Evaluation of outdoor design in pre-school educational institutions: Sample of İskenderun district of Hatay province

Depending on the developments in education around the world, preschool education has started to gain importance today as a critical period in which children's developmental characteristics and differences and abilities will be discovered. Play, which is an integral part of pre-school education and therefore children's playgrounds have also been affected by this change. With this change, which embraced the new educational trends followed by pre-school education schools, shaping the playgrounds according to the new standards of education has emerged. The aim of this study is to examine the children's play areas in preschool institutions in terms of competence, design and hardware principles, while the rate of pre-school schooling has been increasing in our country. In the study, children's playgrounds of 7 pilot preschool education institutions in Iskenderun district of Hatay province were examined in terms of equipment, structure, legislation and competence, and suggestions were made about children's playground design principles.