Studies showed that high father involvement supports children’s language and cognitive development, psychological well-being, social and emotional development. It was also indicated that high father involvement in education decreases early school-drop out- one of the main aims of European Union-, increase children's academic achievement, self-esteem, self-confidence and all developmental abilities. Traditional gender role of mothers attitudes leads pre-schools to overemphasize the involvement of mothers while spending insufficient effort to involve fathers. Although there are some efforts and studies, father involvement in early childhood programs is not widespread. Main objective of this project was to increase the visibility of father involvement in early childhood education. Therefore it was aimed to increase father involvement through increasing early childhood educators' awareness of the importance of father involvement and supporting all adults in early childhood education settings. Within this context, the purpose of the project was to provide resources for teachers to use while organizing father/parent involvement activities which supports high involvement of fathers. Başkent University from Turkey, Sticting Drio from Netherlands, University of Gothenburg from Sweden and Life Long Education Association from Turkey were the partners of the project.The aim of the project was reached through three main intellectual outputs: Father Involvement Guidebook , Father Involvement Activities Handbook and project web site/learning platform. The Father Involvement Guidebook was prepared to inform early childhood educators about the importance of father involvement and the ways to create a father-friendly early childhood settings and to help teachers provide parent education classes related to father involvement. Father Involvement Activities Handbook was prepared for teachers to include father-centered parent involvement activities in their educational programs. The web page/learning platform of the project was opened to share all information and the outputs of the project. The forum was opened in the project web site in order to initiate and increase the connection of teachers to share their information and activity suggestions or father involvement. By using social media devices such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, project process and results were disseminated to public and relative stakeholders. All intellectual outputs were prepared in English and translated to Swedish, Dutch and Turkish. The main target group of the project was teachers, fathers, mothers and children. The effectiveness of the project activities on teachers, fathers and mothers were measured with pre and post analysis. The interviews were semi-structured with the pre-test questions focusing on the views and perceptions of father engagement in Turkish, Dutch and Swedish preschools, and the post-test questions focusing on change or improvement in parental and father engagement. The children were asked to talk about and draw the activities that they enjoy doing with their fathers/parents before and after project activities. The results showed an increase in father/parent engagement in the short term and positive perspective towards activities and implementation of some activities in future. Transnational meetings and online meetings were effective to increase collaboration and then quality of project. Long and short term learning activities provided opportunity for early childhood educators to observe good practices and enlarged their vision and knowledge of father involvement . Multiplier events provided the dissemination of the project outputs and possibilities to work with other stakeholders in this area. Public institutions, visual and written media, academicians and organizations are activated to get involved in the project. The teachers of preschools were informed about the project web site, social media and fliers. The media were informed about our work. With the project, an increase in early childhood educators competence of including fathers into early childhood education, increase in fathers' awareness the importance of their involvement, increase in mothers' knowledge on their own impact on fathers' involvement, increase in father-friendliness of early childhood education was obtained and this created an impact with father involvement in Early Childhood Education more visible in partner countries .The dissemination activities will continue in future in earlychildhood education programs in universities, in different preschools, NGOs and govermental organisations using project outputs. It is believed that produced intellectual outputs of this project will be used effectively in all European countries to increase fathers' involvement in early childhood education settings that will highly support the children’s development.

Early childhood is a critical period for the child's development and education. The support provided during this period allows the child to live the rest of his life as a healthy individual. In this process, besides the child's learning, playing games has a vital role in his socio-emotional, cognitive, physical, and brain development (Chudacoff, 2007; Regina et al., 2012). When children play games in outdoors rather than indoors, they get the opportunity to explore the environment. There is a striking need to increase the exposure to outdoor activities in early childhood life in the light of research indicating the importance of outdoor activities in early childhood education (Clements, 2004). However, there are many reasons why children do not spend much time on the street but stay indoors or spend most of their time at home in these days: Increasing number of programs or channels targeting children as audience Misuse of technological tools Distorted urbanization Financial situation Safety Many research results reveal that technology negatively affects cognitive and socio-emotional development in childhood (Kraut, 1998; Plowman, McPake & Stephen, 2010). It is clearly stated in studies that over-users of technology are younger users (Young, 1996), and this exacerbates personality disorders and loneliness (Hardie and Tee, 2007). Another study also found that participation in outdoor activities alleviate the potential of internet addiction in children (Park, 2011). Thus, the OPIECE project's main objectives are: - to design a child-friendly educational street - to raise awareness of in-service and pre-service pre-school teachers by informing them about the importance of outdoor activities and providing implications for their implementations. - to raise awareness of other stakeholders by disseminating project results, for example, at a multiplier event or with booklets -to enhance children's socio-emotional and psycho-motor development, and cultural awareness by providing them a real-life like environment as an educational context -to design appropriate pedagogical activities for children to take part and for teachers to get an opportunity to apply for outdoor-oriented education To achieve these objectives, following project outputs are aimed: O1-Educational Design of the Street O2-3D Street Modeling O3-Compiling an E-Book for Outdoor Practices O4-Online Training Modules O5-Designing an Outdoor Practice Course for Teacher Education Programs With these, it is aimed to have pre-service and in-service early childhood teachers, parents, school principals, municipalities, researchers, and curriculum designers as participants of the project. The project activities will enable the target group participants be aware of the importance and ways of implementing outdoor activities for children. The location of the project (Hendek province) hosts 10669 children between the ages of 0-8. Also, 171 parents and 7 in-service teachers will receive detailed information about the outdoor practices and will be urged to implement these and keep reflection journals of the implementations. The pre- and post-tests will reveal to what extent the project results will have been effective. The OPIECE includes 6 partner organisations: Sakarya University, Hendek Belediyesi (Municipality), Stitching Drio, University of Evora, Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, and Hendek Yenimahalle Kindergarten. All partners' tasks and responsibilities have been mutually decided and they are informed about the tasks expected from them. Each partner will reflect their expertise in the project activities. The 24-month project will include constant monitoring and management activities, and dissemination activities will be prioritized. The international collaboration will be kept alive with the help of online platforms (Google groups, Whatsapp, Hangouts, etc.) in addition to the transnational meetings and online meetings. Each team will be responsible in the filing of reports for the conducted activities; thus, the time and budget control will be ensured. As an external auditor, SAU Quality Management Unit will regularly keep reports on the project activities in an objective manner. Upon reaching the desired results, the project is aimed to impact stakeholders, researchers, parents, teachers, teacher educators, and school principals at various levels; local, regional, national, international and European level. To ensure the continuity of the project impact and results, open sources will be provided, and project activities with the help of partner teams will be conducted. The project activities will be sustained after the completion of the project. The website will be kept active, and the to-be-designed street will be free and open to access (the Municipality and Faculty of Education will continue providing their contribution to the street in the following 5 years of project completion).