Abstract
The joint preschool institution (nursery and kindergarten combined) offers the most favorable conditions for the development of children between the age of two and three. Here they are brought together with children of preschool age and form the first junior group. This makes it possible to take a broader view of their development, with an eye to all that they have learned in their first two years of life. This age is characterized by curiosity and the need for contacts. These traits are the result not only of emotional drives, but also of the growing need to find things out, the desire to ask questions and come to know. Yet examination of the work of the nurseries reveals that the adults, preoccupied with taking care of the children, pay too little attention to direct contact with their charges, to chats and activities that broaden the children's range of ideas and develop their cognitive abilities.