Before I start my words, I want to indicate that I asked my question to one of the teachers and I didn’t

place her exact words in my report. I tried to give the same meaning, but limitations should be
considered related to my memory and translation skills.

While I designing my research, I examined the materials and structure of 4-year-old children’s
classroom. I divided my major manners into 9 as in the following:

1. Book Corner
2. Science Corner
3. Education Materials
4. Educational Games
5. Legos and blocks
6. Fantasy and imagination games
7. Creative game corner
8. Art workshop
9. Garden materials
10. Other important prints

Within the content of Pred211, I expected to see some materials from Montessori, Reggio Emillia, Frobel
etc. There was no material I directly related to an approach. When I asked to the teacher she explained
me that “we use any material derive from anything. We use plastic and wood. It is normal that if you
didn’t see any materials from those approaches, because we are not committed to one approach. We
include many thigs and we ‘re dynamic. We change strategies and materials considering the situation of
children.”
 1. Book Reading Corner: Regarding the content of the
book, they are not very carefully picked. As I understand,
the teachers want each student bring a book and in the
reading time the teacher reads these books. I took a closer
look at books and they are either too long, or including
complex sentences considering the age group. Especially, I
found Feridun Oral’s books inappropriate for the age group.
I tried to read one of them to a kid and s/he didn’t show
interest at all. Based on my observations, M. Öğretmen
reads book not super efficiently. It is apparent that she
does not check the book before she reads it and once there
were missing parts in the book, together with this
limitation, M. rarely starts reading a book with asking questions to raise the book awareness of children.
She asks about the shape of the book, the cover and back pages and what is written in the cover page.
She wants children to guess the title of the book. Additionally, she follows an interesting tone of voice
while reading.

In application, as far as I know, the children are encouraged to read books to each other with small
voices in a quiet book reading time. This way children develop an understanding of that books are
written and can be altered to words, therefore it has influence of developing book and sound
awareness. Additionally, in that reading time, children communicate and this is helpful for them to
strength their bonds between each other.
 2. Science and Math Corner: There are
various groups of materials in this corner.
Additionally, they exchange materials when
necessary. Children sometimes ask “when
do we go home?”. In such cases I witnessed
the teacher brings the hourglass accordingly
(there are 15 min, 10 min, and 15 min). By
this way, children can follow the hourglass
and don’t ask often. This might help children
create a conception of time but there is lack
of information and research on my side to claim it.

Besides, in the corner there are many prisms, measurement tools, magnets, magnifying glasses,
binoculars, objects in different sizes, shapes, and weight, etc. The corner is pretty reach, although I
never had chance to observe them during an experiment or activity. Still, these tools are important for
children to be familiar with how humans understand the world. The content of the tools is encouraging
the curiosity toward nature and science.

Also, in this corner children can find different materials for different senses. There are little boxes filled
with different objects and they have different sense of voice. To increase the senses, there are also
mirrors and stethoscope in this corner.
 I wanted to look at another class and talk to a teacher. She indicated
that some materials can travel among the classes. In the science
corner, we expect to see maps and globes. I haven’t seen any map but
this globe is one of the traveler material.

3. Education Materials

 Paper, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, water colors, adhesive tape, glue, print, and shearing
materials
4. Educative Games

a. Puzzles, chess, strategy games: In the puzzle corner, there

are many puzzles appropriate for 4 ages. The puzzles are big
enough. As I observed, children feel the accomplishment while
getting pieces together and they don’t feel it is too hard. The
teacher indicated that they have chess teacher starting from 5
ages, therefore they don’t have chess in these classrooms.
b. Word games: I haven’t seen word games

c. Games which require mathematical skills: There are games for numbers and big dominos. In
this age, children are expected to recognize numbers in relation to symbolic formation.
Therefore, there are board games for matching numbers with pictures. Besides, there is a
cognitive development book which children practice on with the guidance of the teachers.

d. Matching and comparing: There are many box games for children to match colors and
numbers. Also, there are memory cards which enable them match the same pictures and there
is a board game that lets children match before and after of situations (ex: raw egg/ grilled egg).

5. Garden materials: In the garden, there is a playground, a sand poll, digging toys, big swings, small
swings, and tricycles. I haven’t seen any scoter, but children love tricycles. The garden does not have a
big space which allows children run freely. But they still can run. There are some trees and children are
allowed to climb on trees.
6. Legos and Blocks: I observed that with this blocks children can create big railways with tunnels and
stations. Also, variety of blocks enable them experiment with matching and unmatching parts.

7. Fantasy and imagination games

a. Costumes, clothes, jewelry: The teacher explained me that they don’t keep everything in the
classrooms all the time. As I explained in the following parts, costumes and cloths can be
brought by parents if it’s necessary.
b. Dolls: There are not dolls in every class. As the teacher explained to me, she said some toys are
picked by the teacher so this may show difference among classes. In contrast to the common
sense for girls like dolls, in this kindergarten, they don’t see it very
necessary, instead they enrich the classroom with materials which raise
curiosity and challenge children to think.
c. Cars: Although there are no dolls, there are plastic cars in the
classroom. There is no toy car which imitate the original ones.
 d. Various animal models

8. Creative Game Corners

 Dramatic Role Play Area: In this area, children can find different toys which are related to
different areas in life. There is a kitchen setting with a wooden sink, plastic toys, plates, spoons,
glasses, toasting machine, pots, etc. This corner is design just like a house which allows children
use it as housekeeping corner. In relation, you can see a wooden phone in the second picture.
Additionally, there are puppets of different job groups. When I talked to the teacher about what they do
more for role-playing and costumes, she replied me as: “These might be changeable considering the
theme we are going through. The costumes can be necessary for a particular drama, or parents might
bring the costumes which are related to their jobs.” You can also see toys related to repair and
firefighting.

9. Art Workshop: Here children can

find variety of art supplies. The music
plays the guitar during the classes and
practices with children basic rhythms
on tambourine. As I observed, the
music teacher visits children in the
classroom, therefore I haven’t seen the
workshop during an active usage.
However, the paintings on the walls
showed me that these place is actively used.
10. Other important prints: In the classroom, you can see many prints which stimuli sound and letter
awareness. On the other hand, I found them inappropriate for 4 ages, because the texts are too small.
To enrich the classroom in terms of literacy would be possible with additional big size of prints of letters.

On the third part, children carry their names to the places where they want to play in their free time. So,
this is helpful for their recognition of their name and making connection between sounds and letters.
Defining our community: In Pred380, we learned that to take a step with a community, we should
describe what kind of a community we are in terms of needs, goals, values, and expectations. We
examined some examples of group work or printed texts and talked about the importance of a written
texts or defining pictures about values and rules. Relation to this, I explained these issues under 3
subtitles.

Our friendship tree Magic Words Wall

Values and relationships: There was a “friendship tree” group work on the wall with description of
friendship with each child and teachers word. This activity strengths the connection between children
and each sentence show how differently children define friendship. There are very nice sentences, I
believe they all had very fun time also during the activity. This also strength their communication skills
and lead them think about their nice memories about friendship. The other spot related to values was
the magic words wall. Here on the drops you can see “thank you”, “you are welcome soon”, “enjoy” etc.
The drops are colored by children.

Rules: It is important to
define rules as well as
values and it is not just
enough to hang it on the
wall. The teachers should
be reminding children
pointing the wall when it’s needed. It is the best if you define rules with pictures, especially for 4 ages. In
this train, you can see “listening ears”, “sharing kids”, “tidy children”, and “walking feet” illustrated.
During my observation time, I didn’t see the teachers ever needed to point it. However, the coloring is
done by children, inclusion of children in the process increases the visibility.

Design of the classroom: As we talked in 380, the classification of

objects should be done very cleverly. In the classroom, objects are
grouped into corners and there are different boxes to separate the
objects. As we discussed, sticking pictures of objects as illustrators
for children is helpful. One example can be seen in the picture, that
was implied everywhere. This easy application looks lifesaving to
me, because it diminishes the possibility of children keep asking the
places objects. Instead, they will enjoy accomplishing a task by
themselves. Although we discussed in the classroom that each child
should have a personal space for his/her belongings, in this school
children don’t have a personal case. They only have specific places
for each to hang their bags and jackets on. Additionally, they have open shoe case under their spot of
jacket.

The sitting structure is changeable, but not very frequently.

It was the same from the begging until the 10th week. The
tables were dived into two as close groups, some students
didn’t see each other. On the 10th week they put the tables
as 2 open groups as in the picture. The names are attached
on the table. I talked with the other class’s teacher about
the sitting structure and she indicated that they change it
once in 2 months and they change when cheating with each
other is too much. On the other hand, in my class this is the first time I see a change.