INTRODUCTION

Every individual has specific basic attitudes and primary assignment of all educators is to help the child to improve them. But, moreover a duty of the educator is to be able to relieve the disabilities that one has since the birth. Therefore, to educate, in first place, it means to help the individual to realize his own potentialities and, as possible, to acquire further. To educate means, furthermore, to help the child to develop, in addition to the individual abilities, also the social conscience and the interpersonal reciprocity. From this last point of view, therefore, the education doesn't have only to favor the process of individualization, but also the process of social integration. Insofar, an individual can be considered fully educated only when he will have reached the ability to realize his own individuality , in a dimension of participation, to the life of his community.

All we have above expressed - and theoretically plausible – means many problems when we consider the methods that one can adopt for reaching the aforesaid finalities. If we keep in mind that the individual development doesn't pertain only to the physical growth and to the neural-psychological maturation (which includes the development of various mental faculties, as, for instance, memory, reflection, intelligence, judgment, etc.) but also all that we can call “the vision of the world” (that is an internalization and a personal elaboration of the experience of the reality), one can understand as among the educational activities a fundamental importance have all can stimulate both the different somatic-psychic functions and the psycho-behavioral functions appointed to the psycho-emotional internalization of the real experience and to face the stress-factors in relation to the adaptation.

Among these educational activities we consider that we can call as a whole “aesthetical activities".

AESTHETICAL EDUCATION

The aesthetical education, in general, since it conducts the individual to a harmonious and constant relationship with the external world, promotes the development of a more "integrated" personality; in fact, intervening at various levels, it stimulates the sensory-sensorial and the perceptive functions, and their mutual coordination; besides, it makes possible the manifestation of feelings in a communicable way and the expression of mental representations, so that they become more conscious; al least, it allows the expression of thoughts in suitable forms, stimulates the creativeness and increases the socialization.

It follows an expansion and a refinement of some fundamental processes what: a) the perception, favored by the visual and plastic education (as it is possible to get through the drawing); b) the intuition, favored by the musical education and by the kinetic education (as it is possible to get through the dance or through the gymnastic-sportive activity); c) the feeling and the affectivity, favored by the verbal education (as it is possible to get through the poetry, the theatrical activities, the learning of the foreign languages); d) the reflection, favored by the education to construction (as it is possible to get through the handmade activities, the gardening, the carpentry etc.).

Some activities can strengthen and canalize more mental functions. For instance, the audio-iconic activities favor the perception, the intuition, the eurhythmics, the reflection. The dance and the music together favor functionally the perception, the intuition, the development of the bodily scheme, the coordination of the movements, etc.

In general we have to recognize that the educational aesthetic activities, on the whole, have the function of promoting and canalizing the individual way of expression and behavior, besides the abilities to "self-realization” and all the cognitive faculties. In fact, educating the children to produce sounds, images and manufactured things, to use instruments, to develop movements and rhythms, and so on, one can realize a deeply formative itinerary since founded upon the experiential learning.

THE CHILD PLAYING

The ludic activities require a particular attention. It is common opinion that playing is time-wasting, futile and conflicting with the serious occupations. In reality the children’s playing is a deeply creative activity which – as fiction between reality and dream - represents and realizes the children’s way of being in the world and their fantastic becoming. In fact at heart of the playing is a complex system of analogies, discoveries, references, identifications and imitations, that not only make the playing as the outcome of the fantastic activity and of the projections in the imaginary but also the way and the expression of the child “knowing”. In fact, contrarily to what one has the tendency to believe, the children, playing, don't give only vent to their imagination but, at the same time, they realize and check their learning; in reality, through the play - unlike it happens during in the oneiric situation - the child is aware of the fictional dimension related to his own playing, namely he is aware of the distance that separates his activity from the reality. If we keep in mind this point of view, we must recognize that, really through the playing, the child can internalize the experienced world, become wealthy of new knowledge and empower his own psycho-emotive development.

PROGRAMMING OF PAR-SCHOOL EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

1) Drawing and Technical Applications;
2) Audio-Iconic Activities (Photo and Cinematography)
3) Ludic activities;
4) Theatrical activity;
5) Music and song;
6) Foreign language;
7) Gymnastic-sports activity;
8) Gardening.

DRAWING AND TECHNICAL APPLICATIONS

It is necessary, at first, to put at children’s disposal the different usable materials (plasticine, das, clay, colors of various type, enamels, pencils, cardboards, drawing paper, painting canvases, adhesive ribbon, scissors, staplers, glue, brushes, felt-tip pens, varnishes, metallic threads, embroidery looms, cloths, needles, threads) so as to observe the natural inclinations of every child toward one or more specific way of expression and/or application. To that end it is necessary that the spontaneous use of the materials is allowed for enough time. In the immediately following phase it is necessary that the educator teaches children the techniques to adopt and the different possibilities of realization relatively to the various available materials. In the third phase the teacher will have to stimulate the realization of "works" in the field of application preferred by everyone, furnishing an educational support such as also to develop a progressive refinement of the expressive techniques. A particular attention will be devoted to the drawing since it, in evolutionary age, represents one of the deeper and immediate means of expression, favoring the "cathartic" processes and the sublimation of the instinctual impulses.

AUDIO-ICONIC ACTIVITIES (PHOTO AND CINEMATOGRAPHY)

The application researches realized in the last years have allowed to verify the extreme utility of the audio-visual aids in pedagogic field. In fact, it is seen that the iconographical communications during the years of growth, allow immediate and global psycho-emotional integrations, such that to assume the value of accelerators of the learning processes. Besides, teaching to children the use of the iconographical instruments will be possible to stimulate various, auto or hetero-centered, iconic realizations; they appear extremely advantageous when we consider that: a) the communications are mobilized through an immediate language that doesn't require difficult codifications or of decoding; b) the possibility of “reproducing” and being connected with “complexes” objects, but in an expressive form easily “comprehensible” by the childish mind; c) it is favored the development of the psycho-operative over the expressive abilities; d) the logical-deductive processes and the cognitive area are empowered. At last, it is not superfluous to underline the enormous stimulus that these activities can offer relatively to children’s affective maturation, creativeness, socialization and ability in cooperation.

LUDIC ACTIVITIES

The play is the most important means that children have for acquiring significant behavioral ways for their future life as adult individuals. If we consider that the ludic activities induce who plays to further variations of behavior which, in their turns, push toward new or different plays, one can understand as the playing doesn't serve only to satisfy some instinctive pulsions or needs of distraction but it also serves "to fix" in manifold concrete aspects the environment and to be adapted in a multiform way (and this is fundamental for the maturation of the personality). So that all can happen in balanced way it is necessary to place side by side the spontaneous play to some protected and directed ludic activities. In fact, the childish play, because it can favor the children’s process of socialization, needs a correspondence with the living system of the belonging culture. If children wasn’t accustomed to follow the play rules related to every game they would develop a tendency to the disorder that could favor their isolation and the marginalization. Therefore, the playing is really so only if it assumes and maintains rules that - in general, countering the impulsive tendencies and the unreflecting behaviors - are in conformity with the awaited behavior by the individual belonging to one specific culture.

The main point is to choose plays that are appropriate to the real child’s stadium of maturation and, therefore, the children’s subdivision in small groups - homogenously as possible as the really reached stadium of neuro-psychological maturation - during the programmed ludic activities can result precious relatively. It is necessary, besides, that the educator acts so as the child periodically can separate and play alone so that he can strength the conscience of the Self (including the bodily Self) and the self-esteem. The educator will also have care to plan outdoor a good part of the ludic activities, through team games, with a great advantage for the sensory, motor and kinesic abilities, even for the experiential enrichment and the process of socialization.

THEATRICAL ACTIVITY

The theatrical activity is configurable as a creative process that allows the rediscovery and the valorization of the bodily, intellectual and social (a constant opening toward the other) dimensions.

The educational program will be divided in two phases. In a first time it will be necessary to introduce and to practice the scholars to read and to discuss selected passages (some of which from themselves selected). In a second time the educator can stimulate the children to the creation of a story, or subject, and to a theatrical preparation with all the various components (direction, scenography, customs, special effects, interpretation); in such way the educator can stimulate them to perform a functional and integrated role, also in order to get them used to the cooperation and the group-working (with enormous advantage relatively to the socialization). It is evident, besides, that through the theatrical activity (or the dramatization) and, therefore, through the identification with the characters or with the situations, the child can realize a contemporary creative-cathartic activity and, besides, a process of recovery of the personal historical reality that, starting above all from an emotional involvement, becomes an extremely significant moment also from the cognitive point of view.

MUSIC AND SONG

The sounds and the rhythms created by oneself have exercised for a long time a particular fascination. The purpose of the musical education is that the individual can “understand" the various musical languages both the ability of "operating" with the sounds and to transfigure them so as acquiring an expressive worth. The knowledge of the music is purchased through the musical education that is based on three principal moments: the rhythmic, the song, the listening. The rhythmic is necessary to the stimulation and the development of the rhythmic sense. The song educates the ear to distinguish and to recognize the various sounds. The listening allows the individual to develop the musical sense and the ability of “understanding” the music, discovering its depth and various expressive means. The educator will have, therefore, to favor altogether the children’s musical sense. Extremely important will be to offer to the pupils the opportunity of knowing different musical instruments, this, in fact, will allow over that the development of the psycho-motor abilities and of the rhythmic sense, besides the expansion of the self-esteem through the fascinating emotional experience of the autogenous production of the musical sounds.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Beginning from the linguistic knowledge of the native idiom, the educator will center the attention of the scholars on that foreign words that are of common use in the spoken language, so that to allow a gradual approach to the foreign language. It will be so easier to stimulate the gradual acquisition of new foreign words for creating authentic sentences; in the following phase, an intuitive grammatical knowledge of the foreign language will be encouraged until to do brief dialogues. Thanks to such exercises various psychic functions will be mobilized (attention, memory, reflection, etc) for which the child will get an expansion of his psycho-cognitive patrimony. Some readings will allow the child to acquire a better familiarity with the foreign language, to make comparisons and to widen his cognitive and expressive horizon.


GYMNASTIC-SPORTS ACTIVITY

The physical education through the educational gymnastics and the sporting activities allows to get health, strength and harmonic development of the organism.

The educational program is based on methodic gym exercises, athletic activity and sports games. The methodic exercises have to be the most various: respiration, preparation to running and jumping; equilibrium; motor activity for legs and bust; education to the gait and the rhythm; at least, corrective gymnastic for improving possible morphological skeletal defects.

The gymnastic exercises allow the child - through exercises of agility, dexterity, promptness, strength and equilibrium - to strengthen the image of the Self (including the bodily scheme), to develop the dynamic equilibrium, to improve the coordination of the movements.

GARDENING

The gardening, over favoring the reflection, the abilities to produce and the ability of adaptation by the Ego (adjustment to the principle of reality), stimulates the children’s approach the nature, making them gather all beauty and mystery of it.

The educator will have care to furnish adequate answers to the various “why?” which spontaneously will rise in the child: “How is a flower born?”, “Why are some plants always green and not others?”, “What’s the function of the sun and the water?”, “Why is it necessary to cultivate the plants?”, “How does the plants reproduce?”, etc.

It will be necessary that preliminarily the educator gives relief to the importance of the preparation of the land. Subsequently he will help the pupil to know what plants and flowers are easier cultivable and the way for sowing them. Then he will stimulate the child to know and to apply the methods of cultivation to get the best results: optimization of the crop in relationship to the exposure to the light and to the environmental temperature, manuring and irrigation, topping, grafting, transplanting.

CONCLUSION

It is evident that this list of par-school activities isn’t exhaustive about the vast range of activities that can be used for helping the child to reach some performances, as much as possible through a careful educational individualized program. We have, for instance, neglected the educational activities that are based on the use of computer tools, this not because they aren’t very important, but because today they are everywhere and continually reported; rather we have preferred to bring the attention on the potentialities of that educational means which require the smaller possible use of machineries and which, instead, are more easily applicable also “open-air” and in a group-context and which, in particular, can involve indistinctly all the schoolmates: from the normal children to the disadvantaged ones.