Education is one of the important areas that prepares individuals for the future and aims to provide all the necessary equipment. Although education is divided into many branches, I will be talking about primary schools and kindergartens due to our topic. Children communicate and form the foundations of their personalities with the information and observations they learn from their family and social environment until kindergarten. During this entire kindergarten or pre-school period, while the child is still with the family, the child should be given lifeblood and should be nurtured in terms of development in all areas. Although the basis of lifeblood is love, it is healthy and safe communication within the family, age-appropriate games played with family members, healthy communication with the social environment, and understanding and meeting of spiritual needs in addition to their basic needs and meeting them safely at the right time.
A child's dream world; Even when he grows up, it positively affects the decisions he makes, the things he can do, the way he understands his potential, and his flexibility to produce new ideas. A fairy tale conveyed to the child with the right narrative at the right time is a great source of psychological nourishment for the child. In this period when we lay the foundations of creating a child's imagination and personality; The more we nurture its moral, conscientious and cultural aspects, the more we will fulfill our duties. Whatever the circumstances, no child's dream world should be a desert, trees should be planted one by one, watered with care and patience, and joy and love should never be missing from this garden. What we planted in this garden; If the trees of imagination, culture, conscientious and moral values, being understood, heard, and understanding that one is not alone are properly watered and nurtured, they will become individuals who are consistent within themselves, virtuous, have a high capacity for love, and can make the right decisions.
In the formation of children's imagination, The perspective of the adults around him is also important. While reading fairy tales can be nourishing in the eyes of adults, some adults find it meaningless. At this point, the adult who does not understand the importance of the tale needs to look for it within himself. How would he feel if it were told to him? I wonder if it was never explained to him? Why is it so strict? When did imagination become something unimportant to itself?
Important developments for our society If we want peace, if we want to understand social peace, if we want to become a society that cares about moral, cultural and conscientious values, is in unity, can understand each other and always moves forward, we must raise our children with fairy tales that will nourish them psychologically.
Education is a field that prepares individuals for the future and affects the future of society with its contributions. Undoubtedly, fairy tale support should be prepared for children whose personalities are just being formed in this field, and special fairy tale projects should be provided.
1. Fairy Tales and Education
Fairy tales are a mental playground. Game is an activity that children enjoy and play with pleasure. These activities were considered extracurricular activities for many years and were not included in the education process. For this reason, games were not mentioned in school books and lessons. However, in today's educational approaches, it is emphasized that educational games should be used for children's active learning. Scientists such as Jean Piaget, Jérôme Bruner, Lev Vygotsky and Donald Winnicott point out that play is effective in the mental and physical development of children. (Güneş, 2020)
Today, in order to ensure that children learn with fun, various activities such as fairy tales, stories, riddles, puzzles, counting games and nursery rhymes are included in schools. One of these is fairy tales. Fairy tales are used for both play and educational purposes. In addition to children's language and mental skills, it is used for socialization, self-confidence and motivation for school work.
The aim of development with fairy tales is to ensure that children maintain their focus and learn effectively. Therefore, fairy tales are not a goal, but a tool. Fairy tales serve as a bridge between children and culture. Stories have an important place in everyone's life, especially children. Children gain insight into who they are through the stories they tell themselves and others about what happened to other people. Accordingly, they create their own identities by combining their unique, personal family histories with the legends of the culture. (Konuk, 2021)
Educational tales are included during the workshop. Fairytale workshop for children, providing children with knowledge, enough free imagination and room It aims to increase and teach knowledge gradually. Educational tales contribute to the development of various skills in children. These are listed as role playing after the fairy tale, fine and gross motor development, active learning, thinking, questioning, asking questions, empathy, creating problem solutions, creativity, communicating effectively, and following the rules. According to research, the game learning approach is effective for students at all levels (Güneş, 2015)
2. Choosing Fairy Tales
Children want to enjoy the story they read; but because their experience is limited, the source of this pleasure is also more limited; because children fail to understand some concepts due to their complexity. For this reason, expressions should be simpler in terms of both language and form. There must be an immediacy in children's tales; Most topics are avoided, and the relationship of the people taking the action to the action is given quite clearly. Moreover, the relationships that govern those who act, whether they are action or situational subjects or values, must be clearer. (Konuk, 2021) In addition, instead of the techniques, decorations and metaphors used to strengthen the narrative in adult literature; Simpler expressions, away from metaphors, should be chosen. The aim is to increase the efficiency that the child can get from the fairy tale and at the same time to ensure that he or she enjoys it. However, the richness of words used in fairy tales is important. Enabling children to use the new words acquired with each tale in their personal lives will expand their vocabulary and enable them to use our valuable language, Turkish, in the best way. One of the most important contributions of the fairy tale is the use of new words and teaching new words. Fairy tales, which are seen as a good educational tool, can help children learn their native language, use words properly and enrich their vocabulary. In fairy tales, a strong connection is felt between the fictional world presented to the child and the real world. This enables the child to gain insight into the realities of life by making sense of the emotions, thoughts and messages conveyed through heroes. (Yolcu, 2019) Coincidentally, Instead of over-the-top didacticism, fairy tales that aim to teach correct information chosen by experts should be chosen. Undoubtedly, all the information conveyed through fairy tales will have an important place in the child's mind.
Texts written for children can be transformed into adult texts, or vice versa, texts written for adults can be adapted for children; As such, these two species feed on each other to establish a mutual relationship. (Konuk,2021) If deemed appropriate, texts written for adults can be made ready for narration by simplifying them in a way that children can understand and arranging them in a way that they can gain a few benefits. The important thing at this point is to distinguish between children and adults and to organize the text accordingly. Hunt identifies a number of distinguishing features that differentiate childhood from its counterpart, such as spontaneity, mental perfection, psychological pressures, emotional attachment to mature people, lack of abstract thinking skills, degree of distraction, and so on. Taking these features into consideration, adult texts can be inspired or transformed into children's fairy tales.
Mc Dowell Miles wrote the following about the characteristics of children's books: "Children's books are generally shorter; he also tends to favor active rather than passive behavior, with dialogue in chapters rather than descriptions and introspections. The child protagonist is the model. Traditions are overused. The story unfolds in a distinct moral pattern that many adults are unaware of. Children's books tend to be optimistic rather than discouraging. The language is child-focused. The plot is shaped in a certain order and ambiguities are generally rejected. Finally, we can talk about a magical and imaginary atmosphere as well as simplicity and adventure.''
Another name that thinks about children's literature is Perry Nodelman. While doing his research on children's literature, Nodelman found the following features: Children's literature;
• It is simple,
• it focuses on action,
• it is optimistic,
• it touches upon childhood,
• involves innocence,
• has a tendency to be imaginary,
• is a type of sacred love adventure,
• is iterative,
• is instructive,
• has a tendency to balance the ideal with the instructive.
3. Children Growing Up with Fairy Tales
In every fairy tale read or taught, the child realizes important values such as goodness, truth, honesty, justice, love, compassion, diligence, self-confidence, respect, patience and internalizes these values. starts. In each tale, internalization continues increasingly and is completed on the topic focused on. It is extremely important for children to grow up with these values and to be able to transform these values into behavior. By acquiring these values, children build the foundation of a healthy society. They will ensure social continuity by transferring these values to the next generations. In order to maintain their existence and to support the development of the individuals within them, societies need the transfer of values and their adoption by individuals, in other words, values education. One of the important roles in transferring these values to individuals in society is played by fairy tales. These fairy tales, which children read or listen to fondly and willingly, are also important in shaping their characters. (Yolcu, 2019)
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Emotional and psychological gain
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Motor development gain with exercises before and after the fairy tale
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Moral values acquisition
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Imagination, problem solving acquisition
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Growing vocabulary acquisition
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Easy focus gain
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Learning gain through someone else (through the character in the story)
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Achievement of concretization and understanding of abstract concepts through fairy tales
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Socialization and effective communication acquisition
4. What Should I Do?
At this point, you can do your own research and choose fairy tales that are in line with the values explained above and that can provide appropriate outcomes for your child.
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