Abstract:

The aim of the research is to examine the opinions of pre-school teacher candidates regarding teaching geographical concepts to children. The research was conducted with the phenomenology pattern, one of the qualitative research methods. The study group of the research consists of 29 teacher candidates attending the 3rd grade of Artvin Çoruh University Preschool Teaching program in the 2023-2024 academic year. "Interview Form" developed by the researchers was used as a data collection tool in the study. Some results were reached in line with the data analyzed using descriptive and content analysis techniques. As a result of the research, it was found that pre-school teacher candidates mostly expressed the concept of landforms as a geographical concept in preschool. Almost all of the pre-school teacher candidates stated that teaching geography to children is necessary. While most of the teacher candidates in the study group stated that they had not taken a geography-related course at the undergraduate level, they expressed themselves as moderately proficient in teaching. Pre-service teachers expressed the methods and techniques that can be used in teaching geographical concepts in pre-school mostly as demonstration and brainstorming, and expressed the activities that can be used in the process as art activity and Turkish language activity. Finally, the factors that are effective in teaching geography in pre-school are mostly expressed as family, teacher, and environment. The most common out-of-school learning environments that can be used in teaching geographical concepts are school gardens. The earth globe was most frequently mentioned as the material that could be used in teaching geographical concepts.

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