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The formation of children's forest relations and environmental sensitivity is part of the development of children's identity and later affects their attitudes towards the forest and the environment. The purpose of this master's thesis is to describe, analyze and interpret preschool children's views and experiences of working in the natural environment and especially in the forest. The research examines more closely what kind of effect forest-focused preschool education has on children's forest relations and environmental sensitivity as experiences they describe themselves. This thesis is a qualitative study in which I analyze the children's drawings and interview material using content analysis to identify meaningful changes in children's forest relations and their environmental sensitivity after the implementation of forest-focused preschool education. Forest-focused preschool education groups implemented preschool education in their local forest two mornings a week. For the study, children (28) from two forest-based preschool groups drew pictures of the forest before and three months after the forest preschool activities. After the drawing sessions, the preschoolers were interviewed about their drawings and the forest topic. The research was an abductive process, where the theory guided the analysis of the material. The framework examined five central theories related to environmental sensitivity and forest relations and related concepts, which were used in the analysis of the data by forming meaning dimensions describing the environmental sensitivity and forest relations of the data. The effect of forest-focused preschool education on preschool children's forest relations and environmental sensitivity was structured into five meaning dimensions: sensory, emotional, social and functional, and value dimension. Forest offers a rich and versatile learning environment for children. After the forest activity, the sensory dimension expanded and the depiction of living and non-living environment increased in the drawings. Forest excursions involve moving around and observing the surroundings of the preschool, which is why the description of non-forest environments, such as the built environment, became more diverse. According to the results, preschool forest activities are an important enabler of equal education and change the social environment of forest experiences, bringing friendships in addition to family, expanding the social dimension. The social dimension also includes the effects of family and other adults on values and forest relations, as well as the effect of adults' activities on the utilization of the opportunities offered by the forest and thus on children's forest experiences. Before preschool, the forest was generally perceived positively. The most significant change after the forest activities was the awakening of preschool children's place attachment to the forest used in preschool education and the increase in attachment to trees. In the functional dimension, before and after preschool education, a diverse picture of children's experiences of learning in and about the forest was obtained. In the value dimension, the awareness of the importance of the forest was visible and the desire to acting for the forest appeared stronger after the implemented forest pre-school education. Working in the forest also evoked more challenging feelings in few children, which were related to the experience of boredom during freer activities or challenges in friendships. But that still did not reduce the preschoolers' thoughts about the importance of forests. Based on the data from this study, forest activities in preschool education develop children's forest relations and environmental sensitivity.

Objectives. The ability to have compassion is crucial for the survival of the human spe-cies and the well-being of communities and individuals. Acts of compassion are mostly done when another person expresses displeasure. The causes of displeasure often depend on time and place. Acts of compassion have been studied extensively in early childhood education in recent years but acts of compassion in a flexible scheduled early childhood education and care have remained unexamined. Flexible scheduled ECEC offers children a different environment, and for this reason, acts of compassion that take place in that context should be studied. This study aimed to find out which moments of displeasure occur in children between the ages of 1 and 5 in flexible scheduled ECEC and which acts of compassion children and adults do in the same context. The study brings an important addition to the field of compassion research, where displeasure and compassion in flexible scheduled ECEC have not yet been studied. Methods. The material is 25 hours of video footage filmed in flexible scheduled ECEC, written notes and a photo. I have identified 42 episodes in which children express displeasure and/or children or adults show compassion. The duration of the episodes varies from a few seconds to more than ten minutes. I have processed the material using the method of qualitative content analysis. I have also analyzed interaction that happens in the moments of compassion. The method has been influenced by the ethnographic approach. Conclusions. The results complement the understanding of the development of dis-pleasure and compassion in early childhood education. Children experience displeasure, for example, in situations where their own will is not fulfilled and their abilities are limited. In times of displeasure, especially adults do acts of compassion. Children also did acts of compassion and compassion initiatives, but these differed from what adults did and there were fewer of them. Children's agency in doing acts of compassion should be strengthened. The acts of compassion they do should be given time and space. Due to the varied composition and age of the group of children in early childhood care, there are plenty of opportunities for developing compassion when the children practice working side by side with different children of different ages.

Objectives. According to studies, pedagogical documentation is not implemented with sufficient quality in Finnish early childhood education. Because of this kindergartens in Helsinki have introduced digital portfolios as a new way of doing pedagogical documentation. But because portfolios are a new working method, constant evaluation and development is needed. The purpose of this study was to find out children’s experiences with digital portfolios, what is meaningful to children in portfolios and how they see their own participation in making portfolios. The results of this study were used by the city of Helsinki in a project that aimed at developing digital portfolios and having children’s participation as their active agents. Methods. This qualitative study used photo elicitation and children’s group interviews as a research method. 36 children aged between four to six participated in the interviews. The interviews were conducted in kindergartens in Helsinki in the spring of 2023. The material was analyzed using thematic analysis. Conclusions. In this study, the important thing for children were the pictures in the portfolios and especially who was shown in them. According to the children, the purpose of the portfolios is to show what has been done in the kindergarten. Based on this, it can be interpreted that portfolios mostly contain past-oriented documentation, which does not reach the criteria of pedagogical documentation. In this study children hardly mention the planning, evaluation and development that is essential in pedagogical documentation. The children’s own experiences of their participation in making portfolios appeared passive. The children felt that they were viewers of the portfolio and not active creators. Some children wished for a more active role in making portfolios. The children had many development ideas of how to make portfolios more interesting for them. They wished portfolios would be less serious and contain more pictures and colors. The children also hoped that portfolios would contain pleasant evaluation symbols such as emojis.

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to produce information on the appearance of children’s fear and anxiety in the context of early childhood education and care (ECEC). By drawing attention to the daily actions and situations where fear and anxiety typically take place, it is possible to gather valuable information about children’s wellbeing in the various situations of ECEC. This study examines the situations in which children experience fear and anxiety and how these emotions reflect the children’s behavior. In addition, the study aims to find out how the ECEC personnel relates to the fear or anxiousness of the child. The study was conducted using the Finnish nationwide Progressive Feedback method. The research data was gathered during 2017–2021. A total of 2653 ECEC groups from 18 municipalities participated in the study. The research method used was systematic random sample observation, which included all activities in ECEC between 8 AM to 4 PM. Quantitative methods were used to analyse the data. The observations of fear and anxiety were cross-tabulated with the observations of the general frame of activity, the child’s social orientation, and the actions of the nearest adult. It was found that children show highlighted levels of fear and anxiety when being outdoors or participating in indoor guided activities. Withdrawn and independent social orientations were highlighted among children experiencing fear and anxiety. When examining adults’ reactions to children’s fear and anxiety receptive and negative attitudes were overrepresented. However, negative attitudes should be considered with caution due to the limitations of the data. A closer inspection into the matter revealed that both children’s and personnel’s attitude towards fear and anxiety was context-related. Article manuscript “Children’s observed fear and anxiety in early childhood education” is to be published in the Finnish journal of Psychology.

Aims. The aim of this study was to find out how kindergarten teachers implement children's food education in day-care homes in Helsinki. Food education was raised as a part of early childhood education goals in 2017 and the first meal recommendations for early childhood education and care were published in January 2018 to guide early childhood food education. In recent years more attention has been paid to eating situations and food education of early childhood education when overweigh and reladed diseases have worryingly increased among children. Healthy eating habits as a child also often carry on to adulthood. In earlier studies the importance of food education to children's food behavior and habits has been found from several perspectives. However, a new study was necessary because early childhood eating and food education have been given new goals and recommendations to follow in the future. Methods. The research was carried out as a qualitative study and the material was collected by focused interviews. Eight kindergarten teachers working in kindergartens from different parts of Helsinki participated in the interviews. The interviews were conducted in November 2018 - February 2019. The data was analyzed using data-based content analysis. Results and conclusions. According to research results, kindergarten teachers' food education largely corresponds to the goals of food education in the early childhood education plan and the food education given has a positive effect on the formation of children's eating habits. As The most important goal of food education the kindergarten teachers raised food joy. In addition to food joy, the main goals of food education were to influence eating habits and to teach food habits. The kindergarten teachers used food talk, food dispensing, involment of children, food pictures, model learning and cooperation with parents as ways of food education. Besides the eating situations, food education was usually combined in children's play, where the teacher participated by responding to the child's questions. The challenges to food education were found mostly in the food education sessions outside of the eating situations.

The purpose of this study is to compare children's actions and social orientations in the forest kindergartens to their actions and social orientations in more commonplace kindergartens. The child's social orientations were studied with the help of Reunamo's (2007) orientation -theory. Reunamo's theory is formed by four orientations: participative, adaptive, dominant and withdrawn orientation. These orientations show how the child acts towards the environment (agency) and how they view their relationships (perception). In this study, the forest kindergartens are kindergartens operating mainly in the forest or in another nature environment. In the forest kindergarten children play and learn outside every day throughout the whole year. Finnish forest kindergartens have connections with Swedish "I ut och Skur" -kindergartens and German adventure education. Prior research has shown connections between forest kindergarten and children's strong self-esteem, social skills, good health, motor skills, close relationship with nature and rich play environment (Bentsen & Jensen, 2012; Fjortoft, 2001; Knight, 2009; Kyttä, 2003; Rickinson, 2004; Tovey, 2007). This is a quantitative study. The data was collected by using systematic observation in three forest kindergarten groups in Southern Finland. There were 18 observation days in the forest kindergartens at 8am-12pm. The collected data was compared with data from a Helsinki University ongoing "Orientation Project", where children's every day activities, feelings, social relationships and involvement in early childhood education have been researched. In the Orientation project the data has been collected in 132 kindergarten groups in Southern Finland using the same method and systematic observation. The data collected for this study and data from the Orientation project was analyzed by using cross tabulation and chi square -test. This study shows that children were more often participative and less often dominant or withdrawn in the forest kindergartens than in the comparison groups. In the forest kindergartens, children's higher participation was connected to more social interaction with others and higher physical activity than in comparison groups.

The aim of the study was to investigate the link between the nature of the level of stress-activation and the level of engagement of toddlers, 1-4-year-old children, stress reactivation and engagement. The goal approached with two research tasks. First (1) to determine whether there is a link between the levels of stress response activation and children involvement to action and second (2) whether a link between variables maintained by the cortisol daily variation after a breakdown into a typical and atypical group and do these groups differ in relation to the level of commitment Earlier studies have shown that there is a link between children's cognitive abilities, memory, and alertness at the level of children's stress response activation. Similarly, higher levels of cognitive skills are also required for involvement, which reflects children's emotional well-being, interest, and relevance. Observing involvement to children's activities gives the educator important information about the child's world, interests, skills and needs. This study assumed (H1) that with decreasing stress activation in children, the level of involvement would increase. The study focused on the calamities of kindergartens in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The study used the material of the University of Helsinki's LASSO project Taaperot research by analyzing the level of engagement of the children involved in the research using the LIS-YC scale and comparing the levels of engagement thus obtained to the stress response measurements from children. Stress response measurements consisted of the concentrations of alpha-amylase and cortisol collected from children, which used to determine the AOCg value of these concentrations in the final analysis. A statistically significant negative relationship found between the levels of stress in children and the level of engagement in the study. The connection was observed at the time of the stress response measurement for the target level of binding (p <0.05) and for the entire material (p <0.01). The results of the study provided indicative information on the relationship between children's stress responses and engagementt to action.

Professional identity is a social construction, which is formed as individuals interpret themselves and their experiences in relation to the surrounding world. According to earlier studies, the professional identity of kindergarten teachers (early childhood education teachers) has been derogated by unclear job descriptions and the difficulty to analyse and articulate professional competence or the essence of one’s professionalism. This thesis examines the background and history of the formation of kindergarten teachers’ professional identity as reviewed through editorials of the Hanna magazine issues 1997–2007, published by The Kindergarten Teachers Union in Finland (LTOL). As a professional agent, the chair of the union has taken part in constructing and moulding the professional identity of kindergarten teachers in editorials, challenging or reinforcing the positions offered to kindergarten teachers by the social operational environment. Research questions are: 1) In what ways is the kindergarten teachers’ professional identity constructed in the editorials? and 2) How has the social operational environment affected the formation of kindergarten teachers’ professional identity? The method in this thesis was critical discourse analysis. Material consisted of editorials of the Hanna magazine from 1997 to 2007. The material was analysed through linguistic analysis of subject positions, which were examined in relation to the social operational environment. The analysis showed that the chair of The Kindergarten Teachers Union has promoted a uniform professional identity for kindergarten teachers, its core consisting of the following roles: academic kindergarten teacher, expert in childhood and early childhood education, social influencer, campaigner for better wages, and expert in education and teaching. Cracks in the professional identity were especially caused by the fact that kindergarten teachers were at the time administered under social welfare services. The results show that, from the point-ofview of their professional identity, a more appropriate professional framework is now being provided for kindergarten teachers by the education administration and legislation.

Pro gradu -työn tavoitteena oli selvittää miten paljon päiväkodeissa työskentelevät lastentarhanopettajat käyttävät aikaa erilaisiin työtehtäviin. Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin myös eri koulutustaustaisten lastentarhanopettajan tehtävissä toimivien ajankäytön välisiä eroja. Tutkimus suoritettiin osana Helsingin yliopistossa tehtävää Eeva-Leena Onnismaan, Leena Tahkokallion ja Lasse Lipposen tutkimushanketta Koulutuksesta ammattiin siirtyminen ja työssä pysyminen lastentarhanopettajien työuralla, josta sain käyttööni osan keväällä 2012 tehdyn kyselyn aineistoa. Kyselyyn vastasi 491 lastentarhanopettajan tehtävissä toimivaa Helsingistä, Espoosta, Kauniaisista, Nurmijärveltä ja Vantaalta. Vastaajia pyydettiin arvioimaan, paljonko he käyttävät keskimäärin aikaa päivässä, viikossa tai kuukaudessa erilaisiin tehtäviin. Tehtävät oli etukäteen määritelty kysymyslomakkeella. Analyysia varten vastaukset muokattiin sellaiseen muotoon, että oli mahdollista vertailla keskenään erilaisiin tehtäviin viikoittain käytettävää aikaa. Harvemmin toistuvien tehtävien kohdalla vertailtiin niihin kuukausittain käytettävää aikaa. Tuloksia tarkasteltiin keskiarvoina ja mediaaneina. Kvantitatiivisen analyysin perusteella saatua käsitystä työtehtävistä täydennettiin avoimen kysymyksen kvalitatiivisella tarkastelulla. Tässä kysymyksessä vastaajia pyydettiin mainitsemaan työtehtäviä, jotka eivät heidän mielestään kuuluisi lastentarhanopettajalle. Kyselyn perusteella lastentarhanopettajat käyttävät suunniteltuun pedagogiseen toimintaan keskimäärin 4 tuntia 26 minuuttia ja tilanteesta tai lasten aloitteesta nousevaan pedagogiseen toimintaan 2 tuntia 58 minuuttia viikoittain. Toiminnan suunnitteluun ja valmisteluun vastaajat käyttivät keskimäärin 1 tunnin 22 minuuttia viikoittaisesta työajasta. Tämä on 3,6 % viikkotyöajasta, alle puolet KVTES:issa määritellystä lastentarhanopettajan suunnitteluajasta (8 %). Perushoitoon ja lasten ulkoilun valvontaan kuluu puolestaan 14 tuntia 26 minuuttia viikossa. Siivous- ja puhtaanapitotehtäviin lastentarhanopettajalla menee viikoittain aikaa 1 tunti 48 minuuttia. Vastaajat eivät näe siivous ja puhtaanapitotehtävien kuuluvan lastentarhanopettajan tehtäviin. Vertailtaessa eri koulutustaustaisia vastaajia, lastentarhanopettajan koulutuksen saaneet käyttävät enemmän aikaan pedagogiseen toimintaan ja sen suunnitteluun ja valmisteluun kuin sosiaalialan koulutuksen saaneet. Erot ryhmien välillä olivat tilastollisesti merkitseviä.

Objectives. Previous studies show that there is need for more cooperation between the preschool education and primary education to ensure the child's smooth start to school. The purpose of this qualitative study was to find out what kinds of views do kindergarten teachers and class teachers have on the cooperation between the preschool education and primary education. Today, there has been a lot of talk about the importance of the cooperation between the preschool education and primary education for the child's smooth transition from preschool to primary education. The research questions helped to identify how useful do kindergarten teachers and class teachers find the cooperation, how frequently cooperation is carried out, which types of cooperation there is, how can the cooperation be developed and whether kindergarten teachers and class teachers have ideas how to develop the current cooperation. Methods. The study material consisted of three kindergarten teachers and four class teachers working in the metropolitan area. The research strategy used in this study was qualitative research in which theme interviews were used. The collected data were analyzed by means of data-driven content analysis. Results and Conclusions. This study showed that kindergarten teachers and class teachers felt the cooperation between the preschool education and primary education important. In addition, responses emphasized the cooperation to encompass the same basic formula but the organization of additional forms of cooperation depends on the year and on the activity of the preschool teachers and primary teachers. The implementation of cooperation between preschool education and primary education was performed weekly, monthly, once every two months or 2-6 times a year. In the autumn preschool teachers and primary school teachers will invest in joint planning of activities in the presence of preschool children in the classroom. In the spring a joint evaluation meeting, the introduction of preschool children to school and primary school teachers and the meeting of a pupil care team for children moving to school. All teachers felt that the current cooperation between the preschool education and primary education is positive and they do not want to make a lot of changes or develop the existing cooperation. Kindergarten teachers and class teachers would like to see closer cooperation between preschool and primary school teacher for example by adding joint debates and common planning time. They also wished that kindergarten and school would be in the same building. Kindergarten teachers and class teachers had different content development suggestions for cooperation between preschool education and primary education. Improvement alternatives included for example adding various events, ensuring data transfer from kindergarten to school, effortless school visits and joint training.