Lab 1: Anecdotal Notes 1

Lauren Salome
Connar Hurst
Alyssa Ayers
HDFS 421
9/25/15
HDFS 421 Lab 1: Anecdotal Records
Introduction
Our first lab assignment gave us an opportunity to use our skills to observe children and
write anecdotes. As a group, we decided to observe a 32 month old boy named Sparty in Mrs.
Davis classroom. Sparty is one of the oldest children in the 24 month classroom. We chose to
observe him in order to determine if he has reached two and three year old milestones, according
to the Center for Disease and Control. To simplify our observations of Sparty, we decided to
focus on the fine and gross motor domain.
We observed Sparty in two locations: outside on the playgrounds, and inside the 24
month old classroom. Outside, Sparty spent most of his time playing on Playground 2 which is
the playground near the parking lot. Playground 2 has a large sandbox with a sidewalk around its
perimeter. It also has a large rock located in the back of the playground and an additional
sandbox off to the left of the playground with small rocks that surround it.
Inside the classroom, Sparty spent a majority of his time on the tile area. The sensory
table, snack table and art table, are all located on the tile. The carpeted area of the classroom has
the loft, pretend play area, the cognitive area, and the large group area.
We each wrote a set of anecdotal notes during our individual visits to the CDL.
According to Losardo and Syverson (2011), Anecdotal notes usually focus on a single event and
may be written after the fact (p.34). The purpose of the notes was for the use of analyzing

Lab 1: Anecdotal Notes 2

Spartys motor development after our observations and determining his specific developmental
milestones and to set goals to accomplish new milestones. We kept our notes objective so that we
could more effectively analyze without external factors skewing the data that we collected.

Data
Child: Sparty
Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Outside on Playground 2
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 8:40 AM
Child A stepped up onto a rock along the perimeter of the small sandbox. Using his right foot
first, he stepped onto another rock. He balanced for about 3 seconds and then stepped onto
another rock using his right foot.
Child: Sparty
Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Outside on Playground 2
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 8:50 AM
Child A was sitting with a teacher on the large rock outside. The teacher was holding 4 red
musical sticks. She asked Child A, How many red stick do I have? Child A responded, One,
two, three, four, and pointed with his right index finger to each one as he counted (one to one
correspondence).
Child: Sparty

Lab 1: Anecdotal Notes 3

Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Outside on Playground 2
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 9:02 AM
Child A crouched down in the sandbox. He picked up a small rock using his thumb, index finger
and middle finger. He placed the rock into a container and then found two more rocks using the
same pinching motion.
Child: Sparty
Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Outside on Infant Playground
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 9:20 AM
On the way inside, Child A held onto the strap of the teachers bag while also holding on to the
railing as he walked up the stairs using alternative feet.
Child: Sparty
Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Outside on Playground 1
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Monday, September 21, 2015 8:43 AM
Child A holds onto the orange monkey bar with one hand. He starts walking around the bar
multiple times. Child A starts moving in a faster pace around the bar. He then falls onto his knees
and stays there for several minutes.

Lab 1: Anecdotal Notes 4

Child: Sparty
Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Outside on Playground 1
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Monday, September 21, 2015 8:57 AMS
Child A stands with both feet on a yellow circular, bounce platform. He jumps with both feet up
and down on the platform which makes a squeaky noise. He then jumps down from the platform
landing one foot, then the other. Child A flips the platform over and starts jumping on the
opposite side.
Child: Sparty
Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Lego table
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Monday, September 21, 2015 8:57 AM
Child A stands at the Lego table. He puts a green Lego on top of a blue Lego using his whole
hand. He then walks away from the table swaying the Lego creation in the air back and forth
several times.
Child: Sparty
Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Sensory table
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 2 PM

Lab 1: Anecdotal Notes 5

Child A picks up syringe from sensory table and places one fist around the tube and the other fist
grasps the top of the pump. He pushes for several seconds until his hand shakes, the pump does
not move, then puts the syringe back down in to the table.
Child: Sparty
Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Sensory table
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 2 PM
Teacher shows Child A how to pull syringe pump when in the water. He picks up a smaller
syringe, places the tip in the water, then pulls it and says, I did it.
Child: Sparty
Gender: Male
Age: 32 Months
Location: Snack table
Head Teacher: Mrs. Davis
Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 2 PM
Child A places hand on snack bowl handle, pulls it closer to him and picks up tongs. He squeezes
the tongs sideways, gets a few goldfish and brings them towards him to drop into his bowl.

Interpretation
The child that our group observed was among the oldest in the classroom. We noticed that
because of his age, the rate of his development was somewhat higher than most of the other
children. At the sensory table, he was able to accomplish the goal of using the syringe to pick up
water and squirt it with the guidance of an adult, while others were not able to finish the same

Lab 1: Anecdotal Notes 6

task. Based on the developmental milestones chart, a social/ emotional goal that Sparty should be
able to accomplish is copying others, especially adults, so based on what we observed Sparty has
demonstrated that he is at or above this specific milestone.

According the the CDC milestone checklist, three year olds should be able to walk up and
down stairs with one foot on each step. Sparty demonstrated this milestone as he walked up the
stairs on the infant playground with a teacher, and when he stepped on the small rocks around the
sandbox on playground 2. Because he demonstrated his ability to successfully step up and down
using alternating feet in two different situations, we believe that Sparty mastered this milestone
and is ready to practice more advanced gross motor skills such as balancing on one foot for two
seconds at a time.

Sparty showed a wide range of motor abilities as we watched him in our observations. He
was able to do tasks such as use his finger and thumb to pick things up and drink from a cup on
his own, which are those that a child of 18 months should be able to do. He was also able to keep
himself balanced and use alternating feet to climb sets of stairs, which is a milestone for a 3 year
old child.
Follow-Up
We noticed that Sparty had mastered many of the motor milestones for a 3 year old child,
so as a goal we would want to give him something that would challenge him somewhat. We
thought that giving him opportunities to develop his fine motor abilities a little bit more, such as

Lab 1: Anecdotal Notes 7

using a knife or scissors to cut things, would be an appropriate goal and comes from the 4 year
old milestone checklist.
A learning opportunity that we thought we could provide might include sitting with him
at the art table and allowing him to use a pair of scissors to cut up paper, string, or even to cut up
playdough. Another opportunity would be to allow him to use playdough to develop those fine
motor skills by squeezing and mashing with his fingers.
Reflection:
Using anecdotal notes in this lab allowed us to watch the child in has natural state and
objectively write about the things that we saw. These notes helped us to keep our thoughts in
order and to remember exact details of events after leaving the lab setting. Staying objective
allowed us to analysis the information that we had without letting other factors come into play,
such as specific feelings he was experiencing that day. It can be difficult to stay objective when
writing anecdotal notes because we want to note their emotions, but this allows other factors to
come into play. As we previously stated, it is important to stay neutral to effectively analysis
their development.

Reference

Lab 1: Anecdotal Notes 8

Losardo, A & Syerson, A. Alternative approaches to assessing your children. United States.
Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc.