Sewing as a participation project in the preschool period

The daily lives of children are intertwined with carefree play, through which they get to know the world around them. As we know, in the past the children also played, and for the play they mainly used objects that were meant for daily work or tasks. Today, we often shower children with toys, but at the same time, we often deprive them of the opportunity to actively participate in everyday tasks that would enable them to learn new things. We want children to be more active co-creators of life, both in the home environment and in kindergarten. The main purpose of the thesis was to present the participation of children and to determine how the participation project affects the acquisition of new knowledge in the field of sewing with a sewing machine. In the theoretical part, participation is presented gradually. We started with the role of the child through time, identified an important turning point, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which empowered children. We went on to describe Reggio Emilia’s approach, its starting points and compared them with the principles of the Kindergarten Curriculum. We also referred to a project work, which is an important part of the mentioned Reggio Emilia approach, and with more detail presented the open way of active learning. The second part of the theoretical part presents textiles - cotton, jute and wool - and the technique of sewing with a sewing machine. In the empirical part, we presented the results of the questionnaire. In the research participated 315 kindergarten teachers and assistant kindergarten teachers. It was found that kindergarten teachers involve children in co-creating life in kindergarten. Most often, children are allowed to freely choose the materials/means for play, but rarely do they have the opportunity to co-decide on the course of the day in kindergarten and redesign the play areas according to their wishes. Most kindergarten teachers offer paper to make children's products, but less than half of the respondents offer fabric. Cotton, wool, felt, yarn and thread are often available for children to play in the playroom, but less often they can use silk and viscose, as kindergarten teachers do not offer it on a daily or weekly basis. Kindergarten teachers together with children often make dolls, toys, pillows, etc. from textiles. Textile activities are most often carried out by kindergarten teachers in the form of free play (play area with textile), and least often in the form of project-based learning. When carrying out activities with textile, kindergarten teachers most often use gluing as a working technology, and least often wool felting. During these activities, children's progress is often monitored through observation, checklists and photography. More than half of the respondents in the research used the sewing technique in the kindergarten - mainly they use the manual sewing technique with a real needle, but sewing with a sewing machine is a technique that is far behind. In their opinion this method is dangerous, or they say that they are not qualified in this field. Those who use these techniques, carry out the activity in small groups and pay more attention to safety at work. Kindergarten teachers believe that sewing mainly encourages the development of concentration, accuracy and fine motor skills, and least of all the development of critical thinking. With children aged 4-6, we carried out a technical sewing activity in the kindergarten as a participation project. We found that the children, through their own activity, acquired new knowledge in the field of sewing techniques with a sewing machine and gained knowledge of sewing tools. Through our questions, they looked for ideas to solve problems and solved them successfully. We can say that they experienced a sense of self-worth during the activity. With the thesis, we want to show one of the possibilities of participation in kindergarten and encourage professionals to use these findings in planning their everyday life in kindergarten and more frequently enabling active participation of children in solving problems