Promoting creativity in early childhood education

act as a role model for the child with her / his character, and include music, art, language and game activities in the daily plan that will develop and promote the child’s creativity. It was stated by teachers and teacher candidates that the preschool educational has a struc- ture that gives the chance to promote creative thinking. The preschool educational program is defined as a child-centred and flexible program which places prominence on research and dis- covery, and which offers children different activities for learning. The program is a develop- mental program which places emphasis on creativity as well as family education and family participation [7]. Teachers and teacher candidates expressed that the flexible structure of the preschool edu- cational program enables them to plan according to the individual traits of children and offers the child more freedom. The fact that the program is student- centred may enable the child to display more creative outcomes. In a research which was conducted to find out the achievements and the indicators in the program in relation to the skills of the 21st century, it was emphasized that 5 achievements within a total of 21 in the cognitive delopment part were found to be in relation with the skills of the 21st century. Similarly, 18 indicators among a total of 113 indicators were found to be in relation with skills of the 21st century. It was stated that 7 of the achievements in the social- emotional development, 5 items in the cognitive development, and 4 of the items in the

achievements in linguistic development were parallel to the skills of the 21st century. It is stated that the highest achievements in relation with the skills of the 21st century are the achievements in social- emotional development [34]. It is also aimed to find out the opinions of teachers and teacher candidates for developing creativity and creative thinking in children, tries to evaluate the opinions of participants using a holistic perspective within the context of the preschool educational program. The following suggestions are made based on the findings of the study: • Problem solving situations that may enable students to display their creativity should be provided. • Families should participate more in children’s educational process. • Teachers should include more activities that strengthen the individual traits of children. • Resources should be provided to teacher candidates to enhance awareness for promoting creativity in the preschool stage. • Teachers should develop attitudes that are not traditional in the activities conducted with children, and when communicating with the children, as well as taking individual differ- ences into consideration. As the study was conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic, there was less interaction between the researchers and the participants. Thus, this situation is considered to be the great- est limitation of the study. Acknowledgments This article was written based on the master’s thesis titled ‘The Study of the Opinions of Pre- school Teachers and Teacher candidates on the Promince and Promotion of Creativity in the

Preschool Stage‘ which was prepared by Yeşim Yılmaz under the supervision of Assistant Pro- fessor Yakup Yıldırım in 2021, at Akdeniz University, Institute of Educational Sciences. PLOS ONE Creativity in early childhood PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294915 December 6, 2023 19 / 21