Table of ContentsIntroductionPhysical DevelopmentCognitive DevelopmentEmotional DevelopmentSocial DevelopmentConclusionIntroductionMy observation of children took place at two different locations, the Holland College Child Development Center, which is located on the corner of Cumberland and Grafton and an in- home daycare located on Centennial Drive in Charlottetown. At the Child Development Center there were about 14 children in the area I was observing, half were boys and half were girls. They were between two and five years old. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay I went to this center twice for observation, the first time was on October 15 at 8:00 a.m. for two hours and the second time was date was October 18 at 3:00 p.m. for two hours. For my last two hours of observation, I went to a home daycare on October 21 from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Meanwhile, there was another live-in babysitter with the kids across the street. In total there were nine girls aged from one and a half to five years old. Physical Development Physical development is “the genetic basis of development, the physical growth of all components of the body, their functioning and their care” (Rice 586). During my observation, I looked at five aspects of physical development: physical growth, motor development, bladder/bowel control, nutrition, and sleep. Observing the children at the Child Development Center and home daycare, I found that boys and girls of the same age were about the same height, but there were differences in height between the different ages. The difference between ages is due to the rapid growth spurts that occur throughout early childhood. As stated in the text, children tend to follow the cephalocaudal principle, they grow from head to toe. This was visible in the children I observed and I noticed it with my own daughter as well, as I always need to buy shirts with a large neck opening for her head to fit through. Children's motor development varied considerably, this is mainly due to overall physical maturation of skeletal and neuromuscular development. At home daycare, a little girl of about a year old cannot walk on her own while another girl of the same age is very agile on her feet and has a lot of coordination. This difference is most likely due to the fact that the girl's neurons are not myelinated compared to the little girl who cannot walk. Myelination is “the process by which neurons are covered with an insulating fatty substance called myelin,” which “helps neurons transmit nerve impulses more quickly and efficiently” (Rice 113). This myelination also plays a role in toilet training. If the neurons are myelinated, the sensation of urinating and stooling can be detected more quickly so the child knows when to go to the toilet. During the observation, I noticed that all the children over three years old in the home daycare were potty trained. I did not receive a number from Holland College Daycare. Both places I looked at offered a snack. This is very important for children to get the energy and nutrition they need. Both places offered a healthy snack. At home daycare, the afternoon snack consisted of apple slices, trail mix, and a cup of milk. Holland College Center had a cookie and a cup ofjuice the morning of my first sighting and fruit and a cup of milk the afternoon I went. Both places also had scheduled nap time. This is very important since sleep is necessary for children's brains to properly process and learn new information. Cognitive Development Cognitive development is “all changes in the intellectual processes of thinking, learning, remembering, judging, problem solving, and communicating” (Rice 580 ). I looked at thinking, memorizing, problem solving, and communicating intellectual processes in my observation of children. Most of the issues I will present in this section of the report relate to the pre-operational phase of the Piagetian perspective. At this stage, “children acquire language and learn that they can manipulate these symbols that represent the environment” (Rice 35). Jean Piaget was a Swiss developmental psychologist who described the "four stages of cognitive development: the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), the preoperational stage (2 to 7 years), the concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years) and the formal operational stage (11 years and older)" (Rice 160). I first noticed that children demonstrate abstract thinking, which is when a child is not able to understand time, money, distance, right or left, etc. I observed this type of thinking when I was at the Child Development Center. There were two girls and two boys in a corner. with a Holland College student The student asked the kids if their favorite month was, all the kids answered with a holiday not an actual month I see this happening with my daughter too, I will ask her when is it. 'time to bed and she will say "30 o'clock". Children also tend to use static thinking, that is, when a child views things in life as separate, the stories tend not to flow together. There was a boy at the Child Development Center who was telling a story about his weekend. He told the student he had gone to Cape Breton for the weekend and had gone to Magic Mountain. He had two separate vacations mixed into one. Children learn in different ways, both places I visited had lots of materials and stimulating activities for learning. A little girl from the child development center sat with me and we played with a foam puzzle that was shaped like an object and a word underneath. You had to match the shape with the word, I discovered that this little four year old girl quickly learned which pieces went together. She knew her ABCs, which helped her match the two pieces. At home daycare, the kids were playing with blocks, a 2 year old was trying to build a tower but she kept falling from about the fifth block. a 3 year old girl came to show him how to line up the blocks straight and they both built a tower 10 blocks high. When the older child helped the younger child, this reflected Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development. “The zone is the distance between the child's actual level of development achieved through individual problem solving and the higher level of potential development achieved through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more competent peers” (Rice 167). During my observation, I took note of how the children remembered the information. At the home daycare, there was a group of children from across the street. The children had all metpreviously, they generally met twice a week for the past two weeks. The majority of children in each group did not remember the other children's names. This is due to short-term memory storage, “short-term memory capacity increases during childhood” (Rice 171). This explains why older children (four and five years old) could remember children's names while two and three year olds could not. Children's problem solving may be disrupted due to irreversibility and chaining. Irreversibility occurs when a child "does not recognize that an operation can go either way" (Rice 584) and chaining occurs when a child sorts through multiple characteristics of an object but confuses the information and is not capable of doing it. I noticed that Irreversibility happened to some of the younger children in home daycare when they went outside to play. The young children had great difficulty putting on their shoes and needed help, but when they returned from play, all the children were able to take their shoes off themselves. At the child development center, I asked a little girl about three years old if she could sort the blocks into piles that were all the same color. She was able to do this, but couldn't sort the blocks when I asked her to put the big yellow blocks into a pile. Communication was very visible between the children at both locations. There was wide variation in children's ability to communicate verbally. At the Child Development Center, a little boy of about two years old couldn't communicate very well verbally. He only used one word if he wanted something. At home daycare, my daughter, also two, uses five- to seven-word sentences to tell her caregiver what she wanted. I feel that my daughter is able to communicate verbally better than the little boy because of learning theory. My daughter is constantly talked to and read to because she is usually surrounded by adults, lives with her grandparents and me, and visits her father and stepmother two evenings a week. Because of her living situation, I feel like she gets a lot of one-on-one attention, which allows her to imitate, condition, match, and strengthen her verbal communication skills. Usually, around this age of two and a half, children use sentences of 3 to 5 words, which have a subject and a predicate and have fewer grammatical errors. Emotional DevelopmentEmotional development is "the development of attachment, trust, love, feelings, temperament, self-concept, autonomy, and emotional disorders" (Rice 580). Throughout my observations, I noted aspects of children's confidence, feelings, temperament, self-concept and autonomy. During my first visit to the Child Development Center, I noticed that all the children were happy to be there and were very comfortable with their parent's part. This could mean that children felt that their caregiver met their needs for sustenance, protection, affection, and comfort. By meeting these children's needs, caregivers gained the children's trust. I noticed that all the caregivers at both sites were very loving towards the children. It is very important for children to have a sense of trust so that they know they are loved. Another aspect I looked at was children's feelings. At home daycare, I noticed that the children were very curious about each other (visitors versus regulars), but at the Child Development Center, the children did notnoticed during the first hour of my visit. Another feeling I noticed in the children was the excitement when the home daycare caregivers asked them if they wanted to go outside to play, they all clapped, smiled and made exciting noises like "yippy". Emotional development occurs with age, and I found that the children I observed displayed many different emotions. When reading to the children, they made different facial expressions depending on what was happening in the story. Of all the children I observed, each of them had their own personality and temperament. There were little girls at the Child Development Center who were very outgoing and very comfortable playing with me, while some children liked to play alone and were shy around me when I said hello to them. the characteristics are defined in childish terms and are generally positive and exaggerated” (Rice 217). Throughout my observation, I realized that this statement was true. I asked several children ages 4 to 5 at both locations what they wanted to be when they grew up. I had many different answers, ranging from a firefighter to an astronaut to a veterinarian to a hockey player. The different types of answers to this question show that at this age, their self-concept is not exactly what will be reality. Autonomy is very important in children's development, they need to explore and be able to realize that they can do things. for themselves. Home daycare I noticed my daughter wanting to do things for herself, I see this at home too. She wouldn't let anyone help her put her jacket on when they went out, even though it took her about 5 minutes. I find that when I help her with a situation like putting on her socks, she always starts at the beginning and gets very angry with me. If a child is not “allowed to do certain things (within reason), he develops a sense of shame and doubts about his abilities” (Rice 215). Social DevelopmentSocial development is “the process of socialization, moral development, and peer relationships. , in family and at work” (Rice 587). I took note of the form of discipline used in the two different locations, peer relationships, gender roles, and gender stereotypes. During my observation at the Child Development Center, I did not see any children misbehaving, so I did not see how they are disciplined. . I asked one of the students about their disciplinary policy and she told me that they used time outs and explained to the children why they were put in time out. At home daycare, children are also put on time. outs when they misbehave. When I was there, a two and a half year old girl was acting out by taking other children's toys, she was doing it very forcefully, so the caregiver told her she was on a break. The little one had to sit by herself until she was ready to play fair, in less than two minutes she had said regretfully and she was ready to play again. The use of discipline is important because it promotes a sense of self-control in children that will stay with them throughout their lives. Peer relationships were clearly visible between children in both child care settings, even though younger children in both locations did not interact with them. a lot, even if they played side by side. The text indicates that between 2 and 7 years old, children seek to play with children regardless of gender, but at the Development Center of.