Child Development and Learning

Scenario – Observation on George

Personal details

George is a four year old boy. He is in 3 to 5 years old room which consists of 25 children. He is the youngest child and parents have enrolled him in the pre-school setting as both are working and have no relatives nearby. George had been attending pre-school for about three months.

Background information

George belongs to a contemporary family who recently moved from New Zealand to Australia. His father works in marketing firm and mother owns a boutique. He has an older brother and sister aged 9 yrs and 11 yrs. His sibling go to school and later hobby classes which makes them little time to sphere with their younger brother except on weekends. The mother has revealed George interest in colours and playing with flowers and animal figurines especially dogs.

Documentation technique for observation

In the art corner, George for past few days had been experimenting with different colour combinations. In discussion with family member, the instructor decided to provide small paint bottles and a mixing palette to encourage George to develop self-created colour combinations.

Some animal figurine was also provided where George started taking about different animals in the neighbourhood and their colour and size and activities. As he tried colour combination, he said about the gold colour resembling the fawn colour dog saying I like this one and grey colour of the neighbour cat and expressed his love and care for animals. He looked at the animal figurine cautiously and tried to match the colours with the paint bottles.

The next day morning, out of different activities such as playing with Train and Train tracks or wheel toys, marbles, and activity books George chose to play with blocks and tried to build a tall tower stacking the building block when few block falls he got sad and worried and after some thought tried to rebuild it. He was happy and smiled much of the time.

During an indoor play, George ran towards the area of storage tub filled with beads in different shapes and sizes. He started to pick beads, first he took a square shape, then circle , then again circle, rectangle, triangle till he got around twenty beads of different colours. He then started to put beads of similar shape together, saying same, once he managed to sort all the twenty beads he again mixed it and then again put beads of same colour together saying it’s same colour and cheered.

In an outdoor area, George was watching another child who was filling a bucket with sand using a spade. After sometime George went near the child and observed closely, the child asked to play but George did not responded. Later, the child started playing with sand. George grabbed the spade and pulled the bucket and completely filled the bucket and smiled.

Observations

The written documented observations reveal a lot about the George interests, skills, strengths and abilities. The observation about working with colours and discussing about animals presents opportunity for the educator to initiate conversation at ease with George.

George attention to detail about neighbourhood pets revealed his growing interest in animals by his conversation and indicates the knowledge about animals simply by his interpretation and colour representation. This highlight active learning and educator can involve in learning methods that involve art and colours.

George interests from the documented observation highlights inclination towards colours and animals, completing unfinished work and working with shapes and colours. Therefore, it can be related to its strengths which is analysed to be recognition of shapes, colours, animals and undivided concentration for the task on hand and do not get frustrated with the task.

The George has fine motor skills as observed in the way of holding colours and paint brushes. George abilities lies in working/playing independently and also show ability to communicate verbally with the teacher.

Considering the development domains, it can be observed that George understands speech, and has language skills as he make use of complete sentences and talk with adults. He is also able to express his feeling in words for animals and colours however, George is usually not observed to talk with other children or initiate conversation.

He also displays good perpetual skills (Visual) as able to understand and match shapes and colours and has some developing motor skills and little cognitive skills as observed in stacking activity of building blocks correctly to form a tower and sorting of colours and shape. On the other hand, cognitive skills are not observed as George do not asking questions about things or material given and did not show interest in activity books.

George seems happy most of time and engaged in activities as well as do not disrupt other activities which highlights its good emotional stability however, he lacks in social skills as he do not have friend and does not join any work or game in group and prefer working/playing alone. Thus, he is confident and involved learner and has developed a sense of identity as he is able to openly express feelings in the interactions with teacher.

The expected developmental highlights in George can be more groups play activities that improve social skills and develop confidence in getting along and playing with others children to become an effective communicator. Learning in relation to the expected outcomes can be influenced by enhancing George cognitive capabilities and developing practices that supports George learning preference with colours.