PARTICIPATION IN PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN INVOLVED IN PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS

This paper focuses on children's participation in physical activities attended in kindergartens within early childhood and preschool programs. The purpose of this paper is to examine opinions of preschool educators concerning the importance of involving children in such physical activities, as well as their perception of the extent to which they are prepared for their implementation. Participants in the research were preschool educators employed in kindergartens in the town of Sesvete. A total of 66 preschool educators were involved in the research. Most of the respondents perceive physical activities as very important for preschool children and most of them believe that they have developed all required competences for conducting such physical activities in their work. Meanwhile, only one third of respondents carry out physical activities on a daily basis with children. Results have shown that some kindergartens do not have appropriate gyms for conducting physical activities. Since physical development of children is one of the main segments of the Croatian early childhood care and preschool education curricula, it is important to educate preschool educators on the positive effects of including preschool children in daily physical activities, as well as introduce them to different methods of conducting these activities.