Gross Motor Activities - Essay Example

Gross Motor Activities Introduction Brian is a male child born on 3rd April 2011, currently aged four years and attending a preschool in Texas. Brian comes from a nuclear family in which the father, mother and two sisters are alive. He is the last born among the siblings. The mother is a nurse while the father is a businessperson who operates in agricultural products. The other siblings are aged seven years and 12 years, who attend a private school that is located in the estate. The family stays in the suburbs of the city, which is densely populated and most of the families living there are of a middle-class economy. Several activities go around in the child neighbourhood; for example, there are manufacturing companies, construction companies, street clubs, schools, colleges and shopping malls among others. Most of the families that stay in the region love intermingling with each other, that is evident by the several social and support groups in the area. Children are often taken for a get together party twice in a month, a place where they get to play and extensively interact with one another. The preschool that Brian attends is a private institution that is sponsored by the Catholic Church. Most of the children in the preschool mare aged between 3-4 years and they attend the school two days in a week and three days in a week respectively. Brian has a got a dog pet named boxy, which he state that he love its company and plays with it a lot. In essence, Brian is a charming and active child in the family who is dedicated to performing activities that are within his reach. Physical skills After obtaining consent from Brian’s Parents and permission from the school administration to perform my follow up on Brian, I began my case study at home and in school. In school, Brian is in the middle range of height among other pupils and sits in the front, middle row in class. It can be stated that Brian is physically fit, this in relation to the various activities that the child is performing. For example, Brian can run around the classroom, arrange toys, push some objects that are about 3kg, jump and play some wrestling games with friends for a couple of minutes. A child who is physically fit is the one who can perform such activities; moreover, there is no physical deformity that Brian has. Gross motor activities are those activities or movements that involve the use of the large muscle in the body such as of the hands, thighs, legs and neck. It is imperative to note that the development of Gross motor activity begins as soon as a child is born. As the child continues to grow, the gross motor activity continues to develop and become better. Children utilise the gross motor skills to perform various skills such as walking and playing among others. Brian was able to display full utilization of gross motor activity through playing, throwing balls, hop on one foot, gallop for 4 feet and jumping among others. Fine motor activities are achieved when a child learn how to utilise small muscles such as those muscles in the hands, fingers and wrist. Brian was able to employ his fine motor skills correctly since he was able to button cloth, tie a shoelace, turn book page and performs some painting among others. The child is mostly involved in gross motor activities since he loved playing with colleagues by running around, cycling bicycle and galloping. The child enjoyed kicking a ball around, running, bicycle cycling and building of blocks using toys. Mostly the child enjoys utilizing toys while playing with others and occasionally gets involved in painting activities. It shall be of benefit if the guardians and the teachers enhance more of fine motor activities utilization. The child should be encouraged to perform activities such as painting, using play dough to make objects, cutting of papers in a straight line among others. By doing such activities, the child shall improve his fine motor skills thus increasing the developmental milestone as per age. Week 2: cognitive development Introduction Cognitive development is usually very evident in children who are aged between 3 to 4 years old. These children occasionally ask several questions and try to explore why things are happening in a particular pattern. At this stage, the child usually starts to have some mastery of language and occasionally use simple terms to describe and ask for something. The child can differentiate different objects in terms of shape and colour. The child can count objects and appreciate the concept of counting; in addition, the child can follow a command as directed (Sluss, 2015). Cognitive development My second week of the study involved assessment of the cognitive development of Brian while at school. Since preschool is majorly focused on social, cognitive and physical development of a child, the children were given more time to play rather than reading and writing. The class was taken for physical education that involved the performance of physical activities as guided by the teacher. There were several physical activities ranging from individual exercises to group exercises. In the beginning, the class was divided into five groups each having about four children and each group was given a unique task to perform. Brian’s group was provided with different toys cubes, and they were required to join the toys and build a house. Surprisingly enough Brian was chosen to be the team leader and was mandated with the task to coordinate the group. This was an incredible task for the little boy, but it offered me the best opportunity to evaluate the cognitive development of Brian. Just at the beginning of the play, all participants were very active and everyone was bringing ideas on the simple but the best house to build based on their previous experiences. A consensus was difficult to be reached but with the intervention of the teacher, they agreed to build a flat house that was simple. Brian engaged with his colleagues appropriately and he was asking some question when he felt that he was lost in the play, he often suggested the use of different colours in different places while building the house. This was very interesting since he was trying to link the house that they were building their house that has some unique colours in various parts. Cognitively I can state that the child was able to visualise and classify different colours. Moreover, Brian was deeply involved in sorting out different shapes of the toys that were to be joined to make a corner or a roof. Sorting shapes is as a result of higher motor function activity and a child who can identify critically the best shape that can be joined to make a move has the right cognitive skill. Each group member was given a chance to stack together the cubes while acting on the collective directives of the group members and the teacher. During the time of Brian, he was able to follow the instructions that were being provided by the fellow group members. However, there were occasions at which he wanted to do things his style and this brought commotion among the members. The teacher was there to calm the tension in such scenarios since it was not only happening in Brian’s group alone, but in other groups too. During the occasions that the teacher came to assess the progress of the group, Brian who was the team leader was to explain what was happening. It was very interesting to note that he was so quick to point out the other person who starts a commotion and provides a broad explanation of what is happening. However, when he was the troublemaker, he was very reluctant to state the situation and occasionally pretend as if all was well. It means that Brian was gradually developing, and was able to differentiate between good and bad. As stated earlier, at the age four years a child starts to differentiate between the good things and bad things as influenced by the society in which he/she lives. Guilt and innocence were apparent on Brian behaviour in that he felt guilty when he has done a wrong thing and was brave enough to state other people’s issues. Time was a necessary factor during the play since they were limited to one hour in performing their activities. Occasionally the teacher could come and ask the group members how far they had gone and how much time they think was left to complete their task. At these moments, Brian was very active and would state that they are at the level of making a roof, building stairs and so on. However, he was not well acquainted with time left since stating the time left needed some arithmetic that he was cognisant not able to perform. Nevertheless, he was able to say the general time of the day such as morning and noon. Therefore, it means that despite Brian being not able to tell precisely the exact time but he has developed cognitive domain to an extent of differentiating between morning, afternoon and night. When they had completed building the house, the group had to put some objects to depict a homestead such as cars, trees and some animals. I noticed that Brian was quick to put a car toy just beside the house that they had built. I later asked why he chose to put the car there, and he stated that that was the place that their dad pack their vehicle. Other group members also set various trees and cars at distinct positions. In making such moves, it is imperative to note that Brian was able to recognise a car and state the best position that the car should be parked meaning that he has acquired the knowledge already. The overall assessment of Brian in the whole play is that he had good cognitive development; in addition, he was mostly utilising receptive language than expressive speech. This is because he was able to understand and comprehend more of the instructions he was being given than putting thoughts into sentences accurately. Toys, puppets, and paintings can be used to enhance cognitive development in children since they make the children have abstract thinking. For example, puppets can make children memorise stories since they see how the puppet behaves. In education psychology, it is believed that when an individual is shown an object and taught at the same time then that person can retain a lot of information. Moreover, a child who is having several puzzle pieces of toys can work out on his own how to assemble them together thus increasing the thought process of that child. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development postulates that childhood life has a significant role in an individual’s development. The theory proposed that children gradually construct knowledge as well as understanding of the environment by coordinating the experiences in life. Therefore, a child who is given the necessary support such as play during his/her growth shall have a better cognitive development. Week 3: Social Emotional Development Introduction The social and emotional development is the development of a child’s identity or self-image and the development is related to feelings about himself or herself. The child should develop emotional and social skills that help in surviving in the dynamic society. According Erikson theory, children who are at the preschool stage are eager to tackle new tasks and perform activities that are done with other peers as well as developing a conscience. It is at this stage that children get involved in play and practice new skills to achieve goals of various tasks. The child begins to form a superego by identifying with the parent of the same sex as well as adapting to the communities moral and gender roles. Since the child develops language, it enables the young child to talk about their subjective experiences making the child develop self-concept. Social Emotional Development While in class Brian is very active and intermingles a lot with the classmates, he is a play full charming boy. I noted that the boy is sensitive to praise and criticism while in class or playing with other peers. For example, when he performs some active roles in class such as arranging sitting positions and leads in singing he feels happy when praised by the teacher. This makes Brian more involved in the class activity at all times. However, when he has done a mistake and is corrected he occasionally feels ashamed and remorseful for his actions. This was evident by being quite for a while and sometimes become withdrawn from his peers while they play. He plays alone by using toys or cycling bicycle and does not want any peer to accompany him. In addition, I came to realise that their teacher was having a lot of impact on the self-conscious of Brian. The teacher induced an adaptive level of shame as well as pride by focusing on improving the performance of the child. This was achieved by giving positive remarks when there is a problem rather than rebuking the child. For example, when he has made a mistake the teacher could say, “You did it this way, but you can do it better this way” rather than say, “you are a bad boy.” Temperament has a significant role to play in whether empathy may lead to sympathy and other social behaviours. Scholars have identified that children who are sociable, regulate their emotions and are assertive can comfort others as well as share with them their belongings. Brian was not good in controlling his emotions since he occasionally frowned and bit his lips when angered. However, he was not truant and beating junior peers but rather protects and always felt remorseful when anything bad happen to colleagues. For instance, one child fell and was bleeding from the knees that were bruised, I saw Brian providing his handkerchief to wipe the oozing blood. This shows that Brian was caring, sociable and empathetic. Peer relation was another aspect of social-emotional development that I noted while monitoring Brian in school. As stated earlier, Brian was very play full and quite often engaged most of his peers in play. He was able to construct sentences to enhance communication between him and his colleagues while performing different tasks or during play. For instance, He could bring different car toys and convince other children to play with him the racing car game. This was very remarkable since peers help each other to develop socially and cognitively. By the third week that I have been monitoring Brian, I realised that there was a strong bond and attachments among the children in the class. This was evident in the afternoon when the parents or guardians come to pick them. Most of them take too long to leave their play station and continue to engage in play with other peers and occasionally may cry because they are going home. According to Mildred, children aged 2-5 years of age have a three-step sequence in social development, which include non-social activity, parallel play and associative/cooperative play. I observed that Brian and most of his peers were involved in Cooperative play. This is because most of the children engaged each other in the play and were oriented towards achieving a particular goal. Brian and friends would participate in toys car race, building of cubes and puppet playing among others. During My stay at the school, I did not notice any humour that Brian had made, but I noticed that he was much interested in the joke that other peers were making. In essence, Brian was able to follow conversation and action of one of his peer that was well known for making funny comments quite often. Week 4: Pulling it together My observation of Brian from the day I started giving him a close follow-up was successful, in that I was able to analyse his development. Typically in the physical skills/activity, I noted that Brian was able to perform several skills by utilization of gross motor and fine motor skills. A normal child who is aged four years should actively engage his motor skills in play. This was well observed in Brian since he was able to perform several activities such as galloping, jumping, running and cycling among others. It was very evident that Brian was steadfast in engaging in classroom activities with others, meaning that the motor domain was fully developed as per his age. It is imperative to note that if Brian could have had inadequate or delayed motor development, I could have observed that he was not able to cope with the activities of other peers. Fine motor skills were similarly well developed since he was able to perform some fine motor movement such as scribbling, buttoning of a shirt and tying shoe laces among others. In essence, fine motor skills are usually more advanced than gross motor skills. They occasionally delay developing in children because they need constant practice, as well as brain development. However, Brian was able to perform several fine motor skills as per his age that showed proper psychomotor domain development. The cognitive domain of the child was similarly well developed as evidenced by the various activities that the child was able to perform. Some of the activities included speech, differentiation of object in terms of shape and colour as well as understanding different commands from peers and teacher. It is important to state that cognitive development is one of the major aspects of a child’s development, and any delay makes the child slow in thinking as well as in executing activities. Brian had a well-developed cognitive domain since he was able to perform various activities that needed abstract thinking as well as general ideas. I can state that his Brain was developing well since I was able to compare him with some of the classmates who appeared to be very slow in performing some task or engaging in the play. In the social development aspect, I would state that Brian was developing appropriately in the social context. A child who has a problem in social development occasionally shows the sign of social withdrawal, arrogance, bullying and abusive. In contrary, Brian was a charming boy that loved playing with peers, providing a helping hand and enjoyed listening to peers jokes. During their free playtime, Brian enjoyed engaging in cooperative play than parallel or non-social play, which affirmed that the child has good social behaviour and interaction. The child had a good adaptive behaviour while with the peers, is very interactive and has good self-conscious emotion. These traits make the child develop better in the society since he can adapt quite easily to the dynamic environment. One major weakness that I noted that Brian has is adapting to some forms of corrections when he has done something wrong. As I had stated earlier, Brian can decide to withdraw socially when confronted directly with his mistakes and he decides to play alone or just sit lonely. I can deduce that the Child has an inadequate stress coping mechanism that should be well addressed in this early stage. Several studies have shown that play has a significant role in social, physical and cognitive development of a child (Koralek, 2004); I would advocate for cooperative play to Brian. Most of the activities that Brian is involved should be more of cooperation with others rather than solitary. This means that two or more people should play toys and games that are within his reach. In practicing this, much of the motor, cognitive and social skills shall improve significantly. The parents and other family members should engage Brian in play while at home and teach him stress adaptation since this was the major weakness I noted. This can be achieved by providing Brian with some leadership role during a play and a mock disagreement made so that Brian learn how to handle stress and cope with different situations. Reference Koralek, D.G. (2004) Spotlight on Young Children and Play. Washington, DC: NAEYC. Sluss, D.J. (2015) Supporting Play in Early Childhood 2nd Edition. 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