Promoting creativity in early childhood education

• The 2023 preschool program is a program that considers children with all of their aspects and supports children’s development in all ways. Since this program is student-centred, it gives children the chance to express themselves, and to state their opinions freely. Conse- quently, this situation contributes positively to children’s creativity (TC5). • In this program, activities are prepared as student- centred activities as appropriate to the program, and then put into practice. Chatting to the children about the activities prior to practice and asking open-ended questions to children following activities may give us clues on how their creativity is developing (TC7). • This program contributes to the progress of children’s creativity by enabling the children to receive better education as it leads teachers and candidate to the right path (TC1). • The 2013 preschool program was prepared by studying different programs that would con- tribute to different types of development. It includes various activities to facilitate children’s creative thinking, and different types of advice to teachers. Teachers who study the program may become more conscious (TC12). • Following a certain program, acting within limits is a situation that affects creativity nega- tively. For this reason, the 2013 preschool program makes limitations to children’s creativity (TC8). Conclusions and discussions The themes derived from the findings of the study and the subthemes related to these themes were discussed by taking into consideration the opinions of teachers and teacher candidates

within the light of the related literature. In the first theme, which focused on creativity and the prominence of creative thinking, teachers and teacher candidates mentioned aspects of crea- tivity which emphasized the individual traits of children. The fact that creativity is an impor- tant factor in bringing up unique individuals draws attention as an important finding, which was also proved by the research that was conducted by O¨ zkan [8] and which sought answers to the question ‘What is creativity?’. In his study, O¨ zkan [8] reached the conclusion that a major- ity of teachers defined creativity as the child expressing himself individually, being able to grasp what is authentic, and producing authentic products. Opinions which state that creativ- ity and creative thinking develops the problem-solving skills of children are the items most mentioned by both teachers and teacher candidates regarding the first theme. Opinions which support that children may develop different points of view towards events and situations are supported by thoughts which state that children are able to express their feelings and thoughts authentically. In teachers’ and teacher candidates’ opinions on the prominence of creativity and creative thinking, it is stated that this skill may also positively affect the social development of children. The opinions of the participants which state that training aimed at promoting cre- ativity will lead to positive results both in terms of cognitive development and other areas of

development, distinctly overlap with the study conducted by Karadayı [27], in which the researcher states that we should focus on creativity and creative thinking during the preschool stage. In his study, Karadayı [27], studied the effects of creavity education on cognitive pro- cesses and the skill to organise emotions, which was given to children aged 5 to 6. It is also stated that creativity education promoted creativity, and the skills to organise cognitive and emotional personality, and reached the conclusion that creativity in the preschool stage was related to both controlled and flexible cognitive skills [28, 29]. Opinions within the first theme which stated that creativity enables children to express themselves individually also draw PLOS ONE Creativity in early childhood PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294915 December 6, 2023 17 / 21