Odgojno-obrazovni potencijal samoiniciranih aktivnosti djece predškolskog uzrasta

High-quality preschool practice implies the synergistic action of various objective and subjective factors. In our work, we will focus on one important, if not the most important, condition for creating a high-quality physical and social environment, which is the respect and understanding of the children's perspective. This means creating a stimulating environment in which every child feels accepted, satisfied, autonomous and empowered to independently and freely choose, plan and manage activities that are meaningful to them. Such a democratically organized educational process provides children with the opportunity to independently research, reflect, create hypotheses and new theories, question, discuss, cooperate with each other and learn actively.The role of educators in the development of participatory practice is multidimensional. The level of children's participation in the creation of the curriculum corresponds to the sensitivity and readiness of educators to enable children to engage in self-initiated and self-organized activities based on their free choice of space, time, associations, subjects, actions, rules. The paper presents part of the research on the importance of self-initiated activities for children's overall development, as well as the representation of these activities in preschool institutions of the Central Bosnian Canton. The results showed that educators are aware of the educational potential of children's self-organized activities, but that it is necessary to invest a lot of professional effort to truly understand the children's perspective and truly participatory practice.