Report of Child Observation Age 5
Plan for Preventing MisunderstandingThe first step is to make formalized arrangements with the institution and the tutors.
The aim is familiarize them with my exercise’s fundamentals. It is also meant to be a familiarization exercise with the institution surroundings, for instance, the playground location and common paths within the school. Secondly, I will prepare the materials that I need well in advance to avoid any distractions looking for them during observation. Thirdly, there is need to develop an initial observation plan then subject it to a personal critique and note the developing biases/self imposed biases, and setting characteristics. This pre-observation plan will be used to develop the actual plan, which will contain a checklist to assess the manner in which individual variables are being recorded. Fourth, care will be taken to prevent conducting individual analysis or interpretation of the observations being made in order to keep child specific details intact.
This will also be catered for by preparing a preformatted objectives checklist providing a criterion for recording a child’s personal details, for instance, age, relation, name, and location/setting. In this case the child must be between 1- 8 years of age. The time allocated for observation must be between 30 and 45 minutes. The setting preferred is a playground, day care centre or nursery school in the company of adults watching over the children.1.
Demographics:This is a nursery school consisting of students of similar age groups. The age variation ranges between 5 – 6 years. Brennan is a bona fide in this school setting. She is a 5-year-old girl belonging to a class of sure start. Her class has 11 students in total number. The class teacher, Ms.
Joseph and the class aide, Mrs.Yalgon, coordinate the class learning activities. They also guide the students during their playtime moments. The actual observation activity took place on 5th of February 2010. This was a timed activity hence 30 minutes were allocated to accomplish the aforementioned goals that are relevant for on observation n criterion.
The day care institution has a role of developing kindergarten physical, social, and psychological centers. These are important characteristics used for the assessment of a child’s development progression.The school has an equipped playground where students go out to play at designated times of the day. On this particular day, students were destined to attend the day’s first playtime activity beginning at 10 o’clock in the morning. I arrived at the playtime scene moments before the children went out of their classes for playtime. I positioned my at a vantage point where I could make substantial observation of the individual student characteristics.
During playtime various toys and other children accessories were availed in the form of football, play sticks and jumping ropes, kneading plasticizer, and water-soluble paints. As soon as the bell rang children came put in numbers each of them heading to their changing rooms before being guided by specific class aides to the playground. The environment was essentially filled with noise made as the students shouted out their hearts to enjoyment. Class aides momentarily interrupted playtime activities where children appeared to play with broken toy parts. Meanwhile, the class teacher and the aides engaged in talk time activity as they looked over what the children were doing specifically.
The weather appeared dull, however children continuously engaged in their playtime activity with minimum distractions.B. Current data gathered about the childa. Biophysical DimensionBrennan has a height of 3.6 inches tall, which is among the tallest heights compared with her other classmate.
She has short slender legs with a moderately proportionate arm length. Her upper body appears tiny giving her an overall slender figure. She appears to have a relative body mass index going by her weight of approximately 16 pounds. She also has a long neck a factor that adds on to her height advantage.b.
Motor FunctioningDuring playtime activity, Brenna is actively engrossed in it and she appears as if she is playing leading role to her other classmates. For instance, she guides her classmates in switching roles when it comes to changing turns in the jumping rope activity. Moreover, when one student appears to be overruling the others in sharing toys she prevents from hurting each other. In one instance, she holds the jumping rope and vigorously does more than 30 jumps, which appear more than her fellow students’ do. She demonstrates efficient walking and running potential going by the way she maneuvers through the different activities, for instance, there is an instance where she’s called by her teacher and she quickly rushes to her then in no time she resumed her playtime activity within moments of being called. The manner in which she keenly exercises utmost care when handling toys specifically avoiding sharp points postulates her compounded carefulness.
Her manner of getting off from the chair with significant stability without the chair falling off coupled with the level of her alertness to her surrounding is admirable. At one time Brenna shouts out to her classmate who was precariously climbing the elevated swings. It so happens that I manage to spot her well developed teeth from afar. Her upper front teeth, for instance, appear to be way milk teeth dropping stage. However, her lower teeth dentition seems to be having a prominent gap suggesting recent loss of milk teeth.
d. Bowel and Bladder FunctioningIn the course of the entire 30 minutes playtime period Brenna left for short call a couple of times. Considering a balanced timing period, this implies 15 minutes frequency of short calls. Drawing a comparison between Brenna’s timing with that of other students three other students went for short calls three times; two others went twice; while the rest went only once going by the tally I prepared. Generating the frequency of bladder and bowel functioning rounds the frequency is in an incremental ratio of 3:2:1. Brenna and two other students fall within the median value.
2. Social and Emotional Dimensionsa. Stage of psychosocial development of the child is in according to theoristsAccording to Sigmund Freud’s stages of childhood development events, which focuses more on the progression of mental related conditions as opposed to normal functioning systems (David, 2004). An observation on Brenna reveals that she does not exhibit any signs associated with abnormal developmental stages. According to Erikson, whose theory postulates the development of a child throughout its entire lifespan.
He suggests that one is constantly growing up with a view of overcoming certain conflicts existing in the human developmental stages. In Brenna case, this is exhibited in the manner in which she strives to prevent fellow classmates who appear to be overruling fellow students when it comes to sharing of toys with an aim of preventing conflict.b. Characteristic behavior of a child this age dealing with a problem or frustrating situation.Brenna attempts to deal with potentially frustrating situations in few instances, for instance, this can be seen when she attempts to repel other students from beating her in the jumping rope activity by doing more rounds than they do. In fact, at one point one of her classmates attempts to do more rounds than her after which she throws in a mild tantrum.
She later put in more effort and outdoes her friend, an act that makes her extremely glad that she is indeed the best.c. What was the child’s affect? Did he or she display a variety of emotions?Brenna displays emotions when she shouts at the classmate precariously climbing a swing. Here she displays an emotion of fear. She develops tantrums when of her friends challenges her to a duel during rope jumping.
Here she displays feelings of anger and frustration.d. How does the child relate to other children? to adultsBrenna relates well with most of the other children. This can be seen in the instance where she stops an unruly classmate from snatching away toys from her friends. She tends to protect herself and other friends from harm.
This can be seen when she shouts out at her friend who appears to be falling from the swing. Brenna also relates well to adults, for instance, when her teacher calls her out and she immediately stops whatever she was doing and proceeds to listen to her teacher and aide at two prominent instances.e. Describe the type of play the child engages in. Interpret this, using theory of stages/types of children’s play.
Some of the types of play demonstrated by the child include solitary play, associative play and cooperative play. This is seen in several instances in which she chooses to passively and actively interact with her classmates.3. Cognitive Dimensiona. Identify the expected cognitive development of the age of the child you observed.
You may use Piaget‘s theory, as well as any others you find useful.According to Piaget’s cognitive development, stages there are four significant stages of development for children (David, 2004). Brenna is essentially 5 years of age; hence, she belongs to the pre-operational stage. The fact that she does not accept to be defeated at rope jumping suggests that she is not open to the idea of defeat, which is synonymous to others viewpoint.
Her way of communication also appears much developed in that she articulates words relatively well with her teacher.b. Identity the language and communication skills expected at a child of that age.Brenna shouts at her friends climbing a swing precariously. In this sense, she is merely warning her friend of perceived danger of falling. Another aspect is her mediation from the unruly friend snatching toys.
Her language appears relatively well developed in the sense that she easily bridges these gaps. Her response to the teacher’s instructions during playtime also show her well developed language.4. Cultural Dimensiona. Identity and give examples of any cultural practices you observed that may explain the child’s individual developmental achievements.
Visible cultural elements in regard to upbringing can be seen in the manner in which her teacher’s instructional strategies appear to be having a great effect on her development. She responds positively in all instances to her teachers with no element of defiance. This postulates that the pedagogical strategies employed are well infused into a cultural component contributing to her good developmental cycle (David, 2004).III. Evaluation of the ObservationThe observation assignment was relatively contributory in many terms, for instance, I gained the insight of the application of child development theories in regard to explaining potential child behaviors.
For instance, the aspect of focusing more on observation factor in exclusion of interpretation also further enhanced my understanding of how human biases come into play during interpretation. Some of the problems identified include the aspect of observing small elements like dentition which require sufficient interaction with the child in order to get a good conclusion.
