Nursery School Observation - Case Study Example

NURSERY SCHOOL OBSERVATION Introduction. Young children have unique characteristics as compared to primary school pupils. They have three to five years of age and this are ages of curiosity about new things in the environment. This research paper explores the detailed characteristics of the preschoolers, giving examples of a particular child called Mary. Name and physical characteristics. Mary is a four year old preschooler in Braeburn international school. She is a very aggressive child who will want to know everything she sees around. She is approximately three feet tall, coming up to my hips. Compared to other children in classroom, Mary is taller. This is because most of the other children are approximately 2.5 feet. This height makes her uncomfortable, feeling older than the rest. Ironically, Mary is the lightest girl in the entire school. She weighs 28 pounds. She is usually identified to be a preschooler so fast by any professional who visits her school. This is because she loves an orderly and neat classroom. The seats must be arranged in good order always, failure of which sends her out of the classroom to report to the teacher. Children at these ages appreciate an attractive room with beautiful pictures on walls. These features are so unique among these children. A look at them at a glance tells one that the children are pre-scholars (Keating 10). Gross and fine motor skills Mary, however, is handicapped as her right hind limb was amputated when she developed chronic cancer on foot. This has really been a serious problem for her when she wants to develop her gross motor skills. Realizing that she is different from the rest also makes her uncomfortable to some extend. Her hard work and anxiety renders her willing to mingle and exercise with the rest. She does hip and hop jumps with the rest although not as perfect as the rest. The reason is that the teachers have never reminded her that she is handicapped. Neither have they isolated her from the exercises due to the fact that she is lame physically. So she feels same as the rest is class. Fine motor skill is the movement of small muscles in the various parts of the body due to coordination and response created by the nervous system. In Mary’s performance, I identified two skills she performed well. First, the teacher asked them to see what he was doing and imitate him. He held his head several times as he hangs the hands down. Mary did it perfectly well as the teacher did. In another instance the teacher told them to count the fingers as they hold one finger after another. The girl did it perfectly well. The teacher told them to write on the floor. They had to see what the teacher did and practice the same. Mary saw the images and drew them as the teacher wanted. Mary’s fine motor skill is good. I did not expect her to do that because she is handicapped. I realized that every part of the body has its specific coordination mechanism and that the nerves of the forelimbs are different in function from those in the hind limbs. I also thought that she is too young to understand the teacher, which is not true (Keating 12). Most of the children in the class used right hands to perform the tasks. This is because using right hand, they would perform more effectively and efficiently than the left hand. They also felt burdened when they were forced to use their left hands. Mary did not have any difference in her fine motor skill development from the rest, except the amputated foot which was hard to conform. This is because some nerves had been destroyed, hence interfering with the eye-foot coordination (Keating 7). Mary’s ability to think is good. This is because she went to an extent of asking some reasons for natural occurrences. For instance, she asked about the difference in people’s heights, why people varied in sex (she wanted to know why some children are said to be boys and others are said to be girls). This implies that she is critical in thinking which is very good. Her attention span however, is very short, lasting for only 10-15 minutes. According to the study by (Keating 20), a child has to concentrate for about 20 minutes. Compared to other children in class she concentrates for a few minutes only. This was evident when she could divert her concentration to the pictures on the walls and start getting uncomfortable. The teacher has to frequently break the monotony of teaching to physical exercise for a few minutes before he resumes. I expected Mary to concentrate for at least 20 minutes. Language and communication behavior Mary seemed talkative as compared to the rest in class. Those aged 4 and 5 could be understood faster than those aged below these ages. Most of their sentences were 2-3 word long during communication. Mary falls under this group. She, unlike others, did initiate the conversation. Mostly she would ask a lot of questions to the adults, and teach her fellow children what she knew and heard from adults. Some of the questions she asks need greater explanation which won’t understand. This means that she was anxious about knowing from the adults, so as to go and teach her colleagues in class (Keating 25). Emotional and social life Happy emotions dominated the session where the children were so anxious and happy to learn new things. They were also aggressive of taking photos on the camera I had. This provoked hostility when each one decided to pursue selfish interests by wanting to have personal photograph. I solved it by taking a photograph of every one of them. There were some caring emotion in some children. This was displayed when they came to me complaining that one of them was feeling unwell. I called on the school nurse to attend to her before they emotionally resumed the session. This emotion was created by the new environment, since I was strange to them and my mission seemed strange to them. This environment did influence the emotions (Keating 30). The children were keen on gender. They would always want to play with those of the same sex. I observed that Mary threatened to accuse a boy who leaned on her shoulder. The accusation was that it was not right for a boy to get connected to a girl physically. The children liked hide and seek with fellow girls. Mary spent little time in it, although she liked it. This is because it involved more of physical movement while Mary is physically handicapped. She spent most of her time on reading of storys, drawing and other plays that did not require a lot of locomotive movements. Children likes where they enjoy competition with the rest. Since Mary was handicapped, she could not compete favorably with the rest. This discouraged her from joining the rest in such plays that needed locomotion. She therefore concentrated on things that needed thinking most since she was a good thinker. Work cited Keating, P., (2010). Nature and Nurture in Early Child Development. UK: Cambridge ` University Pres Read More