Examining the main values concepts and activities acquired at pre-school education instituons providing pre-school values education

Pre-school period comprises a significant part of childhood period. This period proves much more effective if the child is engaged in integration with his/her environment and participates in planned learning environments. Social values, which comprise a significant part of human life, are acquired by children during the normal course of social life in time. Therefore, it is quite significant how and through which activities these values are taught in planned teaching and learning environments, into which they need to be transferred. A child could much more easily adapt to the society when these activities are carried out by utilizing the child?s learning channels. This study is concerned with examining the selected values and activities presented to the children at the pre-school institutions providing pre-school values education. This can be categorized as qualitative study since qualitative data collection methods are employed throughout the study. The study was carried out at 2 pre-school education institutions at Yenimahalle district of Ankara. The 2 schools indicated implementing values education curriculum. Observation was one of the methods used for data collection. For the purposes of data collection, 2 of the teachers at these schools were observed for 5 months. In addition, 22 teachers from Yenimahalle district were interviewed. As a result of the study, it was found out that: 1. Teachers aim to teach universal values while they provide values education to their students. 2. Teachers try to provide models to their students while they teach values and they try to practise what they teach themselves. It was found out that this modelling proved very influential upon the children. 3. More methods need to be used while teaching values in order to enhance the adaptation of the students to the topic.