Implementation of humane education in early childhood education via animal-themed activities

Recently, it has seen that ever-mounting violence damages social rest and confidence. Many studies conducted in the last fifty years revealed that the presence of nocturnal enuresis, arson and cruelty to animals in early years indicate to violence tendency in later. In the literature, there are many studies found that there is a relationship between childhood cruelty to animals and violence to humans in adulthood. The basis of HEP is consists of reverence, respect and responsibility. The aim of HEP is to provide people to gain positive behaviors towards human and animals by teaching values like respect and responsibility with lessons and activities related to animals. Children in early childhood period have difficulty in understanding abstract concepts such as reverence, respect and responsibility dependent on their developmental features. HEP provides significant opportunities people of all ages to concretize these abstract concepts. The aim of this study is to describe the implementation process and the reflection of HEP that applied via the activities such as Turkish, drama, art and field trip by setting out different points of view. In the current study, case study among qualitative research methods that include interpretative view was used. As a result, it was found that HEP can be appplied by integrating with our early childhood education program and it is beneficial to gain values such as reverence, respect and responsibility. In addition, it was revealed that HEP contributes to children's cognitive and social-emotional development and gaining positive attitudes and behaviors towards animals. Key Words: Early childhood education, values education, humane education program