Relevance. Observing the modern processes taking place in the educational society, it is impossible not to note the marked generation gap and, as a result, the depreciation of cultural ideals and values among young people and the younger generation. The article presents the experience of testing the pedagogical technology “Artifact”, based on the key ideas of the cultural and historical approach and designed to make cultural artifacts the semantic and value core of the educational process of a preschool educational organization.
Progress of the study. The study involved 147 preschoolers aged 4 to 7 years attending preschool educational organizations in Moscow and the Voronezh Region. The study was supposed to design a complex of psychological and pedagogical conditions for the development of a cultural sample by a child through the acquaintance of preschoolers with a cultural artifact, the restoration of cultural meanings and contexts, and to obtain products of children’s creativity (children’s artifacts) created on its basis.
The results of the study. In each age group participating in the study, the original cultural artifacts were identified and based on them, various children’s artifacts with partial or complete reproduction of mastered cultural samples were obtained using the Artifact technology.
Conclusions. A cultural artifact, as an entry point into culture under specially designed psychological and pedagogical conditions, is an object of cognition appropriate to preschool childhood and a source of a cultural sample offered to a child for development in the zone of proximal development. Being a part or the basis of a children’s creative product (children’s artifact), a cultural sample becomes a particle of the culture of the future and an important condition for the formation of a conscious and value-based attitude of the younger generation to cultural heritage. Thus, the Artifact technology has been successfully tested in the conditions of real pedagogical processes in kindergartens and can be recommended for solving problems related to the implementation of a value-oriented component of educational programs and the assignment of traditional Russian values by preschoolers.