Child Case Study Project CHD 265

By- Bishnu Tamang

A Profile of the Child

Prenatal Development: Mom did not have any complication when she was pregnant with K.

She stayed at home with her first born child. She said that she felt active throughout her

pregnancy with K, though she was anemic. She ate nutritious food and did exercise on a regular

basis. She stayed away from smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. The fetus developed well.

Birth Process: K was born at Reston hospital, Virginia four years ago. She was a full term

baby. Mom said that she was in labor for three hours. When she arrived at the hospital, she was

already dilated about 8 centimeters. She delivered K vaginally without much complication. The

whole birth process went smoothly with her second child as compared to her first child‟s birthing

experience. In her son‟s time, she was in labor for 23 hours.

Significant Developmental Milestones/ Experiences: Baby K did not show any signs of

significant developmental milestones. When she was about three months old, she started making

some sounds like ah! Oh! When she was about four months old, she tried to sit up. By six

months, she could sit up on her own. She took her first steps at ten months. By around her first

birthday, she started saying mama or baba and started running around.

K is a sweet little four year old girl in our Head Start class. She is a typically developing child. I

randomly observed her during different activities and play time. I then chose three major

developmental areas. They are physical, language and cognitive development. After observing

her in three developmental areas, I planned and implemented three activities to support her

developmental and learning.

Observation # 1: Checklist-Physical Development

Child: „K „ Age: 4

Observer: Bishnu Tamang Date Completed: 3/27/15

FINE MOTOR

Milestone Observation

DATE

Usually Emerging Not Yet Not Observed

Picks up and inserts

objects with dexterity

3/23

Cuts with scissors

demonstrating control

3/23

Fastens, unfastens

zippers and buttons

3/24

Turns knobs/lids 3/26

Pours without spilling 3/26

Molds clay and play

dough with dexterity

3/26

Strings beads 3/27

Writes, draws with an

implement

3/27

Traces objects with a

marker

3/27

GROSS MOTOR

Runs with control over

speed and direction

3/23

Throws ball 3/27

Catches ball 3/27

Kicks ball 3/27

Pumps on swings 3/27

Rides Trike

Walks across balance

bean

3/23

Push, Pulls objects 3/27

Jumps, hops 3/27

Walks up and down

stairs alternating feet

3/24

Analysis:

From the information that I collected, I learned that „K‟ has been developing age appropriately in

fine motor development, except cutting with scissors. She does not have a dominant hand yet to

hold the scissors or writing materials. She uses tripod grip while drawing or scribbling. Her eye-

hand co-ordination is very good. She has been learning to hold the scissors right to cut paper and

needs more practice. I encourage her to practice often during morning networking time and

center time. We have some coats at the house keeping area that she can practice on fastening and

unfastening zippers and buttons during the center time.

Her large motor skills have been developing well too. She runs with control, jumps, hops, climbs

and slides. She throws the ball over head, catches and kicks it as the four year old should do. She

just needs to work on to pump on swing. While at recess, I shall ask her to try swings, pumping

on her own at least for 5-10 minutes. I shall also demonstrate and explain how to pump on it.

Lesson Plan # 1 (For Fine Motor Development)

Child Case Study Project CHD 265

Name: Bishnu Tamang

Title of Lesson Free arts

Title of Emphasis Fine Motor Development

Content Area The Art

Targeted Age Group 4 Years old

Standards: Benchmarks For Art

h. Communicate and express concepts, ideas, and feelings by making art.

Learning Objective(s): After this lesson, K will be able to develop fine motor skills.

Resources/Materials Needed:

Pencil, dotters, markers, tissue paper, glue, scissors, construction paper and water color.

Strategies:

The teacher will tell the child to create free art with all the materials available. She will have a

lot of choices of materials to choose from. The teacher will sit next to her to encourage and

support her, especially while she uses scissors to cut out papers. After the child finishes her art

works, I shall ask her to talk about them. The teacher‟s questions include: Tell me about your art

works that you made. What makes your arts so special? Except for the initial instruction, most

of the activity is child-directed.

Assessment:

I will ask her questions during and after the process of art. I can also take pictures and write

anecdotal records of her engaging in art activities to refer back and get an idea whether the child

has understood the concept or not.

Source of Idea/Information: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/ofc/docs/elguidelines_final.pdf

Observation # 2: Work Sample

Background:

I observed „K‟ drawing a picture during the free choice time at the writing table. She chose all

the writing materials herself and drew her family portrait inside the house. She also drew a path

leading to her house with trees and flowers by its side. She drew clouds, smoke coming out of

the chimney and sun. She was very focused and had very limited conversation with her friends

while working on this picture. When she was done drawing her picture, I asked her if she wanted

to talk about it. She was happy and excited to talk about it. I used this work sample to find out

where she is at her language development.

Conversation:

Me: Tell me about your picture.

K: My family inside the house. Four flowers, three trees, sun and cloud.

Me: I like your picture a lot.

K: Thank you.

Me: Why do you think your family is in the house?

K: I love my family.

Me: Happy to hear that.

Me: Why did you draw the flowers and trees by your house in the picture?

K: My mommy has a flower garden.

Me: I see your hair color is green. Why is it different from others?

K: I like green color. I like green hair.

Me: Thank you for telling me about your picture. I liked it.

Analysis:

„K‟ was able to make a connection between her drawing and what she said most of the time. I

just had to prompt her a few times. I liked the fact that she made connection of that piece of art

with her real mommy‟s flower garden at home. I think it is true that the children draw what they

experience and see around. She described her work well. One of the ways of developing

expressive language is by describing what she has drawn or created. I think her language

development is age appropriate. Using this information, I have developed a story retell plan that

would support her speaking and listening skills, as well as vocabulary development.

Lesson Plan # 2 (for language development)

Child Case Study Project - CHD 265

Name: Bishnu Tamang

Title of Lesson

Story Retell (The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle)

Title of Emphasis Listening and Speaking Skills

Content Area

English Language Arts

Targeted Age Group 4 Years old

Standards: Early Childhood English-Language Rubric

Level 3 Pre-Kindergarten Benchmark

ELA.Prek.2.a.The student will develop listening and speaking vocabularies.

ElA.prek.8.b.The student will begin to develop vocabulary by listening to a variety of texts.

ELA.Prek.9.d.The student will begin to answer questions about what is read.

ELA.Prek.9.e.The student will begin to use story language in discussions and retellings.

Learning Objective(s): After this lesson, K will be able to develop listening and speaking skills.

Resources/Materials Needed: The Very Hungry Caterpillar book and cut out pictures, a felt

board, and a camera to take pictures.

Strategies:

Read the book, „The Very Hungry Caterpillar‟ out loud. Ask her questions related to the story.

After reading the book, the child will retell the story using the pre-cut pictures from the book,

and felt board with teacher‟s help. The questions include: Why do you think that the caterpillar

ate through a lot of fruits and food? What happens to the big caterpillar before turning into a

butterfly? Story retelling will be interactive between the child and the teacher. The teacher

prompts the child if she forgets to choose the right pictures for story retelling.

Assessment:

I shall interact with her as she retells the story by asking her questions. I will also take anecdotal

notes and video clip to find out if the child has understood the concept or not. Going back and

referring these observation data, I can plan on more developmentally appropriate activities for

her in future.

Observation # 3: Running Record:

Child‟s Name: „K‟ Date: 4/9/15

Child‟s Age : 4 Years Time: 10: 50 AM to 11:20 PM

Observer: Bishnu Tamang Setting: House Keeping Area

K played in the h/ keeping area.

K: Took out some plastic food, counted and placed them on the table.

K: My h/birthday today.

K: This is the candle and cake for me.

When another girl came into the kitchen and got the phone from her, she got angry and

screamed, “I had it first. Give me it”. The teacher told her to share the toys with friends.

Her friend F came over and asked her, “You want to celebrate your b/day party?

K: yes

K and F sang happy b/day song and had a cake.

When it was time to clean up, the teacher told them to put all the food and the utensils into the

separate containers. But, they did not sort them.

Analysis:

K played half of the time by herself. A parallel play is age appropriate. She did not want to share

the toy which is also normal.

Lesson Plan # 3 (for cognitive development)

Child Case Study Project CHD 265

Name: Bishnu Tamang

Title of Lesson

Sorting fruits

Title of Emphasis Cognitive Development

Content Area

Math

Targeted Age Group 4 Years old

Standards: Early Childhood Mathematics and Science Rubric

Level 3, Pre-Kindergarten Benchmark

The students will be able to sort items.

Learning Objective(s):

After this lesson, K will be able to develop sorting and counting.

Resources/Materials Needed: Pre-cut pictures of apple, oranges, plums, strawberries and pears

for counting and sorting.

Strategies:

The child will engage in sorting by color. The questions include: What are the different names of

colors? Can you group them by its color and type? I will give her a big paper which says, “I can

sort” with circles on it. I will tell her to sort the picture of fruits that she cut out earlier by color

and its type. She enjoyed doing this activity.

Assessment: Observe the child while doing the activities and record with checklist to find out if

she has understood the concept or not. Based on the data, plan out age appropriate activities for

her.

Conclusion / Reflective Summary:

I loved doing this Child Case Study project. I have learned more about “K” that she loves to tell

story through her art work. For example, she is interested in her family. She always draws her

family portrait and talks about it. She is very creative. She creates beautiful pictures or designs.

The class teacher said, “K is not afraid of trying new activity”. She does not like to share toys

much with others. She loves to play with others, though most of the time she does a parallel play.

One of the fascinating things about her is that whoever visits our classroom, she will be the first

one to introduce her to them. She loves to build with the blocks. She is very much into fashion.

Her mom told me that she would dress up herself every morning.

Observation is very important to me as a teacher. When I first observed K using different tools

and recording them, I could understand her unique characteristics, strengths, needs and interests.

The children learn better if the learning is interesting to them. For example, K likes „The Very

Hungry Caterpillar‟ book. I did the activity such as reading and retelling this story which she

loved it. For her physical development, she could do everything, except she needed to develop

her fine motor skills. I understood her interests and needs which was easy for me to plan out

activities for her and implement them that were developmentally appropriate for her.

Based on observation, I learned that K was developing age appropriately in all three major

developmental areas, except in a few minor areas. In physical development, she had to work on

using scissors right while cutting paper for her fine motor development. I planned out the cutting

activities for her. Now, I see the big difference in her. She can hold the scissors right and cut on

the lines too. And based on interaction with K, I learned that she was developing well in all

three developmental areas that I chose. For example, K was able to follow the directions, answer

the questions that I asked her to describe about her picture. And when I did the story retell

activity, K was able to engage fully and retell the story using the picture cut-outs. I think

planning and implementing activities that are interactive can help children‟s language

development, especially speaking and listening skills.

This Case Study Project was a great learning experience for me to be a professional educator. I

feel more confident as a teacher. I learned how to promote K‟s development and learning

through observation. Having observed her, I understood what her needs and interests were. Since

I had a great relationship with her mom, it was easy for me to approach her and interview to get

information about K. I knew what observation tools to use for different developmental areas. For

example, I used checklist for physical development, work sample for language development and

anecdotal records for cognitive development. Once I knew her goal of achievement and interest,

I chose the activities that would support her development and learning. I knew how and what to

teach her. Basically, I was competent about the use of NAEYC Standard.