Child Care Observation

I observed children at ABC Child Development Center in the 3 year old classroom on March 1, 2010 from 8am until 11am. The classroom had a very diverse composition in the classroom, Hispanic, African American, Caucasian, Native American, and Asian (Vietnamese). In addition to diversity the ABC child development focus on maintaining a child centered environment that allows children to learn at their own pace. The classroom had 2 teachers and 24 children in attendance during the observation. The classroom has blue walls and displays of the children’s artwork around the room for Saint Patrick's Day and also spring. The classroom had 8 centers for learning and activities. The centers were arranged at the
Physiologically the children did not appear to have any developmental delays, most the children were able to use large and fine motor skills without any difficulty. The children could mold the play dough into various shapes, use scissors, and glue. During the pretend play the children were able to complete the various range of movements that included squatting low on the ground to pull their bow and arrows and jumping to miss the frogs. Handedness appeared to be prevalent in most of the children during the observation. Most of the children were using their right hands during the art, but here was one student that used her left hand during the painting of the clovers. Many of the children displayed the cognitive characteristics of a 3 year old. During the circle time, the children sang the song Ram Sam Sam. The song allowed the children to improve their memory development through the repetitive language used in Ram Sam Sam through encoding. Encoding is the process by which information is prepared for long-term storage (Papalia, Olds, Feldman 2007 pg 278). The students were able to recall the song Ram Sam Sam from memory to sing during circle time. Ram Sam Sam involved memory, but it also utilized cross lateral movements that help develop each hemisphere of the brain and corpus callosum (Schiller 1999). There were many activities that the children participated in that illustrated Piaget’s