Early childhood education institutions are referred to preschool, nursery school and practicum schools that educate young children. Preschool curriculum was developed for children in the preschool education institutions to provide a rich learning experience and to help healthy growth. Creativity is fundamental for the preschool curriculum and can be defined as a procedure to create original things. Preschool teachers should provide children with materials to trigger their imagination, should provide opportunities to imagine and to explain their ideas, should appreciate children's individuality, and should encourage their different viewpoints. They also should encourage children to participate in creative games, should care about children's new products, and value them. Moreover, children's creativity should be appreciated, and children should be given confidence. In this study, it is aimed to investigate the creativity of children in the preschool. A simple causal design with pre-and post-test with a single group was used in the study. The participants consisted of 184 children (96 boys, 88 girls) enrolled in preschool and nursery schools belong to Ministry of Education located in Ankara during the 2014-2015 academic year. Figural Creativity Form A and B of Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking were used as pre-and post-tests. The results showed that preschool curriculum increased children's creativity in a positive way.

This study aimed to investigate the pre-service preschool teachers' awareness of STEM education. For this purpose, the pre-service preschool teachers' STEM awareness was examined in terms of their gender, class, and whether or not they received any STEM education. A total of 384 (302 female, 82 male) pre-service preschool teachers participated in this study at one of the state universities in Turkey. The data were collected through the "STEM Awareness Scale" and "Personal Information Form". STEM Awareness Scale consists of sub-dimensions of effect on students, lessons and teachers. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 21 program. Results showed that male PPTs had more gains on the sub-dimension of the effect of lessons than female PPTs. It has also been found that, having a STEM-related or STEM-based courses increased the PPT's awareness of STEM education. Based on these results, it has been suggested that adding STEM-related or STEM-based courses educational faculties would be beneficial for students.

ABSTRACT. This research was conducted to examine music education applications and the problems with of early childhood teachers working at preschools in Ankara city center. The study included randomly selected 212 early childhood teachers from 166 schools. When data were analyzed, the followings were determinated; 57,08 % of teachers do not use instruments during the activities; 55,66 % of teachers do not have enough instruments for each child in their classroom. Data also suggested that; teachers do not do musical activities primarily; 37, 45 % of teachers primarily ask children to imitate objects, such as animal or etc. in order to support creative dance activities. Consequently, the study suggested that teachers apply the activities which they are knowledgeable but their knowledge is insufficient. Therefore, the teachers need in-service education in different areas of music.Keywords: Early childhood teachers, Music education, Rhtym, Creative dance, Teaching song, Sound listening and differentiation. * Assist. Prof. Dr., Gazi University, Vocational Education Faculty, Department of Child Development Education, Ankara, Turkey. E-mail:ozlemer@gazi.edu.tr ** Res. Assist., Gazi University, Vocational Education Faculty, Department of Child Development Education, Ankara, Turkey. E-mail:zeynepdere@gazi.edu.tr Özlem ERSOY, Zeynep DERE 250 SUMMARYPurpose and Significance: This research was conducted to examine music education applications and the problems with of early childhood teachers working at preschools in Ankara city center.

Early childhood education aims to support children’s whole development and their school readiness. Children develop a knowledge about reading, writing and learning before elementary school. This knowledge is called early literacy and it’s a key factor for school readiness. This study delves to investigate the early literacy skills of children and their visual motor integration. For this purpose, kindergarten students’ level of early literacy skills and visual motor integration was determined and the correlation between the two was analyzed. Eighty children at the age of five (40 females and 40 males) attending kindergarten were purposively chosen. In the study, 38% of the participants in the kindergarten was in the inadequate level of early literacy skills and 62% was in the instructional level. Children in the instructional level also showed that they had better visual motor coordination skills as well. These children presented better visual motor coordination skills in the fine manipulative skills category, print awareness category, and expressive and receptive language skills category. It was seen that visual motor integration development is a valuable factor to supports kindergarten children’s early literacy skills. For this reason, children’s visual motor coordination skills should be taken into consideration and supported for their early literacy skills development.

This study, Creative Behavior ObservationForm was developed to assess creativity of the children. While the study group on the reliability and validity of Creative Behavior Observation Form was being developed, 257 children in total who were at the ages of 5-6 were used as samples with stratified sampling method. Content Validity Index (CVI) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were applied in order to measure validity of Creative Behavior Observation Form. Test-retest method was used in order to determine if Creative Behavior Observation Form has reliable measurements in time. This study concludes with recommendations for the applicators, researchers and teachers who will use Creative Behavior Observation Form as an instrument to develop creativity of preschool children.