the development of children’s creativity. The results can be used to build educational work with children based on the resource of children’s activities.