Child observation free essay sample

Oct. 04, 2013 around 12:00pm to 5:00pm the time was at the Caregiver’s house and outside in the park. They have some toys in the dinning room. The main area for the toddler to play is in the dinning room. The kitchen, living room, and bedroom are an open area. The toddler basically runs around the hold house and play until there’s something to do. The toddler has a lot of toys to play with, he has trucks, cars, little bitty puzzle with five to ten pieces, and he has a couple of balls and balloons to play with. The floor is carpeted, so the toddler really don’t play ball as much in the house. The parents keep the house clean enough. There are four children that lives in the house and the two oldest ones were in school. So it was just the caregiver, the toddler, the infant, and me, in the house. The father went to work earlier. My toddler observation is about the toddler and what he does in a day’s time with the caregiver. The toddler is my daughter in-law son. His father is an African American and his mother is the same. It’s very nice to know that the family is getting along just fine. The father was born in Illinois and raised on the north side. The toddler’s mother was also born in Illinois and raised on the west side of Chicago. The toddler is about 2 and ? years old, he has black hair like his parents, nails are normal dark brown eyes, a mouth full of teeth, and his head is normal size. I was there when he was born he weighed 28lbs. and was 27 inches long. His eyes were shut at the time and his nose was round. Basically everything is still the same except his hair grew a little longer, his fingers are thicker, and it’s much easier to see his neck now compared to the time when he was born. After sitting there for a while observing the caregiver and the toddler’s surroundings, I found out that his mother loves all of children and they were well taken care of , even the infant that finally woke and was cooing while waking up. The toddler walked over to the caregiver and asks her, (mommy can we go outside and play today)? And the caregiver says yes as soon as we get ourselves together and put some clothes on then we can go outside. After the caregiver washes the child up, then she calls him and tells him (come here and let me show you how to put your clothes on, so you can learn how to put them on yourself from now on ok)? And the toddler says ok, mommy. The caregiver says to the toddler (lets put your socks on first and then your pair of pants). So she shows the toddler how to put his clothes on and then he turns to the caregiver and says: mommy, did I do this right? And she said (yes; now let’s learn how to put your shirt and shoes on). While the toddler was putting on his shoes and shirt, she continued to show him so he can learn. The caregiver says to the toddler (now that you have learned how to put your clothes on we’ll have to do this for an everyday routine until you get it completely right ok)? And the toddler says ok mommy. So the toddler is standing there singing, (I put my clothes on, I put my clothes on). Then the caregiver joins in with him singing (you put your clothes on, you put your clothes on). Then she says to the toddler that’s how you learn. So the caregiver says to the toddler (do you have everything you need, so we can go outside)? And the toddler says: I have my socks, pants, shirt, and shoes on, do I need my jacket? And the caregiver says: not right now because it’s pretty hot outside. So the caregiver also had to get the infant prepared to go outside too. So as she was changing the infant’s pamper, she starts singing to him. ( Hush little baby don’t say a word, mommy’s going to by you a marking bird). She continued to sing until she was done and then she put him in the stroller and put his things he needed behind the stroller. The caregiver told the toddler to go and grab his ball so they can go play catch outside in the park across the street. So we finally walked down the stairs and across the street. Now we were in the park. The caregiver ask the toddler to throw her the ball and the toddler says (ok mommy I’ll throw you the ball and they started to play. ) While the caregiver and the toddler were playing, there were other children at the park that wanted to play with them. So the caregiver told them to come on and join in and play with us, and the toddler says (mommy are they going to play with us)? And the caregiver says yes they are going to play with us. After they started playing ball and having fun the one of the little boys was hit in the head with the ball, and he started to cry,  and the caregiver asked him what was wrong and he said 🙠 I got hit in the head with the ball)! And the caregiver says to him (come here let me rub your head for you so that it could feel better). Then the caregiver calls all of the children over in fact it was only four of them and she told them that mystical was hit in the head with the ball so we should all pitch in to help mystical feel better, so let’s just all give him a big hug, they all hug mystical to make him feel better and they started to play again. They stayed out there for a couple of ours with the toddler, the infant, and all of the other boys and then she called them over and asked them if they wanted to sing a song and they said yes, let’s sing Old McDonald, and the caregiver said that’s a good song to sing so they all started to sing the song while she was trying to teach the toddler how to sing it too. After singing the song for a while everyone was kind of tired so they left to go home. Then the caregiver and the toddler and the infant also went home. Now out of all of this time while the infant was outside he was sleep and didn’t give the caregiver any problems. So the toddler says to the caregiver, mommy I had me some fun and the caregiver said good I’m glad you had fun. My recommendation for the caregiver is that she should allow this to be a routine for her and the toddler to do so that he can learn each day how to put his clothes on and how to interact with other children, this is a real big step for the toddler and the caregiver and I also enjoyed observing them. Child observation free essay sample All the children at Gerber Preschool are between the ages of 3 and 4 years old and mainly consist of lower to lower middle class Hispanic and Caucasian families. Mya is a small statured 3 year old Hispanic Caucasian female, with light olive-toned skin, long brown hair, and large brown eyes. Toby is an average statured 4 year old Caucasian male, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, short brown hair. Toby and Mya both seem to be in good physical heath. Jesus is a slightly above average statured 4 year old Hispanic male, with dark brown skin, short spikey black hair and brown eyes. Spanish is Jesus primary language at home but is encouraged to speak English at school. Mya, Toby, and Jesus all appear to be right handed and in good physical heath. Description of Setting: The observation session began on Tuesday May 7, 2013, at approximately 10:00 AM in Gerber, California; the preschool has 2 adults and 8-10 kids. All the children were in line waiting to exit out the back door to the playground. Santo attempts to join others but does not adjust his behavior in response to others; he is not able to take turns in play. Santo likes to play rough and when he is in trouble; he always blames the other kids and refuses to accept any responsibility. I observed a level of difficulty when he was trying to accomplish some physical tasks or activities. Language, listening and speaking shows some difficulty to where he should be according to his age. Santo has a hard time following directions and does not listen attentively. Santo penmanship is good holds the pencil and crayons the right way. Writes his full name. During free play/group activity, Santo choose to play with trains with a group of three other kids. They choose to play with the trains on the floor or build the tracks first before. I observed Santo waiting to play with the trains until the other children on his group build the tracks. I asked him if he could build his own tracks, he replied â€Å"yes† but when he tried he was not able to do it, he seemed to get a little frustrated for a little bit but then he asked the other children if he could join them and use the same tracks they had built, the other kids agreed and asked him to wait for his turn to put his trains on the track, Santo did not wait and knocked the other kids trains out of the track in order to place his; when the teacher asked him to wait for his turn he replied â€Å" M and A did not allowed me to play with them†, his teacher asked him if he will be happy or said if M and A did the same thing to him he replied â€Å"yes† but insisted on blaming the other children for not allowing him to play right away and refused to wait for his turn. After couple of minutes, he moved to play with blocks. Santo was able to build a small tower he came up to me and said, â€Å"You see the big tower I build†, I replied, â€Å"Thatâ₠¬â„¢s great I’m proud of you†; he seemed to be very proud. When D came to play along with Santo he was very happy and asked D â€Å"you want to play with me†, D replied â€Å"yes† but Santo did not continue building anything else, instead he decided to knocked the tower down and asked â€Å"D dook at this, you like it, is fun right†, D thought this was funny so Santo built the tower again and knocked it down, after the second time he was stopped by one of the teachers so he wouldn’t hurt the other kids. I observed representation and symbolic thinking during indoor and outdoor play, most of the time about the movie â€Å"cars†. Before going outdoor, Santo had a hard time putting his shoes the right way he tried a little longer than the other kids did. During outdoor play, I observed him playing with bicycles and on the playground on the slide and other climbing areas. Overall coordination, he had a hard time climbing running and jumping. He falls more often that the other children his age. Santo has a hard time pedaling the bicycle with enough coordination. He loves to run, some times when more then three kids were running in circles, he only seems to run with one other child, he ignores the rest of them, if the other kids got in his way he will just push them out. I asked him what his favorite sport is, he did not replied, I asked him if he likes to play any ball game, he replied, â€Å"I play soccer, I go play soccer last Sunday† . I had a hard time understanding what Santo wanted to say most of the time. If he said one word or a 2-word sentence like â€Å"yes please† it was clear but when his teacher or I asked him questions where the answer was expected to be to be longer, it was hard to understand him. I asked Santo if he likes to color with crayons or markers and he replied â€Å"I like to play with cars†, I asked him what your favorite color is and he replied, â€Å"I like cars, like this† and he pointed to his t-shirt he was wearing from the movie â€Å"Cars†. He holds he pencil and crayons the right way, he wrote his name and last name correctly. When the teacher gave the group directions to do a project, he was the only one who did not understand it even after the teacher explained it twice. The teacher explained to him in a different way but he still had a hard time completing the project. During lunchtime, Santo had a hard time opening his yogurt and peeling a banana Santo likes to go to the reading area but only if another child goes with him, if he’s there by himself he doesn’t choose any books to read but the minute some one else comes, he chooses a book and is always the book the other child has. During this observation, I have tried to be as objective as I could, during more than one occasion, I was tempted to intervene and control a situation but I was able to just observe and remain objective during the whole time. I believe Santo is in the Preoperational Stage with an Egocentrism limitation. Piaget defined his second stage by what it lacks: operations for Piaget, the term operations have a very particular meaning. Operations are mental actions that follow systematic, logical rules. When children are preoperational, they do not think in a logical way. According to Piaget, the major accomplishment of the preoperational stage is the ability to represent actions mentally rather than physically. Piaget also placed considerable emphasis on the limitations of children is thought at this age. Preoperational children may base their conclusions on a set of unrelated facts, or they may assume that things that just happen to occur at about the same time cause each other. For example, an angry child might accuse an innocent bystander of doing him harm by reasoning, â€Å"You were there when I fell, so it’s your fault that I hurt myself. † Magical explanations may be the best that children can do to understand the world, but this may lead to tricky situations when dealing with children who are convinced of the reality of their thoughts. Egocentrism. Piaget believed that young children find it difficult to see the world from another person’s point of view, especially if that point of view differs from their own. Piaget called this egocentrism (ego means â€Å"I† or â€Å"self†; therefore the child’s world centers around his own point of view). It really means that the child’s mind is insufficiently developed to allow her to understand that someone else’s perspective could be different from her own. The results may be a ‘Selfish† child who grabs toys from others, but the reason is that the child can not yet understand that someone else wants the same toy just as much as he does. Laura E. Levine Joyce Munsch. Child Development. An Active Learning Approach 2011. Pages 237, 238, 239. I believe he is delayed on his receptive and expressive language. The capabilities of these two regions do not develop at the same time. Infants understand words before they can say them. Another way we describe this is to say comprehension of language precedes production of language. Celce-Murcia Olshtain, 2001). Laura E. Levine Joyce Munsch. Child Development. An Active Learning Approach 2011. Page 304. By age 3, most children are putting together multiword sentences. Also, whereas younger children use only the basic forms of words, such as I go store, preschoolers begin to add morphemes. We define morpheme as the smallest unit that has meaning in a language. As the preschooler learns how to use morphemes more appropriately, she no longer says â€Å"I walk home† but rather â€Å"I walked home† when she means past tense. Laura Levine Joyce Munsch. Child Development. An active Learning Approach 2011. Page 312. Language Development of Preschoolers I also believe Santo is on the egocentric speech. Egocentric Speech, A limitation of youg children’s communication due to their inability to take the perspective of other people into account. For Piaget, the explanation for egocentric speech is that children are not born with social beings ; they must learn to be social and to understand other people’s point of view. When they do, their language becomes socialized, and communication is much more effective. Laura Levine Joyce Munsch. Child Development. An active Learning Approach 2011. Page 314 I also believe some of Santo’s behavior and development could be in some part of cultural based beliefs. I know for a fact that the culture from where Santo comes from, is used to help children to eat (they still spoon feed them until an older age than what the American culture is used to, they also help them get dress, independency is not encourage the way parents to in the American culture. American culture is much more concerned with the autonomous individual. Masuda and Nisbett (2001) demonstrated how cultural differences can affect our perceptions. Recent research has even shown cultural differences in brain function based on whether the individual was told to pay attention to context or not. The frontal regions of the brain, associated with control of attention, were more active when Americans were told to focus on context and East Asians were told not to focus on context (Hedden, Ketay,Aron,Markus, Gabrieli, 2008) Laura Levine Joyce Munsch. Child Development. An active Learning Approach 2011. Page 143