Observation Paper (RESEARCH PAPER) PDF

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Mandatory term paper of the year; worth lots of points; observation at a home and a childcare center; research paper with references ...

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Observation Paper 1

Observation Paper: Children in Childcare and Family Settings NAME FMSC 332: Children in Families University of Maryland

I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this assignment/examination.

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Childcare Observation Information: Name of Childcare Facility: Daly Optimal Learning Center Address of Childcare Facility: 12345 Main Rd., Germantown, MD 20876 Date(s) & Times(s) of Childcare Observation: Thursday, March 21, 9:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M. First and Last Name of Facility Director: Ms. Laura Peters Age of the Children Observed: 3-5 yr olds (Pre- Kindergarten)

Family Observation Information: Last Name of Family Observed: Daniel and Jessie Anderson City and State in which the Family Lives: North Bethesda, Maryland Date(s) & Time(s) of the Family Observation: Saturday, April 6, 3:30 P.M. - 5:30 P.M. Age of the Child Observed: 3 years old

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Description of the Childcare Center Daly Optimal Learning Center is a private childcare center based in Germantown, Maryland. The center is located in one of the bungalows of Captain Daly Elementary School. On the average, the center consists of about ten children but on the day I went in, there were only eight present. There were two teachers instructing the children. The classroom was organized in a specific manner with different centers and sections. These centers were designed to support and encourage the preschoolers’ physical, social, and cognitive development. The classroom also had different educational posters of characteristic traits, classroom rules, colors, numbers, the alphabet and many others. Certain toys and classroom supplies were readily accessible in color coordinated bins while others were out of reach and only to be used during particular activities. Each child also had their own cubby to keep their belongings in and their own sleeping bags to sleep in. The observation was two hours long and I got to see the children transition from one center to another as they engaged in age- appropriate lessons, activities, and plays. Each of these activities and lessons encouraged the development of the preschoolers. The ages of the children ranged from three to fours years. Out of the eight children that were there, three of them were three years old, two of them were four years old and the other two were five years old. During the school year, the center usually just takes care of preschoolers but during the summer, they also take care of toddlers and kindergarteners. The tuitions varied for different ages but the director of the center stated that, on average, each child paid about $350 per week. It was fascinating to notice and recognize the abilities and limitations of these little preschoolers. The knowledge I gained in class about their social, cognitive, and physical

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development was beneficial in understanding and evaluating their actions and words in reality. For instance, we learned about how preschoolers are very curious explorers and these kids displayed their vast curiosity by asking lots and lots of “why” questions. All of the children seemed to communicate and interact well with the caregivers and with each other. Both the children and the caregivers spoke in the English language. Description of the Family Observation The family observation took place at the home of the Anderson family. I was able to watch the child play and eat in the context of his family. The child was three years old and the youngest in the family. The Anderson family composed of four people, including his father and mother, an older brother and himself. His older brother, who was five years old, was not present during the observation because he was away visiting his grandmother. During the the majority of the observation, the child interacted and played with both the mother and father. According to his mother, he is 31 inches tall and weighs 27 pounds. His behavior displayed characteristics of the preschooler stage and it was interesting to retrieve my knowledge learned in class and apply it to my evaluation of the child. The parents were originally from Germany but both grew up in the suburbs of Maryland. They were both bilingual and spoke English and German. They spoke to the children in both languages but English was the main language spoken around the house. Neither of their children had trouble understanding or interacting in the two languages. The father was well spoken, serious, calm but he seemed to warm up towards the end of the two hours. He was more talkative and interactive with both the child and I. The mother on the other hand, was more light and open and she was very talkative and cheerful. Last but not least, the child’s temperament was slow to

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warm up. He was very shy and quiet at the beginning. He watched me from the corner of his eye and did not interact with me at all. After warming up to me, he gradually started speaking and playing with me. With an hour into the observation, he was telling me stories and sharing his toys with me. During the majority of the two hours I was there, the child spent his time in the play area, kitchen and on the deck. He seemed to enjoy playing with his action figures, stuffed animals, interactive toys and books and play dough. The child communicated very easily with his parents and used a highly diverse set of vocabulary. In my opinion, his language skills were pretty advanced for his age. Like the children from the daycare, he too, was a very curious explorer. He seemed to know a lot about different objects, people and processes, such as how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly but they only live for a day. He told a lot of stories and majority of the stories were from his daycare. It was amusing to observe the little child as he played with his toys, ate his snacks and interacted with his parents. Child’s Behavior and Development in the Childcare Center Physical Development The preschoolers engaged in various activities that portrayed their mastery of ageappropriate physical skills and abilities. One of these activities was finger painting. As the children manipulated the paint with their fingers, the caregivers encouraged them to paint actual objects and people. This activity required the children to use various, specific motor skills that they mastered in infancy and one of these motor skills was controlled eye movements. Controlled eye movements are one of the earliest motor skills to develop in infants and they continue to improve until early childhood. Before this motor skill is mastered, infants have a

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hard time focusing on objects and tracking moving ones because they have yet to physically develop these motor skills. The preschoolers were developing normally because they were using pursuit eye movements that only older infants and adults can use. Pursuit eye movements are the “smooth, continuous eye motions used to track a moving object” (DeHart, 2004, p. 143). Social and Emotional Development Majority of the children were at the same developmental stage in terms of their social and emotional development. During free play, I observed many of them engaging in fantasy play. Two little girls pretended to be chefs and used their imagination to put together their own meal. It was fascinating and especially entertaining to watch because through their role playing, it was pretty apparent these girls had seen cooking shows. They were naming the different ingredients in their soup and how it would be “good” for their body. These two girls mastered the function of role play by carrying out the role of a chef. Role playing is a significant function of a preschooler’s play because it provides them with an “opportunity to try out social roles and cultural values” (DeHart, 2004, Pp 355). DeHart (2004) stated that social fantasy play is normal and healthy for preschoolers. Children who engage in “flexible and elaborate” play, the more socially competent the child is likely to be (DeHart, et. al., 2004). As I observed the two girls engaging in this fantasy play, I noticed how comfortable and well adjusted they looked. This made me think about what DeHart (2004) said regarding “preschooler’s skill at social fantasy play being an indicator of their overall quality of adjustment” (Pp. 356). Cognitive Development The children were very amusing in the questions they asked and the stories they told. It was fascinating to listen and observe them because their thinking possessed both mature and

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immature qualities, which DeHart talked about when she addressed cognitive development in early childhood (De Hart, 2004, Pp. 304). I listened to a group of three year olds having a conversation and I noticed they made numerous grammatical errors. One of the little girls was talking about how her mommy painted her nails for her the night before. She said that her mommy painted her hands and her “foots.” In lecture, we addressed the types of errors children make in word learning and overregularization describes the error this little girl made. Overregularization is a language error in which a child applies a “morphological rule to a word that is an exception to the rule” (Messina, 2004). In this case, the term feet b ecame foots when the child imposed a regular form on an irregular word. Although the little girl and the other children made grammatical errors, this was a good sign because it demonstrated that they have learned and began to use morphological rules in their language. Child’s Behavior and Development in the Family Physical Development The mother and the child did Zumba together. According to the mother, they did this every Saturday afternoon. They put an interactive DVD on and followed the instructor on TV as she guided through them through the dance. The child imitated every move that his mother did and at most times, he copied the moves accurately. Whenever he carried out the moves correctly, his mother positively reinforced him by praising him. One of the praisals she used was “There you are, good jumping!” This type of learning is usually mastered in infancy. It is called imitative learning, which is “when new behaviors are learned by copying others’ actions” (Messina, 2013). The little boy copied his mother’s moves and he continued to imitate her as she positively reinforced him.

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Social and Emotional Development Emotional changes during preschool years are quite dramatic and obvious as cognitive and social ones. During the two hours of my observation, I watched this little three year old go through a variety of emotions and emotional expressions. He told me a story about how he fought with a friend at preschool. He used emotional words to explain how he felt at the time of the fight. This is parallel to what DeHart stated about how preschoolers’ “understanding and use of emotional words expands rapidly” (DeHart, 2004, pp. 348). Some of the adjectives he used to describe how he felt were sad, angry, very mad, hurt, a nd painful.  With the use of these words, he displayed his understanding of not only the emotional words but as well as the emotions he was experiencing. According to the mother, the fight between the child and his friend was because of a toy that both of the children wanted to play with. The children’s use of aggression as a means to get a toy is described as instrumental aggression, which is part of a child’s emotional development (DeHart, 2004). In lecture, we talked about how this form of aggression is mostly common in preschoolers, who have developed concepts of sharing and fairness but have not yet learned alternative ways to settle their disputes over toys (Messina, April 2nd, 2013). According to the child, it was his friend’s turn to play with the toy but he did not want to share the toy. When I asked if he thought this was fair for his friend, who had been waiting for his turn to play with the toy, the child said that it was not fair. So, the child did understand the concept of fairness but he still did not want to share and according to him, it was because he wanted to play with the toy for a long time. Cognitive Development

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As I mentioned above, the child was pretty advanced for a three year old. His mother referred to him as a “smarty pants,” which he seemed to take as a compliment because he smiled every time she said it. The child’s mastery of logical reasoning about classes was apparent when he played with colored blocks. He was able to group the blocks by color and shape. In lecture, we discussed Piaget’s research on preschooler’s and their emerging logical reasoning. One of the skills was classification , which refers to the “ability to group things by shared characteristics” (Messina, 2013, March 26). To test this out again, I asked the child to group his animal figures by their actual size. I asked him to place the big animals like horses and cows in one pile and to place the small animals like chicken and cat in another pile. To my surprise, he followed my rule and performed the activity accurately, without any errors. According to DeHart (2004), this response should not be taken as a surprise because the average three year old can follow sorting rules consistently and accurately (DeHart, 2004). Evaluation Program Activities and Curriculum in the Childcare Center The lesson plans and activities were specifically created for the preschoolers, based on developmental appropriateness for most of the children at the center. The caregivers used the lesson plans and ideas to meet the needs of individual children. Every week, they had a weekly theme and the theme of the week I was there was Weather . And for each day, the caregivers set a few objectives. These objectives identified social and emotional, physical and intellectual qualities developed in the lesson. That week, the objective was to focus on developing conceptual awareness as well as observation skills. Throughout the day, the majority of the activities would revolved around the given theme and that day, a few of the activities were

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related to the weather. For instance, in one of the activities, the children were shown pictures of different types of weather and they had to name the type of weather. The caregivers also told a story about clouds and had the children finger paint clouds on blank canvases. The theme was also incorporated in morning circle and outdoor play. Adult-Child Interactions in the Childcare Center and Steinberg’s Principles The caregivers established and enforced a list of rules. Like Steinberg (2004), they too believed that structure was important in a classroom. They believed that by setting rules and limits on what the children could and could not do, they would also be setting expectations for proper behavior. I believe this is an important principle to have in the classroom because according to Steinberg, having rules help children develop the ability to manage their own behavior (Steinberg, 2004). “Children acquire self- control by imposing on themselves the rules that their caregivers imposed on them” (Steinberg, 2004). It is beneficial to expose the children to rules and limits early in childhood because over time, the control of their behavior gradually shifts. It shifts from it being external, meaning the control is imposed by caregivers and other adults, to it being internal, meaning the control is imposed by children themselves (Steinberg, 2004). Parent-Child Interactions in the Family Setting The parent and the child communicated and interacted throughout the time I was there. Both parents seemed to be very involved in their child’s life. The mother and father encouraged the child to play with certain toys, read certain books and tell certain stories. The child was shy at the beginning but the mother helped him warm up to me by reassuring him that it is okay to interact with me. Steinberg (2004) talked about understanding their child’s temperament and adapting their parenting to fit their child (pp. 64). The child’s mother knew that he usually takes extra time to warm up to strangers so she made

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sure she was patient at the beginning when he was getting comfortable.

Parent-Child Interactions in the Family Setting and Steinberg’s Principles The child mainly interacted and communicated with the mother. The father was working in his office but he did come out to play with the child for a little while. I noticed that both parents did a lot of reinforcing and praising. Every time the child displayed a proper behavior or mastered a certain activity, the mother positively reinforced him with praises. Some of the praises she used were “great job at counting!” and “that was great effort!” and “wow! that was great sorting!” The child earned these praises by displaying proper social etiquette like by saying “please” and “thank you.” The mother also praised him when he accurately completed a puzzle and when he classified the blocks by color and shape. I think the mother does a great job in phrasing praises. Steinberg addressed the importance of “phrasing reactions in ways that praise the specific accomplishment” (Steinberg, 2004, Pp. 36). He stated that praising not only makes them feel good about themselves but they would also learn the importance of hard work when achieving a goal (Steinberg, P. 36). The child displayed a feeling of satisfaction from accurately sorting the blocks; he smiled and said “thank you.” Recommendations I believe the daycare did a wonderful job in putting everything together so that the classroom runs smoother. The children have numerous learning activities to do throughout the day that promote their development in different areas. If I had to give one recommendation it would be to plan activities that all children find interesting. For instance, I noticed a couple of the children not interacting. They did not seem to be interested in the activity the caregiver was carrying out. As for the family, my only recommendation would be to praise the child consistently. There were a few times when the child did carry out the given activity accurately but the mother would criticize the child and ask him to redo it.

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Instead, I think it would be better if the mother told the child how to do better the next time.

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References DeHart, G., Sroufe, L., & Cooper, R. (2004). Child Development: Its Nature and Course  (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Messina, L. (2013). Development in Children  [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from https://myelms.umd.edu/courses/880699/modules. Steinberg, L. (2004). The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting. N  ew York, NY: First Simon & Schuster....