Kindergarten in Turkey inculcates love for animals

For students in a kindergarten in southeastern Şanlıurfa province fun and learning go hand in hand.

The Nar Çiçeği Pre-school in Karaköprü district has a mini-zoo in its garden.

The animals include foals, lambs, goats, chickens, tortoises, rabbits and ducks.

Children feed the animals and watch them grow.

Halil Polat, principle of the school, said they were trying to use innovative teaching methods.

"We have built a kind of zoo with many animals in our school garden," Polat said.

"The kids bring leftover vegetables, fruits and food from their homes and feed the animals here," he said, adding they sometimes use bottles to feed the baby animals.

"At the same time, we hatch eggs we get from our chickens in an incubator," he said.

Also, music and theater workshops are held at the school, he said.

The school, which opened in 2009, has been a success story.

"Our school opened with a 100-student capacity but due to high demand we increased the capacity to 300 by transforming spare areas into classrooms," Polat said.

One of the parents Yahya Balcı said that he enrolled his son in the pre-school even though their house was far from the school.