Veronica Santos

ECED 1010 Preschool Age

Development
Case Study Assignment
May 17th, 2018

Multiple Influences
For my case study, I chose a young girl named Arija. Arija (also known as AJ) was born
on August 18, 2014. Arija is just 3 years and 7 months old. She is one of the taller
children in her class. She would appear to be at least 37 inches tall. Arija has silky
blonde hair that flows down to her shoulders and big bright blue-ish green eyes. She's
tall but thin and she has a big smile she constantly wears on her face along with her
rosy cheeks. Arija enjoys things such as dancing, coloring, and playing on the mats at
daycare. She is all girl and loves to show it through her outfits and hair. Arija enjoys
telling stories and playing in the dramatic play area of the classroom or in the playhouse
outside. She often plays cat with the other girls in her class. Arija likes animals and can
even name many of them.

Arija attends daycare at a center here in Lincoln. It is there where Arija interacts with
other children in her classroom. Arija enjoys being creative, she loves to color with the
markers and paper that are available to her there. Arija’s drawings are not just the
typical sun in the corner and grass at the bottom pictures. Arija often has a big
explanation behind her drawings. Arija loves to be social. She often is not shy to tell you
about herself like what her favorite colors are (responses often change each time). Arija
loves to make random food sandwiches and expects you to participate in her pretend
play by eating the food she made.

Arija also interacts with other children at the park, at family events, and on weekend
getaways. Arija has a 7-year-old brother. One of Arija’s favorite things to do at the
daycare playground is to play in the playhouse with all her classmates. She goes up
and down the latter and brings play food. She uses the play food as a tea party. When
they are not in the playhouse Arija enjoys pretending that the ground is ice and that
she’s ice skating or pretending that her friend and her as cats hanging around on the
porch. Arija has lots of energy she jumps, runs, and flips (only on the mats). Arija
dances to music when her class does “The freeze game”. Arija does not have any pets.
She also has no physical disabilities.

Physical Motor Skills Development

Large Motor Development

3 year and 7-month-old Arija enjoys playing outside with her classmates on a big
playground at her daycare. This is where exhibits large motor skills. Arija loves playing
Simon says. The children line up on the concrete and wait for the teacher to call
something then they do what she said while going towards the back wall and then
something new coming back. Not every child there could do everything the teacher
called out perfectly. Arija was asked to jump like a frog with both feet together. The
norm for that is 2-3 years old. She could jump with both feet together but when asked in
the game to use only one foot she struggled a little more like most of the children mainly
due to balance struggles. The normal age for this is 3-4 years. Arija is 3 years old which
means she fits the normal age for jumping with two feet and though she struggled a little
with jumping on one foot she is not quite 4 years old yet which means she has time to
improve on it before she is older than the norm. Arija likes to play on the slide they have
in the center of the playground. In order to get on the slide or play with the stuff near it,
Arija has to climb stairs. She can easily climb up or down the stairs the only part she
struggles with is alternating her feet while descending the stairs. When timed by me
Arija was able to get up the stairs in 3 minutes and 33 seconds and go down in 5
minutes 24 seconds. It was interesting to see that she fit a lot of the norms for her age
but on some things, she was already doing things before she reached the normal age
for them. Arija enjoys many things outside both large and small motor activities. She
enjoys large motor activities such as pedaling a 3 wheeled bike around the playground.
She falls right in the norm which is 3-4 years old. Arija is very independent and wants to
do almost everything for herself like putting on her helmet. Another large motor skill
Arija can do is gallop when asked though she isn't the biggest fan of it. It can be a hard
time for her telling the difference between a gallop and a skip. It isn't concerning that
she gets the two confused and struggles to perform them a little because skipping is
above what is considered the norm for her age. The normal age for both skipping and
galloping is 5-6 years old.

Small Motor Development

Arija also has small motor skills. Arija loves to do things on her own but there are
some things she struggles with though. Arija is unable to button her clothes. She is able
to unbutton things. The norm for buttoning and unbuttoning is 3-4 years old. Arija’s
teacher says that Arija does not tie shoes, in fact, she wears velcro shoes so she
doesn't have to and she gets them on pretty fast normally taking under 5 minutes. The
shoe-tying norm is 5-6 years old so it is not something to view as a concern that she
can’t do. She has started to form some letters but still scribbles a little. She is able to
draw basic shapes and the normal age for that is 3-4 years old. Arija's teacher has said
that she can cut but that it doesn’t follow the line. She loves to draw cats and she likes
pink, purple, and orange. She draws and writes with her right hand.

Cognitive And Language Development

Cognitive Development

Arija is very eager to show what she knows how to do. Arija's favorite place to be
in the classroom is the art area. This is the place that Arija will sit down and draw or
write and even cut if the teacher is there to watch. Arija takes any chance she gets to
make her art. When I am there on Fridays we often take the children outside. The first
couple of Fridays were cold and the children mainly played inside the playhouse to stay
warm but, now that it's become warmer the children have played more on the outside
equipment and we brought out the chalk. One of the Fridays that I was there Arija and I
sat at the edge of the blacktop with the chalk. We started drawing pictures. Arija asked
me about my name so I spelled it out, she then tried writing it. Next, She asked me to
write her name so I did. Arija wrote her name off to the side. It was clear Arija was able
to print her letters but it showed me that she struggled with the order of them. The only
letter the appeared to be missing after discussing with her what each letter was is the “i”
in her name.

After we take the children outside we often do a potty break. When we take the
children to the bathroom they each lineup and go and wash their hands. After that, they
go by the door and sit against the wall to wait for the other children to finish. While they
do this, They often start a game of eye spy all by themselves. It is there where I have
heard Arija say “I spy something _______” and when I've looked to see what she’s
going to say it’s the correct color most of the time but, sometimes she would pick
something with a smaller amount of that color on it. I've heard her say colors such as
purple, pink, red, brown, blue, white, yellow (she still sometimes messes up they sound
in yellow), green, orange, and on occasion gray. Arija was able to name bigger body
parts but not smaller details. When playing with the other children I have heard her
come up to me and say “ teacher ____ kicked my leg” or “ my feet hurt” and start
whining. I have also heard her say “can I hold you hand”. When the children are asked
to sit on their bottoms she is one of the first to sit down on her bottom like she was
asked. Arija has had a couple of small scratches here and there and one of them was
on her arm. She was complaining that it hurt and said “ teacher, teacher my arm hurts“.
Last week I came in with a bandaid on my finger because the night before I had got a
cut on it. She asked me why I hurt my finger. That same day when we took the children
outside Arija complained that her head hurt over and over and that she wanted to go
home. Those are just a few examples of body parts that she has said at different times
throughout the time I’ve spent there.

Arija's favorite animal to be when she’s playing is a kitty cat. Every time that we
have taken the children outside Arija and another girl that she plays with, have gone
straight to the playhouse that they have on their playground and perch on the porch.
While they do that they meow and yell out that they are kitty cats. Another time that Arija
has talked about animals is when I got done reading a book to the class and I needed to
keep the children occupied while their teacher was answering the classroom phone. I
decided in order to keep them occupied and learn more about them, I would go around
the circle and ask a question which they each answered while the others had to sit
silently. The first question was about their favorite colors, the second their families, and
the third their pets. Some of the children gave names of their household pets and others
named off things like elephants. Arija told me she had a pink dog, fish, and of course a
cat. I then asked what the names of her pets were and she told me she had none so, I
assumed those were just the pets she wanted. With the same girl that she perches with
on the playground, Arija plays in the pretend play area inside. There she finds stuffed
animals like a lizard. She plays with them for a minute or two but when another child
starts doing something she thinks is naughty she will come say “______ is pretending
to______( something normally thought of as being hurtful) the lizard “. I was curious if
maybe she knew more than just what I was hearing. So, I showed her pictures of many
different kinds of animals, sometimes the same one just two different pictures, and
asked her what they were. She struggled with a couple of them and surprised me with
some as well. A few that she knew were kitties, puppies, bunnies, turtles, frogs, and
pigs. These didn't surprise me but when she started telling me the names of others such
as a koala, crocodile, and a panda (she was stuck on this one ) I was very shocked. I
hadn’t said the animal’s name when asking her, I just simply ask what animal it was and
she responded correctly. I went on to ask what noises the animals I had her name off
made. She knew fewer of the sounds but she knew a pig says oink oink and a horse
says nay. She also knew an owl says whoo whoo and a chicken says cakadoodle doo.
She knew a lion roars and for crocodile, she said chomp chomp. There were many
more but those are just a few examples. When I asked what the animals ate she didn't
really know she only replied back with the animal’s names and then food at the end.
The one she did know was a monkey eats bananas. I went on further to ask her where
she thought they lived at. The only answers she gave me that could be seen as correct
were a dog lives in a dog house, and a fish live in the water, and lastly, her favorite a
kitty lives in the house.

When we are giving them snacks or they are playing in the dramatic play kitchen
area You often hear us telling them to sit stuff on top of the table. So Arija already
showed that she knew that but when I used a toy and asked her to place it below,
right/left, far, near, or anywhere else she couldn’t figure out what I meant which is fine.
She is 3 and those are things I’d expect an older kid to know.

Arija counted to 10 and then started mixing the numbers when grouping and
counting. She was able to draw some shapes. Arija still struggles with drawing them
and I feel that it's because she is still working on her pencil grip. She does do okay
drawing circles and ovals. She likes to use them when drawing her cats. Arija may
struggle with drawing shapes but she can name many. She was able to name a circle,
triangle, square, heart, and diamond.

Arija can write a few numbers but they are a bit hard to see. 1-3 are legible but
after that things get a little harder for her. Seriation wasn't something I was able to get
back to due to time but she was able to show classification by sorting small figures into
the groups in which they went. For correspondence, she showed by grouping play
dishes together because they were the same color.

Language Development

Since Arija loves to socialize it was easy to observe her language development. I
was able to get a couple of examples of her speech and those are “My shoosa (shoes)
light up¨ and “I’m going on a color run”. She often uses plural’s when she complains
saying “teacher teacher my feet hurt”. She can use past tense as though she says I’m
instead of I sometimes. For example, when she says “I’m stayed with mommy“. She
doesn’t use a lot of big words but one she has said is hippopotamus. She has not
intentionally said rhymes.

Social/Emotional Development
 Social Development

Independence is something Arija shows very clearly. She gets her coat on her own. She
washes her hands and throws away her trash. There aren’t very many things that she
wants help on. Arija does still depend on adults for a few things, such as zipping her
coat or the occasional redirection. She does like and wants to do many things on her
own. When she is done eating she (without being asked) will throw her trash away and
wash her hands. Then she and her friend will go set up for group time that happens
afterward. Arija engages in lots of play in all different forms. The first type of play she
engages in is solitary play. She plays with small figures and makes them talk and
interact. She mostly does this when there aren’t many children around. The second type
of play she engages in is parallel play. She engages in this when she is cooking at the
stove and her friend is at the baby dolls area. They both are playing something but she
can often be so focused she doesn't bother to try and play together. She engages in
Associative play when she is. Lastly, she engages in cooperative play when she and the
other students’ playhouse and they play family. Her special friend she plays with is a
young girl named Parker. They tend to play together in the dramatic play area they play
with clothes, teapots, phones, and baby dolls. They have played ice skating, tea party,
and house. When they finish Arija helps pick up. Arija is a great helper often helping her
friends find toys and cleaning up after snack.

Emotional Development

She is overall a very happy child. She smiles, gives hugs, and giggles. She rarely gets
angry but when she does she normally will pout for a couple of minutes and then she
gets distracted by something else and leaves. The times that I have seen her get angry
have always taken place outside on the playground or on a day she’s tired and we are
lining up. An example of a time I have seen her get angry is when she was on the
playground and a friend of hers decided to go down the slide and the same time. She
did say their name and got up and moved to some other equipment. She is normally
very friendly with everyone.
There are the occasional days where a friend is doing something she doesn’t like and
she’s tolerating it less so she eventually will become irritated. This is when she starts
huffing and not wanting them to talk to her or touch her. She begins to whine. She
shows a lot of affection towards her two play friends and teachers. She gives them hugs
and tells them they are her best friends and will tell the teacher I love you though the
teacher just laughs.

Visit with Case Study Child’s Parent

When speaking with Arija’s mom over the daycares phone she suggested that the best
way to get a hold of her was to email her. She gave me the correct email as she said
she had given me the wrong one when she wrote it on the sheet for me. I later emailed
her mother to share with her some of the strengths I have observed in Arija. When
emailing her I started by introducing myself as Veronica Santos from The career
academy. I then went on to add a reminder that I was the student observing Arija. I
thanked her for allowing me to observe her daughter. The first strength I shared was
Arija’s large motor skills. I told her mother how she was able to do everything asked of
her. She was able to jump with her feet together.

Activity Suggestions to Define Learning

Small motor skills

Activity #1: Tracing

She will trace the letters and rewrite them. From a sheet then to a piece of scratch
paper.
Cognitive Development

Activity#2:Mother’s day flowers activity

Arija is working on her pencil grip to improve her writing. This activity would be
something she would enjoy because she loves art. She loves using many colors. In this
activity, she would color the outside of the flower and write to mom in the center of it.
This is where she would work on holding the thin marker or pencil and write something
for mom in the middle.

Social/Emotional Development

Activity#3: Expressive drawing

The child will be given supplies such as markers, colored pencils, paper, and crayons.
The child will draw how they feel and write something. This way it’s combining her love
for art her help with pencil grip into one activity.

Summary of Case Study Child Report

To start this study I selected one of the children that the lead teacher of the room
recommended. After selecting a child, I sent home a permission form, a question form,
and a letter explaining the study. After receiving the forms back, I was able to begin my
observations. The observations were done in sections. In the first section of my
observation I gathered some information from the parents through the question form
and the rest I gathered from watching the child play. I watched her play because one of
the things I was looking for was her interest. I also looked at her appearance and if she
had special needs. This is the section where I learned that the child’s first and last
name. That she is 3 years and 7 months old. She has no special needs and her
interests include art, playing cats, playing house, and more. The second section of my
observations was directed towards her physical motor skills, both large and small. I
looked for large motor skills such as jumping, climbing, and skipping. I was seeing what
skills she could do and which skills she still needed to work on. For this section, she
was observed outside. Her teacher had Arija and the other children play a game of
Simon says. She called out different movements for the children to do. Small muscle
skills were observed when the children were having mat time where they did dancing
and yoga. The children removed their shoes for this. One of the things I was looking for
during this observation time was if Arija could put on her shoes and that she could do. I
was filled in by Arija’s teacher that Arija could not tie shoes. Since the normal age for
tying shoes is 5-6 it wasn’t anything the teacher worried about. Another thing that I
looked at in this section was Arijas writing and paper cutting. Arija was observed during
playtime for this information. At this time Arija often uses the paper and the markers
they give her access to and she creates two to three pictures. Each taking her a bit of
time as she put a lot of thought into each. My third day of observing was the hardest
overall. It was the day I looked at Arija’s cognitive and language development. This
section was broken down into two parts, cognitive development, and language
development. For the cognitive part, I had to draw my attention to things like could she
write her name and other letters. I also looked at her knowledge of colors, body parts,
animals, and shapes. Figuring out what colors she knew wasn't hard due to the fact that
she plays a game of I spy every time she's waiting for her classmates to finish their
bathroom routine. She names just about every color twice at least during the game.
Other information was gathered in bits throughout the day but was also gathered
through questioning as well so that some of her knowledge wasn't left out. The
language development part was focused on the child's speech, things such as could
she use past tense or plurals? This was a piece that needed to be observed when she
was interacting with her classmates and a few times with teachers. The last section of
the observations was aimed towards the child's social/emotional development. In this
section, I looked at Arija’s self-help skills like what tasks she did independently. I also
looked at the way she expressed emotions such as anger and joy. I looked at the
different types of play the child did and gave examples of this. Self-help skills were
observed during breakfast where she cleaned up and washed her hands on her own
and found her seat on the rug. This study taught me that 3-year-olds hold more
knowledge than a lot of people think. It also showed me that a group of kids can be the
same age but will be at many different places in their development. I learned that three-
year-olds come with different struggles, interests, and abilities. I learned that three-year-
olds mostly struggle with small motor skills such as pencil grip and writing. Three-year-
olds already exhibit signs of independence but still need help with certain tasks. I
learned that relationships in the classroom play a big part for three-year-olds because
they do copy what they see. I learned that it’s even more important to be professional
and not baby the children because then problems can arise. I learned as a child care
provider I will need to keep in mind that the environment I provide the children and the
relationships formed in that area along with other factors can greatly affect the
development of a child.