Development levels and record Essay

To observe Lydia during a creative â€Å"choosing† session. I will try to observe her development levels and record how she interacts with other children and the adults around her.  Setting  The primary school, in which I am working in, is situated on a campus with a sports centre, a community school and a 6th form college. It has 6 junior classes and 3 infant classes. There is a class room assistant and a teacher for each class. On a Thursday and a Friday there are 2 students working in the infants. There are a various number of parent helpers in on different days of the week. Lydia is 6 years 11mths old and is in yr. 2. She has just completed her SATS. She is in the 1st (higher) set for math and in the 2nd (middle) set for literacy. She has many friends and enjoys school, learning new things. Lydia has 3 friends who she usually plays with and works with in class. They are all girls and all in year 2. Hannah, Shannell Erica and Lydia always do the same activity even if they don’t all agree. English is Shannell’s second language and she sometimes has trouble with the language barrier between the girls in the group. I will observe Lydia on the 27th of July 2002 for 45mins during a creative choosing session. There are several activities set up in the class rooms and the children may choose which activity they wish to participate in. Some of these activities include painting, drawing, junk models and collage work. Observation  I will make notes during my observation, then copy it up into a written report.  Lydia heads straight for the art table at the far end of the classroom where a painting session has been set up. Her and many of the yr2 girls start collecting sheets of paper. Lydia, Hannah, Erica and Shannell ask me what they can paint as I sit down at the end of the table. I suggest that they draw each other. So the girls pair up. Hannah and Lydia start to paint Shannell and Erica. Lydia looks closely at Erica’s features and tries to copy down all the details. She notes the freckles, the dimples the small earrings and the way her hair is put up. She miss judges the size of Erica’s nose and as a consequence the picture looks out of place. She mixes up the colour to fill in for Erica’s skin tone. Erica sits slightly impatiently fidgeting slightly. Lydia still concentrates on the painting and ignores Erica impatience and continues to concentrate hard on the colour mixing. I ask her some questions. â€Å"Lydia, what colours make green?†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"That’s easy, you just mix blue with yellow   But you have to put yellow in first ’cause blue is darker and you have to put loads of yellow in to make it a lighter colour.†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Ok, how about purple?†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Oh Miss Carr, that is well easy, don’t you know?†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"I’m just seeing if you do, so that if you don’t know I can teach you.†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Oh, -thinks hard- ok. It’s blue and red. Isn’t it?†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Yes well done, How about brown?†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Yellow, blue and red!†    I learnt a lot from with class 1 / 2 K and this was a typical session. Everyone in the class has different view on things and even though there are definant social groups every one is friends with everyone else. The teachers and other staff need to practice anti-discriminatory and anti-bias practice. It is important to portray equal opportunities.  Children are to be treated equally but at the same time their personal needs need to be taken into consideration. In class 1 / 2 K there are friends who are in definite social groups then there are groups that inter-change and mix with the whole of the infant’s school. This observation points out how the girls work together to the get tasks completed. They all work together to form a good team. It is a clear that the team works well; they all have roles to play. There’s the team leader Hannah, the quick thinker Erica and the â€Å"do-er† Lydia who always works hard to complete necessary tasks. Shannell is a hard work er and tries to fit in even if she doesn’t always understand. I learnt to set up and clear away activities with the children’s help how to encourage exploration of colour and creativity. I managed to gain the children’s confidence and by helping them to reach their full potential.  All four girls developed their fine motor skills and creativity in this exercise. They practice painting techniques and different colours and styles. They learned how to co-operate and communicate with each other. They learn to trust opinions of the adults they work with, they learn to respect their knowledge and experience. I think that in the future the children could be put into groups to help them to mix into different social groups and form new relationships. Lydia could have, in the future, extra help during task’s which involve thinking though complicated theories, and she has trouble understanding some complicated concepts.