Characters of Modern Animated Series in Games and Toys of Preschool Children

The paper presents a comparative research on how preschool children play with various modern cartoon character toys. Three popular animated series were used in the research: "Winx", "Spider-Man" and "Pettson and Findus". One series of each was previously analysed in terms of micro-plots, descriptions of the main char¬acters and their actions etc. The children watched the series, one at a time, and were then invited to play with its character toys. The outcomes of the research indicate that the series with plots and characters appropriate for preschool age (such as "Pettson and Findus") promote longer and richer periods of play activity as compared to the series addressed to children of older age. Children tend to take the role of the main character more frequently if s/he is of about the same age (irrespective of sex); they reproduce familiar and clear plots and engage themselves in longer periods of meaningful play. The outcomes also show that the effect of the animat¬ed series on the children's play depends on the quality and content of the animations, on their correspondence with the specifics of preschool age as well as on the quality of the character toys.

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