In the childhood period, nutrition is a prominent factor that affects growth and development. The first five years of life is the period when children gain success and skills at most, and thus, preschool teachers should have adequate knowledge related to preparing daily nutrition menus for their students. They are expected to make use of the knowledge they gained in the undergraduate course “Mother-Child Nutrition” in their professional lives. In this respect, it is of significance to examine preschool teachers’ views on preparing menus, and see how they do it in practice. Accordingly, the primary aim of this study is to identify preschool teachers’ views on preparing menus. The interview technique, a qualitative research method, was employed, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with preschool teachers. Convenience sampling, a purposeful sampling method, was used in the selection of the participants. The population consisted of preschool teachers working in kindergartens in the Afyonkarahisar province during the 2016-2017 school year. The sample included preschool teachers working in schools where teacher candidates attended in the scope of the courses “School Experience” and “Teaching Practicum”. Consequently, a total of 16 teachers, 15 female and one male, participated in the study. A semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers and that contained 16 open-ended questions was employed to gather the research data. The interview form was presented to experts for feedback to ensure internal validity. The number of questions was reduced to eight based on expert opinion, and the form was finalised. Miles and Huberman’s formula (1994) was used for the reliability of the study [Reliability=agreement/(agreement+disagreement)]. As a result, the reliability was calculated as 96%. The interviews were carried out in the classroom environment in schools where the teachers worked, and were audio-recorded. The average duration of the interviews was 8-10 minutes. The data obtained through the interview form was analysed by using the descriptive analysis technique. Some of the results revealed based on the findings from the analyses include the following: the participants received training on preparing menus only in the pre-service period; the nutrition menus were prepared by administrators, cooks, the teachers themselves, or sometimes parents and teachers together; they considered allergic conditions, nutritive values, diseases, developmental characteristics, food being organic and hygienic, and not including convenience food while preparing menus. The participants suggested that parents should balance nutrients, and should not use convenience food, skip breakfast, and prepare the same menu served at school.

Preschool, nutrition, menus.