Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • Free Essays • My Term Papers • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Psychology Early Childhood Development1 Early Childhood Development1 In this project, we were assigned to observe a preschool aged group and pick out one child to observe. I did my observing at Corner Stone Christian Academy and Preschool and observed a four-year-old name Kayla. She was a new student to that particular class, so I decided to see how she would react to a new environment. I will be discussing the motor skills, communication, and social interaction of Kayla. I will also briefly discuss the topic of the education that was being taught at the school I visited. The motor skills of the student I observed were beyond my expectations. In the morning, the students enjoyed a breakfast of waffles and maple syrup, applesauce, and donuts. The students were all able to eat the donuts without getting frosting all over their mouth. And the waffles were dipped into the syrup with ease. There were some problems with the correct use of a spoon, but not enough that the applesauce would get all over the children. The students did many songs and dances once in the class that helped with memorization and motor skills. Their first song and dance was about cooperating. I thought that this was a good way for the children to learn about sharing. The children need to learn about it because at their age, they tend to just want, want, want. They don’t realize the aspects of sharing and why you should do it. The next song that they sung was about “Marching in the Lord’s Army.” This school is a Christian school, so they wanted to teach the proper ideals of Christianity to the children. After that followed “If You’re Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands.” This of course teaches motor skills, eye hand coordination, and memorization and recall. The students also did some handwriting before I left. Kayla, even for being a new student, had particularly good handwriting. The class was working on the letter ‘U’ that day. I noticed some of them started the letter from the right side instead of the left. The teacher was unable to notice that as they were walking around. Communication was another topic area that was focused on. Kayla did show signs of good communication skills. I didn’t get to witness them first hand, because she was too shy to talk to me. She talked quite frequently to other classmates. There was even confusion which she solved about her name. There was another student in the class named McKayla, and one of her friends had gotten the two names mixed up. She was calling McKayla, Kayla. Kayla was very polite in correcting her saying, “No, I’m Kayla, she’s McKayla.” The other student didn’t seem to understand, so Kayla had to repeat herself many times. The way that the children interacted with the adults was interesting as well. The children were able to talk with them as if they were on the same level as the adults were. They talked with them as if they were friends instead of teachers, which I thought was very impressive. Usually, the students tend to only look up to the teachers, not look equally to them. That makes it hard to get over seeing them that way after they become adults. They sometimes tried to imitate the adults, by speaking using voice tone. They haven’t been able to master that skill yet, but they’re trying to use tone in there speaking. Kayla’s social tendencies relate a lot to her communication. She is very social, for a child that has been newly introduced to an environment. She talked a lot, even when she shouldn’t have. She seemed very friendly with most every one. She was even answering questions for the other students. The teachers were not too pleased with this, but I thought that she was just trying to adapt to her new environment. She didn’t know any better yet. She was just trying to help out her new friends. As with socializing with me, there was none. None of the children did much but look at me and smile. It was better that they ignored me. It made it easier for me to do my work. If they had been asking me to play with them, I don’t know if I could have resisted them. Now I’m going to touch a little on education. It’s not part of the assignment. But I feel that in the class that I observed, it played a big part. There wasn’t too much pressure on the student to be learning, from what I saw. But it seems that the students had a very good understanding of colors, numbers, letters, weather, computers, and the bible. They first did the weather chart. They had to look outside and see what it looked like. It was sunny out, so Kayla put the arrow on the sun. Next another student walk up and put an arrow on the blue cloud blowing air, because it was cold out. The next activity they did was played the “Fish Game.” The teacher drops different color fish onto the floor. Each of them has a different number on it. The students are asked to pick up the number that she wants, then say the color. The most interesting part was fish number nine was cauliflower blue! And she wanted the students to know it as that. I was pleased to see that there was only one computer in the classroom. It was not a very modern one either: Windows 95 and only basic Pooh Bear games. They never even used the computer while I was there. I did see a lot of encouragement of the students for there good work. It was not like the classrooms that we discuss in class, that give credit no matter how good they do. They got stickers if they did it right. And if it was wrong, they redid it right then. There was even a treasure box that the students could get toys out of if they were really good. I conclusion, I found this to be a very meaningful and insightful project. It taught me more about the kind of education that I need to be teaching my children when I have them. One thing that I wanted to mention is I never realized how much the teachers talked about the rowdy students before. Why they were in the chapel, the teachers would have conversations with each other about the different students misbehavior. The children didn’t pay attention to it, but I found it quite hilarious. Over all, I had a lot of fun doing this project. Bibliography: Word Count: 1114
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