Day Care:

Preschool: 4 yrs old, one 5yr old.

I was placed to observe the Preschool 4 year olds during my clinical observation at the Daycare.

Stages of Development:

Eric Erikson: Initiative vs. Guilt. During this stage the child are focused on purpose, exploration and egocentric ideas and speech. During this period the preschooler experiences a desire to copy adults around them, take initiative in play situations, make up stories using barbies, toy phones, cars, playing roles like “Ninja” and “Pirate” They use imagination and fantasy during play and use parallel play. The also explore the world by asking “WHY” and “HOW” to understand new things.The preschoolers all become involved in the oedipal struggle. If they get frustrated over desires and goals they experience guilt. If they are unsuccessful at achieving a goal they become aggressive and may act is disapproving behavior.

Piaget: Preoperational- Egocentric
During this stage the child is selfish and believes they are the center of attention. They begin to feel that what they say is most important and all attention should be focused towards them. They often speak when others are speaking and get frustrated when they are not listened to.

In the classroom, I observed many of these characteristics of the preschooler. Upon my arrival they all ran to me and all wanted me to themselves, offering their choice of play. They all agreed to give me “Breakfast” where I sat at a play kitchen table in their play kitchen. They fed me an adundance of “play” food. This was a characteristic of imagination and fantasy that Erikson speaks about in his stage. They asked a lot of questions such as “why are you hear, why are you wearing a name tag? Why are you a student, how do you spell you name?” etc.. They also played pirate and ninjas, they asked me to tie pirate bandanas to their head(they were doll blankets) they made up fake situations and stories as they ran around aimlessly. Their play was very scattered, and random with no organization. However, I specifically noticed one girl who was ironing and folding clothes in the corner, she neating staked the clothes and put them in a basket and pretended to put them away. Obviosuly here she acquired the knowledge and skill from her mother or guardian. She mimicked the actions of her caregiver and played the mother role. During “circle time” they are fought to speak, calling out and speaking over eachother. When the teacher signaled to stop they responded well, those who failed got a unhappy face on their chart, and sat their frowning because they were angry they were punished. They all called out even though the teacher constantly asked a question, and told them to raise their hands to answer. This demonstrated the egocentric characteristic that piaget speaks of in his preoperational stage. They spoke over eachother, until they found something another student was saying interesting.

I enjoyed this experience and it really allowed me to visualize and experience these stages of development that both Erikson and Piaget have theorized. I also roamed the classrooms and observed a few other ages and they too pertain fairly well to the theories and stages of development applied to their age. The children were great; lovable friendly eager and motivated to learn and achieve the best!