Child Observation

Setting: Pre-Kindergarten
Age of children: 22 4 year olds and 1 five year old.
Teachers: Mrs. Kelli is the lead teacher and has a master degree in child education. Mrs. Diana is the assistant and has a Associates Degree.

I observed all the children for 2 hours and 45 minutes. For the first 30 minutes, I observed a 4 year old whose birthday was in May.
While observing the children as whole I noticed 3 main things that seemed to affect the children.
1. The difference between a younger four year old and a older 4 year old. In the book how it described a 3 year old as being calm 4 year old active and 5 year old calm again. I noticed how the younger 4 year olds are calmer. The older 4 year olds are more active.
2. All the boys seemed to be less mature than the girls. Their were younger girls that were more mature than the older boys. The boys development also seemed to be more delayed in all areas than the girls. I found this part very interesting and I'm going to keep an open mind and eye in future observations. the boys attention span also seemed to be less than the girls. The girls seemed to stay longer doing an activity while the boys were changing activities often during free play.
3. The children that had older siblings seemed to be more on track or ahead developmentally than the children who were the oldest or only child.
I observed a 4 year old boy his birthday was in May. I observed him for the first 30 minutes of class. When his father dropped him off he cryed and did not want to stay, he said "I want to go home." Mrs. Kelli the lead teacher took the child from his father. the teacher and boy went to the other end of the room where their is a plexiglass window in the door. The boy and father touched knuckles between the plexiglass. The Father walked away and like a switch was turned to off the boy quit crying. the teacher went to assist other children and the boy stood in the middle of the room looking lost. Another boy came up to him and said " let's go look at Laney the snake. The two boy's walk over to the science area and find Laney the snake hiding in her log. the two boys watch Laney for a few minutes and see some of her skin hanging out a chunk of the log. Next the two boys go look into the cricket house. they find one cricket sitting on a chunk of orange. The cage has a tube on each end of it so the crickets have a dark place to hide and then the teachers can feed the other animals in the science area. Each boy grabs a tube and trys to catch the cricket. Mrs Diana the assistant teacher goes over and asks the boys to only look at the cricket so it doesn't get smashed by the tubes. The boys sit down and look at the cricket, then they notice they can see each other thorough the plastic. The two boys start laughing at each other. The boys grab a tube again and start trying to catch the cricket again. Mrs. Diana comes over again and says "I need to put the cricket away now because I asked you to only look at it and you were trying to catch it again. the one boy goes back to watching Laney and the other boy goes to the block area. He plays with the blocks for a few minutes. He doesn't really talk to any of the children he is kept to himself. Both teachers announce that it is clean up time. The teacher start singing a clean up song and soon all the children are singing and cleaning up. I noticed the children would also pick up other toys not just what they were playing with. After all the toys are cleaned up Mrs. Kelli asks them to sit down for circle time. All the children sit criss cross applesauce hands in their laps. First Mrs. Kelli has each child come up and spell their name on their card that has their picture and full first name. Next she picks a child to be the weather person and the boy I'm observing is picked. The teachers and kids sings a weather song while the boy goes to the window to see what kind of weather is outside. The boy goes back to the teacher and whispers shyly what he seen outside. Mrs. Kelli tells the children he seen clouds and the sun. Mrs. Kelli gives him two cards one with a sun and one with clouds. The boy goes over to the weather chart and with help places the cards in the right spot. the child goes back down and sits in his spot.