Child Observation: Middle Childhood

For my middle childhood observation I chose a 10 year old female by the name of Mycah Landry. Just to give you a bit of a background, Mycah attends a magnet school and makes straight A’s. She is a very smart young girl. We will start off by comparing Mycah’s physical development to that of Berger’s in the text. As documented in the text “Unlike infants or adolescents, school-age children’s growth is slow and steady. Self-care is easy –from brushing their new adult teeth to dressing themselves, from making their own lunch to walking to school. In these middle years, children depend less on their families and do not yet need to cope with the body changes and impulses of adolescence. Muscles become steadily stronger.” From my observation I

It was 9:45am on Tuesday, October 20th, 2015: The children were taking part in an art activity. On the piece of paper, each child had a drawn out bubble lettered number one. They were given each given four popsicle sticks and a small pile of glue. The teacher instructed them to use the paint brush to spread the glue out inside the number one and then place the popsicle sticks on top.

Alexander, Enrique, and Alexis are the names of the children I observed. They have different gross motor skills and fine motor skills. However, their differences are in the sophistication of each ability. Alexander, who is 7 years old is very active. He was jumping and trying to count by jumping on the tile floors to see how many there were across the living room. He is developing typically to his age. What has influenced this level of physical development is the amount of myelin in the brain increases and raises the speed at which electrical impulses travel between neuron. Which, makes massages reach muscles more rapidly and control them better. Enrique, in the other hand, his physical development is more sophisticated than Alexander’s.

An unannounced monitoring inspection was conducted on 1/6/2016. I arrived at the operation which is located at 3422 Richmond Rd, Texarkana about 12:57 pm. I was greeted by Comekia Island, the person in charge while director was at lunch. I handed her business card and then explained the purpose of my inspection and reviewed the subchapters I would be observing. Roshonda Epps the director arrived approximately a hour later. When Epps arrived I handed her business card and then explained the purpose of my inspection and reviewed the subchapters I would be observing.

Vygotsky’s theory focuses on how culture is transmitted to the next generation. Through social interaction, children begin to acquire skills that are valued by their culture (Berk, 2007).

The strengths of Vygotsky's theory is that it administered a solid infrastructure for examining how children learned before entering the classroom. His sociocultural approach to education would conceive consistent personalized

Sophia is a four-year old child who is currently in kindergarten at P.S. Manhattan Beach School. She indicated that she likes her teachers and has many friends school. Sophia stated that she her father drives her to school each day and her mother is home after school with her.

Based on the last phase of the assessment, Chance was exhausted and tired. The assessment appeared to be rush due to the deadline based on the transition of the children’s services to Trading Space. I honestly feel that this report should have been completed a few months for comparison when Chance started services with Chance and compare it to where he is now. I am disappointed with the errors made:

Once in nineteen eighty four there was a community swimming party inAshkum, Illinois. All of the children in the neighborhood went to theparty. They all had to get showers and the pool had to be cleaned beforethey could get in. The owner of the pool turned on the jets and openedthe openings that would let the dirty water out and keep the clean waterin. She also went and got in the shower.When the owner got into the locker room she seen that the water was alight brown color. She just thought that because the water in the poolwas being cleaned the water in the restroom was getting dirty. She gotin the shower and got cleaned.When all of the children were done gettingcleaned and dressed in their swim suits she allowed them to get in. Thewater was

Vygotsky's Social Developement theory focused on the connections between people and the social and cultural context, in which they act and interact with others. According to Vygotsky, humans use tools that develop from a culture, such as speech and writing, to mediate their social environments. Intinitally children develop these tools to serve solely to communcate needs. Vygotsky believed that the internatlization of these tools led to higher thinking skills.

Vygotsky 's Sociocultural Theory explains the interaction between the cultural and historical facts. There are three different theories that Vygotsky 's uses which are : matching, zone of proximal development and scaffolding. Matching is based of the child’s culture. Zone of proximal development has three different components the role played by culture, the use of language and the child’s zone of proximal development. This development shows what the children can accomplish independently and potentially depending if they received guidance along the way. Scaffolding is apart of learning, in the beginning parents’ are there too hold your hand and provide for you. When you get old enough parents let go and let you figure out life on your own.

Vygotsky theory also stated that social interaction and culture play a big role on cognitive development. According to Santrock (2014), Vygotsky's believes that an important part of development is learning to use the inventions of society, like language and culture (p. 24 ). Vygosky says that the interaction that children have are what makes them successful in their culture. His theory centers around the fact that what you are exposed to in your culture and the interactions you have socially are what shape your development, that is why there are children all over the world with different skills and abilities. (Jaramillo 1996

His sociocultural theory suggests, “that social interaction leads to continuous step-by-step changes in children's thought and behavior that can vary greatly from culture to culture. (Gallagher, 1999)” Each child’s development depends on the interactions they have with people and what the culture provides them with to form their view of the world. The children will figure out their ways of thinking and behaving by interacting with older, more knowledgeable people. Vygotsky believes that, “social interaction will lead to ongoing changes in a child’s thought and behavior. (Gallagher,

When supervising young children, it is often difficult to handle children that are uncooperative and energetic. Each morning in my assigned classroom at Playhouse, the children come running into the classroom oftentimes yelling or speaking too loudly. In order to get out some of this energy head teacher, Laura allows the children to have twenty to thirty minutes of playtime and then we meet for circle. Each morning before the children come into class I am responsible for setting up the carpets in a circle. This is so that when the children are finished cleaning up their toys, the go straight to circle with no interruptions. At circle time, the children are expected to be seated quietly and “criss cross apple sauce” unless otherwise instructed

On 01-02-2016 at 1625 hours I was dispatched to 333 south Westwood Boulevard in reference to shoplifting.