Observational Report on Childcare Center and Single Child

This report provides an observation of a childcare center and a single child. It includes information on the learning and social environment, floor plan, and physical, cognitive, and social development of the child.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Observational report
Part 1
A. Learning environment
 The child care center, that I was assigned to observe, is composed of three classrooms: one
toddler’s classroom (ranging from 15 months to 3 years old) and two pre-school classrooms
(ranging from 2.5- 5 years). The color the classroom vibrant pink with painting of different
fairy tales characters on one of the wall and prints of the English alphabets and numerical on
the opposite wall. Classroom was brightly lit and the sitting arrangement of the class ensured
that there are ample space for the free movement of the toddlers and the preschoolers. The
vinyl flooring of the classrooms provides proper friction, such that the children do not get
hurt if they fall on the ground.
A varied range of play equipment like building blocks, pull and push toys , clangors and
the climbers, role play props, paly food, rocking chair, play dough and more could be seen on
the cupboards. Other learning materials that can be used in childcare centers are a projector,
for using it as the audiovisual aids. Resource materials for the sensory play included beads,
wool wraps, buttons and laces. An assortment of books like animal books, some nature and
science books were also available.
I feel that that the class could have had more picture books or charts about animals,
human body, five senses and animal homes to arouse interest among the children.
Children were using the play-dough giving rise to several shapes and sizes at the time of the art
and craft period. Some were using the poster colors and are making hand prints. The art and the
crafts period lasted from 9.A.M to 9:45 A.M. All the children were encouraged to sit around
together during the snack time accompanied by a caregiver for assisting them during the lunch
time, thus generating the scope of sharing and the socialization among the children. The circle
time was held in the morning where all the preschoolers were asked to sit together and were
encouraged to do some stretching exercises. All the students proactively took part in the activity.
B. Social environment
 There were 15 toddlers and 23 preschoolers in the care center. The approximate age of the
toddlers were 12 to 36 months and that of the preschoolers were 3-4 years. The ratio of boys
to girls were 3:4 and the ratio of the child: teacher was 4:1.
 The child care center started in the morning at 8 A.M. Each of the children were collected
from their parents and were guided towards the classroom. It seemed most of them knew
about their allocated seats. There were a handled chair with a fitted desk for each of the
children. During the circle time, the educators encouraged each of the preschoolers to do
some yoga and easy exercise. Most of the preschoolers could do them with the assistance of
the caregiver. The toddlers were comparatively disorganized and were engaged in free-play
activities. One of the teachers were assisting a group of 5 toddlers with play dough activities.

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Two of the preschoolers was found to be inattentive and were disturbing others. Two of them
were rolling on the ground and so the educator asked then to sit beside him. Both the toddlers
and the preschoolers were proactive during the free play activities. It was found most of the
boy preschoolers found interest in the constructive play activities, while the girls preferred
painting or sensory plays with strings and beads. Some preschoolers were using the climbers,
of-course under the supervision of the educators. The circle time helped the children to
socialize, share their thoughts and build a sense of support and respect for each other. For
example, Ron was unable to give the shape of a flower to the play dough. Seeing that, Maria
said “Hey Rom, lemme do it for you” and the assisted him in doing the activity.
 The educators were warm and respectful to the children. All the educators had a good
controlling capacity over the class. The teachers were proactively supervising each of the
children proactively. The teachers were kind and often used warm gestures like a pat on the
shoulder or warm cuddle to the toddlers or words of encouragement like “ Great, you did
very well!. Now you can teach that to your parents and friends as well” or “ can you guys
give a huge applaud for John for completing the task “.

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C. Floor Plan
Active play center
Shleves
Shelves
Tables & chairs
Music area
Block
area
rug Shelves

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Part Two: Observation of a Single Child
Personal profile
Name: Shelly
Age: 2.5 year
Weight: 2 Kg
Height: 34.6 inches
Location of the Observation: Classroom observation
Observational record:
A. Physical development
 Shelly, is an American child of 2.5 years who, has been recently admitted in to the
preschoolers section. Shelly is well groomed, dressed in a skirt and a loose-fitted shirt. Her
brown hair is neatly tied. Although her height is appropriate as per her age, but the educators
had reported, that she had a decreased appetite and hence is a bit underweight.
 Shelly sat up with ease. She seemed balanced and sure of herself. She can independently use
the climbers during the free play activity. She can lean forward with the stomach to the floor
and sit back with the same effort. Shelly can push, pull objects. She was found to be pushing
a toy car across the floor in a back and forth motion. In one of the activities shelly made a
tower made up plastic cups and aimed a ball the tower to break it, which proves that she had
the concept of speed and distance. Shelly seemed to the have good gross and fine motor
skills. She can a grab items while sitting, standing and crawling.
B. Cognitive/intellectual development
During the numeric lessons, Shelly was able to arrange the numbers blocks. When the
teacher asked Ron about the color of the block printed with the “1”, shelly did not waited for the
Ron to answer and spontaneously uttered “It is a yellow square”. Thus, it can be said that Shelly
is gradually developing the number and color recognition skills.
During the period of art and craft, shelly was sitting on the floor and was drawing a big
butterfly, she was using different colors to color the wings. Shelly was having difficulty in fine
drawing and coloring. She was painting haphazardly and had to take assistance of the educator,
thus guided participation can be found.
While Shelly was playing with the play dough, the teacher handed her a ball of clay and
Marie was provided with a long roll of clay, each containing an equal amount of clay. Shelly
shouted, “Mary has more clay with her, I want that roll of clay”. Shelly probably thought that,
more clay is present in the long and thin shaped roll, thus representing ego-centrism. The enter
Shelly represented mild stuttering while talking to her peers and the educator. During the
language class, Shelly could not utter the words like “tremble’, “crawling”. She can pronounce
simple words. Teacher: The lizard crawled down the tree.

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 Shelly: The Lizard “cauled” down the tree.
 During the story telling activity the Shelly said- “The little elephant was “tembling” out
of fear.
Shelly displayed a low speech and often had to repeat things twice to make the educators
understand what Shelly wanted to say.
Shelly cannot concentrate for too long during a descriptive task. When the educator was
assisting the other children in counting numbers, Shelly got up from her seat and went in
front of John’s desk. She took one of his color pencil and drew a line on John’s copy. John
started to shout. The educator guided Shelly to her seat and instructed her to remain seated
for some time. Shelly however gained interest, while learning counting with the help of the
ice-cream sticks.
C. Social development
 During the quite play activities, shelly was working with some colorful beads. She was trying
to put a string inside the beads. Shelly did not give up and tried a lot to stabilize herself. Ron
being proactive to Shelly and tried to help her out. Shelly pushed Ron and snatched away the
string from him. Ron was upset and went back to his place. The educator explained Shelly
that he was just trying to help, hence Shelly should apologize to him. Shelly instantly said
“sorry” to him. The next moment they were smiling at each other.
 Shelly’s behavior can be related to the second stage of the autonomy – “Shame vs.
Autonomy”. It is evident that Shelly does not want to seek help from anyone and wants to do
the task alone.
 Shelly is sitting on the floor with the toys around him. Maria sits on the floor next to her and
she begins to hand her blocks to Maria. Shelly said “Maria, can you make a toy care as the
fast as I can? If you can then, I will gift you a candy”. Both Maria and Shelly started to
arrange the blocks. This shows Shelly is being competitive.
 Shelly loves to socialize with her peer and is also helpful as she had been proactive on
helping her friends- Ron and Maria on their drawing, which demonstrated increased
emotional intelligence. However, Shelly did not demonstrate any leadership activities but had
always worked independently. Shelly had displayed aggression whenever, she is not being
listened to or in cases where she was unable to express herself.
Part Three: Summary and Conclusions
A. The chosen day care center almost had all the facilities that a classroom generally had, except
that the sensory equipment in the class as well as quality of the chats to be used in the
classroom needs to be improved. The lighting and color of the room was spacious and was
enough to accommodate the number of students. As per the observations, most of the
students enjoyed learning by the hands on activities and hence, there has to be a change in the
learning methods and more emphasis has to be given to kinesthetic learning. However, the
classroom environment was interactive, knowledge centered and all the sensory activities
ensured the creative juices flowing.
B. Based on the factual description of the records, it can be inferred that that Shelly had been an
excellent learner and has developed proper fine and gross motor skills. However, Shelly
should be kept under observation due to her mild speech difficulties. Although Shelly loves
to socialize, yet she displays insecured feeling, which can be related to Erickson’s second

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stage of development – Autonomy Vs. guilt, where a child wants to experience autonomy
and does not want any interference.
In conclusion, it can be said that Shelly is a kinesthetic learner and hence, teaching
methods for Shelly should be different. Shelly can be counseled for managing his hostile
behavior to her peers, which can be done by giving specific duties, making her the class
prefect, which will also help in the development of the sense of accountability in the child.