Children's Games in Eskisehir Folklore and Their Role in Helping Children Acquire Life Skills

Games are vital for children's development. Children learn about life experiences through games and support their physical, cognitive, social, emotional and language growth this way. Therefore, games, which are a part of real life, can be defined as an effective learning tool. Children's games are significant not only for social culture but for education and psychology as well. As an effective means in children's education, games involve a process in which behaviors, knowledge and skills which are necessary for children are acquired automatically. By means of games, children also learn about values such as collaboration, tenderness, tolerance, kindness, respectfulness, independence and courage and establish their perception of values. Children comprehend, adopt and establish real life roles and phenomena in games. In this sense, children's personality emerges and develops explicitly in games. The aim of this study is to determine the qualities of the children's traditional games in Eskisehir region and to examine their role in teaching children life skills. The study was designed based on cultural analysis. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interview method, gathered under the theme of children's games and then analyzed according to their role in teaching life skills. The study results showed that the skills which children's folk games are expected to improve are self-management, language-communication, problem solving, decision making, leadership, entertainment, collaboration and teaming up.