DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

EDC:20
Instructor: Judith Valdez
Fall 2013
                  My observation report.
       Children are sometimes competent and naive, joyful and sad, talkative and quiet. A child develops himself or herself in a unique ways. Children most of the time do not engage us in dialogue in order to explain their behaviors or needs. Therefore it’s hard to understand children. Yet as a teacher it is important for us to know our children and educate them.
    In order to educate children's educators can observe children in various ways. Observation of a child is important step for the educators and the parents to understand the child development. While I was observing Doston and Hose I learned its importance to me.
    Doston is my cousin. He is a six years old boy. He is a first grade student. Doston has two older brothers. He has brown eyes and dark brown hairs. Today is October 28th, 2013, 4 p.m. It is cold outside so my first day of observation took place on their home. When I entered at their house Doston walked out and saw me and my sister holding her books. When he saw my sister he starts to get his book bag and askss questions about his homework to my sister. They were reading a book and doing his assigned homework together. Whenever he did not understand he called his mother to help him out. While he was studying the alphabet a couple of times he gets up and leaves the room for a short time by going to his room and bringing his new toys. Doston goes to the kitchen a couple of times and brings snacks. He asks help from my sister to help him out understand his homework better. While doing his homework and achieving the goal he goes straight to his mother and proudly tells what he learned.
    At 4:50 Doston has just finished a sandwich eaten at his kitchen table which his mother made him. When his twelve years old brother Azim enters to their room Doston shortly after gets disturbed and leaves his snacks. When he follows after his brother to his room, he immediately goes to his bed. There are several toys next to the bed. There is a child-sized blackboard, calendar, table and various soldiers with cars. Doston immediately gets his new car and plays with it on the carpet with his brother. My sister gets involved on their play. They all got cars, soldiers and the mission to play.
      Doston at first seems to be the one controlling the play by creating the rules. Azim starts to argue with Doston that he should control the car because he is the oldest. Doston refused to give the remote control of the car which after Azim and my sister leaves the game. Doston continued playing when his brother left him alone and he started to look for his different toys to play with. He was very calm during the play. He was aware of his brother's action and I guess that he was very familiar that he would be playing all alone. Doston is very hard going when it comes to the play. He likes to control and play only with the toys which he likes or shares. When I asked his mother how often they play together she said that they do not get along together. Doston does not like when his brother suggests him or tries to control the game. He likes to discover new games by himself, and control it.
      Also, I met Doston on October 31 at 8p.m the Halloween day. Doston was an iron man collecting candy with his brother. I suddenly met him in the store. I wanted to know him more closely so I was observing him how he acts outside toward others. While he was collecting candies his brother told him that he got more candy which Doston responded by saying " I got more candy, than you did" I asked him why did he taught so he said " That women liked my costume, so she gave me lots of lollipops". When I heard those words I understood that most of the time he is competing with his brother, and I started to look him more carefully whenever he and his brother were in the store to take a candy Doston always looked at his basket than his brothers to see who got more candy.
     The second child whom I observed was Hose. Hose is four years old. Hose lives near me he is my neighbor. He has black big shaped eyes and hair. He is the youngest child in his family and gets more attention than his two older sisters. Hose during the observation couple of times went to his mother's arm and tried to hide his face from me. The first thing which he did was drawing because children were playing outside. He was drawing his parents. He said ' It’s my mom in a long hair holding my hand with my father". He drew a circle and the four straight lines of his mother by using different kinds of crayons. After children were got inside of the building Hose brought his bike and starts to play with others. He exchanged his bike to scooter with another child. He was smiling and laughing the entire time while he was playing with children.
     Shortly after children wanted to play ball. Hose as well tried to get involved with his peers and played along with them. He walked to me and smiled at me and gave me a ball that he was holding. Than I picked up the ball and created a team for children to play. Hose as well followed his team mates and played with them. He was enjoying and laughing all the time. During the play I discovered that Hose is capable of making friends and play with others without competing. When children left I asked for more time from his mother to observe him. I brought a book and I wanted to see his reactions on it. Hose and I was sitting on stairs and I was flipping pages of a book of 'Snow Whites' . All of the sudden Hose got interested about the seven dwarfs. Then after that I started to summarize a book which he enjoyed hearing. When I was done observing Hose I gave him a bag of snacks, which he responded by saying " Thank you and come to play with me".
   From observing these two children I have learned a lot. Each child develop themselves in a different stages and way to learn. The four domains of development the P.I.E.S helped me to understand each of them in a better way.
    The Physical development of Doston is more better than Hose, because he is capable of doing things independently. He prints some letters, prints his name, and throws and catches a ball easily. He is able to dress himself and able to tie his shoelaces. Doston's Social and Emotional development is that he likes to set up his rules and wants to be a leader all the time. During the play time he becomes competitive, wants to be the first and likes attention of his mother. He prefers to play alone. Doston's Intellectual development is that he knows alphabet and many letter sounds, his speech is clear and understandable and makes up his imaginative play.
    When I compared my observation to the Erikson's and Piaget's stages of Physical development chart I found out that Doston's stage of development is similar to the descriptions. In Erikson's stage of development Doston is facing with Initiative vs. Guilt. As in a description Doston is able to act by himself and control the things around him, like his brother during the play. While in Piaget's stage his facing with Preoperational stage. He is refereed as a egocentrism at his age I am absolutely agree with that. Doston thinks and views things only by his point of view, he does not like to hear advices from his brother or other adults.
    The Physical development of Hose is different. Hose is able to ride his bicycle with training wheels, he draws his parents with four parts, catches a ball and throws a ball overhand. Hose's Social and Emotional development is absolutely different than Doston's. He tries to play with his peers, has conversation with others, plays in a group and wants to feel independent. Also his Intellectual development is that he can count with help of adults and he knows the difference between the letters and numbers. Hose is at Initiative vs. Guilt as well in Erikson's stage. At this stage Hose also experiencing independence of himself and taking his own actions. While on Piaget's stage he is at Preoperational stage. At Piaget's given description Hose does not seem to be following. He is able to see others point of view and share his thoughts, but he still learning through help and symbols. He is strength is that he is able to play with others.
    There is always something new to learn about children even children you think you know them well. Conducting an observation and writing it up is really hard than just communicating and getting to know the child. While observing I found out that each child think and develop himself or herself in a different ways. I learned that in order to have meaningful conversation we need to know what the child thinks and it takes so little to make children happy, gain their trust and teach them. In my own observation of Doston and Hose I experienced myself being teacher and friend of those children. I found out that each child likes to get attention of an adult and are able to get by their own ways.
    The best thing that teachers can do for their students are to support a child's learning and step back to let the child experience something on their own. I was surprised by the development and the actions of each child toward the group play and sharing their toys. I think that each teacher before entering to education they should couple of times observe children and see their developments, because every decision which educators make affects children's learning and development. By observing we educators get to know each child and their level of learning.
    It is important to observe children and see their development. By observing children educators get to know child nature better and understand them better. Observation could help teachers in future to engage their students on works and communication of their needs.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.