The effectiveness of creative drama in prescholl science activities in determining the relationship in nature events

The preschool period is one of the periods in which the mental, social and physical development is very fast. Children?s experiences in this period is very important for the following periods. The children between 0 and 6 ages are very curious. For this they always ask questions about the things they live or see. The moments they asked questions are the moments in which the children are ready to learn. At these times it is important to direct them to investigate and explore. Generally information through memorising are presented and learning is realized only by cognitive way. But the children should be included in learning progress and their sensory area must be developed. Creative drama studies in education, covering feelings, thoughts and capabilities of children to learning progress and ensures long term learning.The knowledge gained by creative drama are not the teoritacal information to memorize. In the creative drama studies the information from different disciplines are being used and relations between these information and life are constructed. Generally, schools cannot realize this kind of learning, that?s why creative drama must be used in education.The creative drama which improve communication, emphaty skills and critical thinking, also has a big role at improving thinking skills and by so ensuring learning. Main objects of creative drama are to educate people to be self confident, social, and curious.We can use drama at every stage of education to ensure permanent learning and to make learning enjoyable. Preschoool years are the basis of learning and children can learn easier by living, that?s why, creative drama in education is one of the most important teaching methods.The science activities in preschool period are the first activities by which children meet with science for first time. The activities help children to learn the environment they live and to gain the skills for solving problems. There are mostly abstract event or conceptions in science and activities, and by using creative drama in these activities it will be easy to make the event and conceptions more concrete and make the children learn more easy, enjoyable and permanent.This study which has been attempted to determine the effectiveness of creative drama in prescholl science activities over determining the reason-result relations in nature events has been realized controlled pre/posttest experimental model.The study subjects were six years old E and F groups attending Yunuskent Prescholl throughout 2007-2008 academic year in fall semester and there were 14 children in experimental group, 14 children in control group, so totally 28 children participated in this study. Video and statical analysis were made by using the data.In this study, percent and frequency calculation of the pretest and post test points was made by using video analysis. And also descriptive statical analysis which include standard deviation and aritmetical calculation of pretest and posttest points was made. Mann-whitney-U test was used to determine if the difference between pretest and posttest points are meaningful or not. All statical analysis were made by SPSS 11.5 program. .Findings of the video record and statical analysis can be summarised as following. There is a significant difference between the skills of determining the cause effect of nature events of the experiment group studying learning strategies of creative drama and the control group studying traditional method in science activities in preschool education. The significant difference was in favor of the experimental group. In other words, using creative drama method in preschool science and nature activities enhances the students? skills of determining reason-result relations in nature events.