PATRIOTIC EDUCATION OF CHILDREN OF SENIOR PRESCHOOL AGE BY MEANS OF UKRAINIAN FOLKLORE MUSIC

At the present stage of the Ukrainian state system development one of the most urgent problems is the formation of patriotic feelings and national consciousness of the younger generation. Psychologists and pedagogues consider the most favourable age for the beginning of the child's patriotic feelings formation to be the age of five when the personal interest to the social world, social phenomena and surrounding community is activated. However, even in the senior preschool age children are not conscious enough what “patriotism” is. Patriotism is natural disposition and love to the native land, language and culture; deep moral feeling, the indicator and expresser of the highest manifestation of a person's inner world. Unfortunately, adults, first of all parents and some pedagogues, form the wrong understandingof the notion “patriotism”. The important task of patriotic development in preschool educational establishments is to instill in children clear consciousness of national self-identification, which will manifest itself in the knowledge by little individuals of their own history, culture, customs and traditions of their people. The effective way and means of patriotic education of children of senior preschool age is the children folklore music, which has clearly emphasized educational and patriotic orientation. They are:  lullabies, nursery rhymes, sayings, song-games which prepare a child for life, help to become familiar with the surrounding medium;  traditions of Slavic people which form the primary source of the national self-consciousness of a person;  ritual games which teach to imitate the working process of adults;  songs, sayings, games which have multifunctional character, they influence the intelligence (perception, attention, thinking, memory). The investigation of the peculiarities and pedagogic opportunities of the national folklore music as the phenomenon of the Ukrainian folk art proves that it concentrates in itself the ethnic way of thinking, ethics and aesthetics, it is of great importance in modern pedagogics and it is an integral part of the educational process in the preschool educational establishments. As our experience shows, only by providing an example, pedagogues and parents can restore the genetic code of the Ukrainian people, form a new type of a Ukrainian being able to lead the country to the culture of the global level.