Observing a Child
OBSERVATION CHECKLIST
The below checklist will document all areas of the child development – emotional, social, and physical as well as specific areas of cognitive progress.
Checklist
| Item | Observed | Not Observed |
| 1. Self-Esteem | ||
| Make activity choices without teacher’s assistance | ü | |
| Display enthusiasm about doing things for himself | ü | |
| 2. Emotional Competence | ||
| Smiles and collects the balls to start over | ü | |
| Does not show interest in the activity | ü | |
| Seems happy much of the playtime | ü | |
| 3. Social Competence | ||
| Plays by himself with the available materials | ü | |
| Plays parallel with others with similar toys | ü | |
| 4. Physical Development | ||
| Plays with Ramps and the block with control over speed and direction | ü | |
| Holds up the three balls with ease | ü | |
| Pick up and insert the balls in the Ramps and block with dexterity | ü | |
| Use the objects with control | ü | |
| 5. Cognitive Development | ||
| Rolls the balls down each ramp simultaneously | ü | |
| Problem-solving with the objects | ü | |
| Place the ramps in a sequence and series | ü | |
| Make thinking Visible – Spatial reasoning | ü | |
| Display one to one correspondence with the objects | ü | |
| 6. Spoken Language | ||
| Ask the teacher questions | ü |
Information from my observation
From the observation the child’s objective was to propel the balls and the car down the tunnels. To do this the child first laid down three tracks of the same length and then inserted tunnels at the end of the tracks, and pushed the balls down. He then used his hands to release the balls and quickly darted to where the balls had paused, collected them, and repeated the same technique. Holding the balls, he goes back to the storage box and took out one more ramp and tunnel, and accurately set them up in a close range. He, then asked his teacher and the one recording to hold the ball, and they simultaneously released the balls.
The child goes back to the ramp box and picked 8 additional ramps and placed each ramp in descending order, and when he got the seventh ramps, he placed it off on the end of the bloc but then picked it up and made a room for it with other ramps. He further collected five balls and gave them to his teacher. He then goes and picked a small car and set it at the top of a ramp and used the ball to control the speed of its speed. So, the child’s goal was to roll the balls down the ramps and his strategy was to line up the tunnels at the end of each ramp, and push the car and the balls down.
NOTE;
Interest – the child loves to play with tracks and balls
Development levels – He rolls the ball down each ramp with control of speed and direction
Skills – He has trouble making the car roll down the ramp on its own
Strategies – He uses the ball to control the car speed
Personality – He likes to take risk
Needs – The child needs to develop his skill at rolling – more than one car down the tunnels
Collaborative activity
To meet the need of the student I will use collaborative activity to advance the child and his peer’s emotional, social, physical, and cognitive abilities.
For the activity to work effectively I will:
- Consider the grouping of students carefully, for example placing him with peers to encourage the child to share the same experience with his peers.
- Establish the type of behavior that will be expected from the child for other students to benefit most from these type of activity
- Encourage the child and his peers to include other elements to the activity – and motivate others who may need support to take part in the activity.
Objective and goal of Collaborative activity
The activity is a great idea for the students because it will help them grow during everyday play. The idea that collaborative activity is really important for child development was adopted by (He. et al., 2019) and also links to (Chaiklin, 2019)theories on the importance of interaction to child development. Playing with peers will allow the students to feel more confident, and thus the game will be used for the meaningful purpose such as solve problem, sort and group objects, and display one to one correspondence with the materials – rather than out of ‘fun.’ Costa et al., (2017) argues that the activity plan is a feature of inclusive classroom, and benefits of group are also acknowledged by (Drigas et al., 2015). Jarvis et al., (2014) also maintain that the importance of active participation and social play in advancing student’s emotional, social, physical, and cognitive abilities should not be underestimated.
By observing this particular child, I have learned to interpret the child nascent theories about how the world works. Noteworthy, I would change the child original encounter in ways that easily provoke the child and his peers to rethink a theory.
References
Costa, U. M., Brauchle, G., & Kennedy-Behr, A. (2017). Collaborative goal setting with and for
children as part of therapeutic intervention. Disability and Rehabilitation, 39(16), 1589-1600.
Chaiklin, S. (2019). Units and wholes in the cultural-historical theory of child development.
In Cultural-historical Approaches To Studying Learning and Development (pp. 263-277). Springer, Singapore.
Drigas, A., Kokkalia, G., & Lytras, M. D. (2015). ICT and collaborative co-learning in preschool
children who face memory difficulties. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 645-651.
He, J., Guo, D., Zhai, S., Shen, M., & Gao, Z. (2019). Development of social working memory in
preschoolers and their relation to theory of mind. Child development, 90(4), 1319-1332.
Jarvis, P., Newman, S., & Swiniarski, L. (2014). On ‘becoming social’: The importance of
collaborative free play in childhood. International Journal of Play, 3(1), 53-68.