Abstract
Spatial orientation cognition is a crucial indicator of individual cognitive ability. The preschool period is a critical phase for nurturing children's spatial ability, and interventions are required to enhance preschoolers' level of spatial orientation cognition. This study designed a constructive play divided into three stages: orientation play, task-based play, and competitive play, which aimed to gradually enhance children's core experiences in perceived orientation, spatial language, and visual imagery. The study selected 110 children aged 5-6-year-old from a public kindergarten, randomly divided into an experimental group (N=55) and a control group (N=55). The experimental group received eight weeks of constructive play teaching, while the control group participated in regular teaching activities. The results showed that both the experimental and control groups significantly improved in seven dimensions of spatial orientation cognition, but the improvement and the extent of improvement were more significant in the experimental group. It indicates that the constructive play design of this study can effectively enhance the spatial orientation cognitive level of 5-6-year-old children, and the conventional teaching plays a role, some of which are the result of natural development. The present findings shows that preschool teachers should intervene in children's spatial orientation cognition as early as possible, pay attention to individual differences among children when nurturing their spatial abilities, and fully leverage the advantages of constructive play.