TriDereka Hall

November 1, 2016
Child Development & Observation I
Cognitive and Language Development
Setting:
My observation was at Battle Academy, specifically the UTC Childrens Center at the same
location. I observed the Older Toddlers classroom with the children being ages 2 and 3. When
entering the classroom, the children and the two teachers were already outside and the children
were playing in the play area/playground. In my time there, the children played outside, had free
time, and also begun to lay down for a nap.

I observed two children in the class and recorded many observations for each of them. The three
observations below are two from one child and one from another child.
Observation 1 & 2: Child A Two year old male
Observation 3: Child B Three year old female

Observation 1:
11:21 Child A walked up to me as I was sitting on the floor with my legs out and
notebook in my lap. He said What are you doing? I said Im writing. He continued to
ask me the same question and I gave him the same response three more times. Then, he
swung his right left my two crossed legs, sat down with his body faced away from me,
and has his hands gripped on my shoes. He began to bounce up and down. Then, he
turned his only his head towards me and says You the horsey! He turned back around
and continued to bounce up and down on my crossed legs.
Observation 2:
11:50 Child A was on his knees by the block center looking through a box of toys. He
pulled out, one by one, toy cows and put them on the floor next to him on his right side.
He gathered the five cows and, one by one, put them on top of second shelf in the block
center. He smiled with his mouth open and says to his teacher, Look at all the cows!
She says, Yes, look at them! I didnt know we had so many. I walked over and counted
the five cows. He then counted the cows on his own. He says, 1, 3, 5, 6. Then, he
repeated it again.
Observation 3:
10:45 Child B was sitting on the floor with her legs straight out and playing with two
blocks. (The blocks are two cylinders with one like stick and the other like a drum.) She
tapped the drum-like cylinder twice with the stick-like cylinder and puts it up to her lips.
When she put the stick-like figure up to her lips, she moved it from left to right.
Summary:
In the two hours I was there, the children that I observed had some actions that were
consistent with normal development abilities according to Chapter 7 in the book. For
Observation 1, Child As actions were consistent with the description of pretend play in the
textbook on page 152. He pretended that my legs were a horse and even bounced up and down to
pretend like he was actually riding a horse. The text explained that Vygotsky would describe the
action as symbolizing. He used my leg as an a symbol for a horse. Im assuming that Child A
knew my leg is not a horse but pretends to acts as such.
In Observation 2, Child A, had some inconsistencies with the appendix description of
how the child should be in counting. According to the appendix, Child A should have been able
to count the count the cows correctly. I even counted the cows before he counted them and he
still counted the cows incorrectly. The text does not mention counting in Chapter 7 in order for
me to check the information, but it does say that not all children are the same. Child A could just
be a little behind in that part of his development.
In Observation 3, I believe that Child C also participated in pretend play with the the two
blocks shaped like cylinders. I think that she pretended to put on makeup with them. She
continued to use the stick-like cylinder to rub on her lips six times like two other girls that she
was beside. She most likely has seen her mom or a mother-figure put on lipstick in order to
replicate the action in class.