Social-Emotional Development of 1-3 Yr Olds

Karri Tidel
ECED 111
Observation #2
October 22, 2010
Social Emotional

Room 11; 1 year olds: Three children are eating breakfast at a table and feeding themselves. All of them turn and look at us as we walk in. They watch for a few seconds then eat again.
Boy in red- he eats rice krispies with his hands. Looks at us but continues to eat.
Girl in pink and black stand when sees the teacher give child more oranges. Grunts “Uh, uh” Teacher says “you have oranges” Looks at plate and eats. Takes milk cup and drinks then pours it out on table, continues to eat with spoon. Looks at us
Boy turns around and looks. Girl in pink grunts.
Girl in polka dots laughs when Teacher Stella walks in. Pink pours milk out, drops cup again. All of them continue to eat independently. Teacher cleans milk, talks about not pouring the milk out. Boy stands, puts orange in mouth, sit. Polka stands and laughs when teacher helps her sit down. She waves to boy across the table. Pink bangs spoon. Polka points to Pink and laughs and she puts the spoon sideways in her mouth and stands. Pink moans and small smiles then turn to look behind her. Boy stands; teacher asks “Are you all done?” Nods head “yes” Teacher asks if he wants more. He nods “yes.” Teacher pours more for boy. Pink grunts. Teacher gives more to Pink. Teacher asks boy to sit in chair, then says “can you sit in your chair?” Boy nods “yes” Polka bounces and stands. “Can you put your plate away?” Polka picks up plate with two hands. Pink picks up plate and carries it to the buckets. Stops and smiles, grunts. Teacher helps show her what to do. Pink puts plate in bucket then takes spoon out and puts in basket. Polka takes the plate and watches herself in the mirror while placing plate in. Tries to hand plate to teacher. Teacher helps her put in bucket. Watches self in mirror and laughs. “Let’s wash hands” Pink makes a noise that sounds like “no.” Boy continues to feed self, he occasionally looks at us. Pink crawls on a table, “can you put your feet on the ground?” She follows instruction. Boy is asked “All done?” He nods “yes” but sits and continues to eat. Pink goes to food bucket. Polka looks at teacher outside. Says something and teacher responds “That Felicia. She’s getting the water out of the toys.” The girls watch through the window. Polka bangs on door. Walks to shelf with toys and smiles. Pink grabs book/poster and bends it. Smiles then watches us. Teacher turns music on. Polka laughs. Waves at boy. Touches him. She smiles when Stella comes in. Pink follows teacher into bathroom and touches door as it shuts. Polka smiles at Stella. Boy continues to eat. Polka smiles as Felicia walks in and runs to give her a hug. She touches the boy. Boy follows sit down directions and dances after he sees Polka dance. Pink goes down stairs. Polka smiles in my direction then runs to teacher.

Room 29; Early Twos: Children are playing outside
Girl in white jacket goes up hill and “talks” with a friend at the bottom of the hill. Girl in the pink jacket on a push car tries to push it up hill. Talks with friend at the top. Turns and says “a house” Pink looks behind her. She gets to the top of the hill and rides down. Smiles at Miwa. Says something when turns car around. White jacket watches Teacher come up the hill. Smiles at her. Teacher says “Don’t put things in your mouth, ok?” White responds “ok.” Pink is asked “Are you going to ride the bike?” “No. I see a house” and points to it and pushes the car in that direction. While and pink run to the house. White sings Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday then says “I need a mom and daddy” Pink says “K” and runs to the car. They have a conversation, but I can’t hear. Pink goes one way White walks back to the house. Pink pushes the car on grass. Teacher does not go up, Pink looks at teacher. Then Pink pushes it over a grassy hill Teacher asks that Pink does not drive the car there. Pink looks at teacher when teacher is talking to her. Pink goes to the fence and finds something. Takes to teacher. Says something. Gives apple to other student. White tries to zip zipper. Pink takes toy from girl. Responds to teacher to give back toy. White keeps trying to zip zipper. Pink still has car. Picks up ground parts and puts it in other girls bowl. Picks up more. While still trying to zip zipper. Looks at a teacher. Stops trying and gets push car and runs with it. Pink watches her. Pink smiles as I wave goodbye.

Room 22; Two’s: Blond boy being read to. Smiles as we walk in. turns book page. Touches book, be ponds to what is said in book with a grunt, can’t understand word. There’s a girl holding a camera. Whines like she will cry but doesn’t. Spins something on camera. Starts to cry when Teacher helps other student. Stops when Teacher talks to her. Then whimpers again. There’s another boy eating and making some noises. Girl whimpers more. Cries and is walking holding teachers hand and she is leading the teacher. She cries lightly and says “no” and teacher asks “NO what?” Blond boy interacts with book. Acts out as Teacher does. Turns page. Watches girl bouncing like a kangaroo. He rolls on his back and rolls back and forth then to his hands and knees. “Boing, boing, boing” Teacher plays with whimpering girl. Then walks away to cleaning area. Teacher plays peek-a-boo across the red shelf thing. I can’t see the girls face. Then she turns to look at us. Blond boy goes to toys and plays with toys. Comes back to books. Book is done. “Do you want to play in water?” “Yeah” he says. And he goes to water. He takes a bottle from the water table and drinks the water. “Please don’t drink the water. He laughs. “Do you want water to drink?” He responds with a yes head nod and repeats “yuck” after he hears the teacher say that. The whimpering girl stays close to the same teacher. Teacher asks boy “Want to sit and drink water?” He says “No.” He goes back to the water table and puts a turkey baster in his mouth. Drinks from a bucket. Girl watches other teacher get toys out and follow her. The boy runs to a huge ball that is being put outside. Teacher puts it outside, he says “ball, ball.” She tells him they’ll play with it when they are outside. He goes back to the water table. A teacher asks if they want little containers, he says “yeah.” Whimpering girl still has the camera. Touches the red divider and walks away from another teacher and walks to her comfort teacher. She stands behind the teacher. Boy fills a small cup and puts it to his mouth and says “Ahh” and fill it again. He shakes it over the carpet and jumps when all the water is out. Male teacher says to the boy “Gotta change your diaper.” Boy says “No” and walks then runs away from teacher. He smiles and laughs when the teacher catches him. The girl walks to the wall and touches shapes on it. She repeats the teacher’s finger placement on the shapes. The teacher counts out loud to the girl. Teacher asks girl if she wants to play in the water table. Girl says “No.” We leave.

Room 33; 2/3 year olds: Boy is in dramatic play area. Tries to dress and calls friends name, says “C’mon” Goes to loft. Tries to get friend. Friend comes. She says what he says “C’mon.” He takes of dress-up clothes. Smile and has a conversation with girl. Waves shirt around and climbs a wall thing. “Hello, Hello” They play cooperatively. Grabs shirt again, teacher asks “are you going to wear that?” “Yeah” and he follows the friend around the room and up to the loft then back down. They talk back and forth the whole time.
Girl in purple sits in a rocking chair and looks at a book. Sings to self, holds a teddy bear. Flips book, put it on shelf and says “My baby” sings and holds bear like a baby. Rocks and sings to bear. Looks around the room. “Shhh” set bear beside her. Talks to a friend and he hands her a toy. She puts her hand out flat but does not grasp the toy. He takes the toy back. She rocks again and says “Shhh.” Rocks and puts her finger in her nose. Stops rocking and watches children. She covers her ears when a kid hands her a toy.
The boy is now in the sand table and fills a cup. He holds it and watches other students. He makes a sand cup and shouts “Look what I did!” The teacher does not respond. He does it again, this time he taps her while saying “Look what I did!”
The girl put the bear away and walks to the sand table but the teacher says the area is full. She gets a truck and drives it around the room with a friend. Pushes truck to window and looks outside with the boy. They talk, but I can’t hear. She points to something and he says “Let’s go” and she repeats “Let’s go.” The boy in the sand says “No, make castles” then watches what the other children do. He leaves the table and the teacher asks him to go wash. He says no and tries to walk to another area. Teacher says “I’ll help you. “And he says “No” and runs off. She picks him up and turns him around then walks behind him to the sink. She helps him.
The girl pushes the truck back to the window and they laugh. She leaves before the boy. He calls her name several times but she keeps pushing the truck around the room. She goes to a wall and says “I go there. Faster” She’s talking to herself and smiles and laughs as her friend comes pushing his truck. She says “Ready, set, go!” and pushes the truck. The boy is at the writing table. Watches other boy and teacher working. Talks, can’t hear. Crawls on table and watches teachers write numbers and shapes. Follows instructions to get off table. Grabs paper and watches teacher. Purple shirt girl goes to writing table and teacher gives boy a marker. Girl says “I wanna black one!” Girl gets scissors instead, then puts them down and walks away. Her truck friends tell her “It’s time for water,” but she goes and plays in the sand. The boy at the writing table says “I made a truck! Look!” and draws more.

Reflection of Social-Emotional

I believe that every classroom was incredibly well managed and set up to support all aspects of learning for each child. The children were all emotionally adjusted to the rooms and their teachers. None of the children seemed to be bothered by our presents and only one of them waved good-bye to us as we left. I do wonder about Whimper girl though because she might have been uncomfortable about our presents. Everyone else seemed to care too much. I was incredibly surprised to see how independent the one-year-olds were. That was incredible! They were cleaning up their own plates! I was in disbelief when I was writing my cheat-sheet about what to expect from one-year-olds, but it was all proven to me. The two girls were smiling a lot. The Polka dot girl would become intensely happy when her teachers walked in. It was really fun to watch them. My co-observers were worried about the boy drinking water from the water table, but I have to say, I don’t find that to alarming. After all, we saw the teachers putting new water in the table. And, although I did not see what he colored it with, I’m sure it was non-toxic. What do you expect from a two-year-old? Why drink plain, boring clear water when you can try red water? I don’t think it was a safety issue. The only slight issue I saw was outside when a little girl pushed a car thing up a hill and sat on it and rode down. She had a helmet on though. And it looked like a ton of fun to do. But the teacher came over immediately and asked her not to do it again. The biggest issue I had was in the 2/3 year old room. There was a little Asian boy who was sitting by the sand table. Honestly, he looked too young for the classroom. But I never saw anybody, not a teacher or student, interact with him. For 20 minutes he just sat there on the floor looking at us! The teacher was next to him too. Otherwise, the program seemed fantastic. I couldn’t think of any questions at the time to ask the teachers. Probably how much do they pay because that’s a great site. Oh! The kids in the 2/3 room were working with one teacher at the writing table and the kids knew a lot of shapes. They were practicing drawing it. My 3-5’s have been working on those for almost three weeks and we’re still not there! I would have asked how they taught that so quickly. Data Collection All of us agreed that each classroom was set up in an age appropriate manner and had excellent teacher to student ratios. We had two people to observe physical development and one to observe social-emotional. After discussing our findings after the observation we all concluded that cognitive development is very much interrelated with both physical and social-emotional.

Social-Emotional: We saw lots and lots of smiles. We saw a little girl wave to her friend across the table and get very excited to see the teachers. We saw a little girl watch herself in the mirror for about one minute. We saw children actively seeking attention from familiar people. We most definitely saw children in every classroom becoming independent. We saw a display of feelings through behaviors, such as the whimpering girl in the two-year-old room. We saw sharing and participation in small group activities. There were facial expressions to reflect a range of emotions, and even occasional “special friends” (as was the case with the boy and girl in the 2/3 year old room pushing trucks around.) We definitely heard verbal pride in creations and calm, secure, friendly behavior. There was dramatic play as well. I think the Whimpering girl comforted herself, as she did not ever actually cry, she just started to whimper. We did not see anyone get angry because play was interrupted and we did not see any intense interactions with family members. We didn’t even see defense over possessions, which is surprising.

Physical Development: We saw dancing, running, jumping, stairs, crawling, biking riding, walking with a visual aide, and pushing toys. Every room and the outdoor space were set up to promote the children’s physical development. The lofts were super fantastic and the children went up and down and up and down. We especially liked the outdoor area. It had a bike track, a climbing structure with slides, hills, and different textured surfaces. It was super big too. It appeared as though every child but two were independent enough to not need constant adult supervision. The older children could dress up in dramatic play. We did not see any child take off their shoes or socks. We didn’t even see any children accidentally tumble over, which is also surprising.