Abstract

This study was performed to determine how pre-school children fictionalize the past by using their imagination skills in the process of historical thinking. The participants were 14 children who attended pre-school. The data for the study were collected through the pictures drawn by the children and through the interviews made with them about these pictures. The obtained data were resolved in compliance with the semiotic analysis technique within the frame of qualitative research method. According to the results of the study, it can be said that historical imagination skills in pre-school children develop independent of age. The undeveloped motor skills of children and their effort to change the concept seen in their drawings to form the past on the perception of today (anachronogical thinking) can be said to be what makes it hard to compose a successful imagination. Nevertheless, the short interaction span of children with historical objects and figures; their insufficient interests and perceptions and the gender factor can be suggested to cause difference in how children fictionalize historical imagination.

Key words: Pre-school history education, historical skills, historical imagination, drawing.