Investigation of the relationship between the preferences of learning centers and geometry skills of 60-72-month-old children

This study aims to investigate the relationship between the learning centers preferred by the 60-72-month-old children attending preschool education institutions and their geometry skills. The study group of the study, which was designed in a relational survey model, consisted of 200 children who were 60-72 months old (90 girls and 110 boys) attending pre-school education in the center of Düzce in the 2017-2018 academic year. In the research, the data collection tools were developed by the researcher, "The Survey Of Determining Preferred Learning Centers by Children" and "Early Geometry Skill Test" developed by Sezer (2015). The data obtained from the study were analyzed using SPSS 22 program. Normality of data distribution was exemined by Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests. Percentage, frequency values, independent groups t test, one-way ANOVA and correlation tests were used for data analysis. As a result of the research; It was determined that there was no significant relationship between the learning centers preferred by their children during play and their geometry skills. It was found that the geometry skills of the children did not differ according to the variables of gender, maternal education level, and mother working status, the income level of the family, number of siblings and birth order of the children. On the contrary, it was concluded that the geometry skills of children differ according to the father's education level and the children's school attendance time. Another finding of the study is that the learning center that children prefer most during free play is the block center. Besides, children showed less success in triangular than other geometric shapes and showed the highest success rate in recognizing circle they are more successful in recognizing typical examples of geometric shapes.Keywords: Preschool, geometry skills, basic shapes, shape recognition, learning centers