Abstract:

Intentionally chosen cultural elements that are included in the educational process are considered to be educational contents at nursery schools. Those cultural contents make up the most crucial means of educational activities at pre-schools, because thanks to them a child absorbs social achievements of many generations and may develop itself as a human being. For that reason, in the pre-school practice the nursery school contents are divided, according to cultural domains which create a range of values, into:
- intellectual education which includes the development of speech and thinking (Polish studies education), getting to know quantitative and qualitative relations, creating mathematical concepts (mathematical education) and learning about nature (environmental education),
- aesthetic education,
- social and moral education,
- health education.
The contents of Polish studies education at nursery school apply most of all to speech and thinking development. Speech and thinking development at nursery school has the form of speech training when it comes to vocabulary, grammar and also learning the phonological function of the language. It is aimed at improving the ability of speech, phonematic hearing and the basis of alive word culture.
Mathematical education at nursery school is to get to know quantitative and qualitative relations and to form mathematical concepts, such as time and space that is taken up by objects. Orientation exercises make up the preparation for the further geometry science learning. When it comes to nursery school education learning geometry is based on introducing the basic geometrical figures, flat and three-dimensional ones, such as circles, rectangles, squares, triangles, spheres, cubes, building various flat and three-dimensional compositions out of them and recognizing and naming them in the surroundings. The next stage of mathematical education at nursery school is learning the idea of the number of elements in the set. Mastering by the children the ability of comparing the number of elements in the sets constitutes the introduction to arithmetic of natural numbers.
Environmental education at nursery school includes the knowledge about the social and technical surroundings and learning about nature. The contents concerning getting to know the social surroundings include the child’s pre-school and family environment and the further social environment in which it grows up.
The contents concerning learning about nature include the lively and unlively environment within the range that is adequate when it comes to the children’s abilities and while taking into consideration the circumstances of local environment.
The contents of aesthetic education at nursery school apply to aesthetic daily life, children’s communing with nature, art and technical products, plastic and structural activities, cultivating the love of music and the alive word culture.
In the process of the children’s social and moral education at nursery school the contents are connected with the children’s participation in the basic social group lives such as family, nursery peer group and the society.
In the nursery school educational system an important role plays health education. The contents concerning that discipline include introducing the children to obey the principle of safety, creating habits in them and hygienic and cultural customs and developing their motor efficiency.

Keywords:

Programme, contents, nursery school, education, Poland.