A COMMUNITY SERVICE PRACTICE EXAMPLE: “LET’S PLAY WITH CONCEPT TOYS”

Besides their research and educational functions, faculties of education are expected to serve their community starting from their immediate surroundings. In all the programs of faculties of education, the course of “Community Service Practices” which is compulsory allows teacher candidate to improve entrepreneurial ability through taking responsibility in order to gain social awareness. The purpose of this study is to support the knowledge of children who are not attending preschool related with concepts through using concept toys and is to create an awareness of families on preschool education. In the scope of“Community Service Practices” course this project which was conducted with 29 undergraduate students continued 16 weeks as preliminary preparation, practice and the assessment of results, Throughout the project, the participants were 884 children who are 4-6 year old children and not attending preschool and 92 children who are attending preschool. At the end of the study, it was found thatundergraduate students working with children who had diverse developmental characteristicsin different environments had beneficial experiences and acquire an awareness of communityproblems, the families gained concrete experiences related with the necessity of preschooleducation, and the children had improvements on their conceptual knowledge