In early childhood period, art education has a crucial effect for children’s gaining aesthetic perception, attitude and skills. Early childhood educators and teacher candidates need to have enough knowledge and skills while planning and implementing art activities and they should make this process enjoyable and effective for the children. Within this context, the aim of the study is to examine the explanation of art education, ideas about the importance of art education of early childhood education teacher candidates, methods and techniques used by them in implementation process and what they do to develop themselves. In the light of findings, early childhood education teacher candidates think art education is important. There are explanations about the importance of art education as creativity, motor and social development and school readiness. During the implementation process of art activity, teacher candidates use mostly coloring, cutting-gluing, waste material and kneading materials. Also, in order to develop themselves, teacher candidates have stated that they make literature review, follow the social media and blogs, participate in seminars and educations and ask to field expert. Keywords: early childhood, art education, teacher candidate.
Opinions of early childhood education teacher candidates towards the profession
