**Names have been replaced with fictional names In the fall semester of 2012, I had the opportunity to pre-student

teach at the Childrens Center on the University of Wisconsin- Platteville campus. The Childrens Center includes three rooms: 1 room for the 2 year olds, and 2 rooms for the 3-5 year olds. There is a lead teacher in each room and anywhere from 1-2 teachers assistants at a time. The Childrens Center is an outstanding place for any child to start their education off right. I was amazed at the knowledge these children had already at such a young age. They were writing play plans almost every single day. Using what they knew about letter sounds, they were able to write a sentence in this form: I am going be the (Insert role) today. They would also include their name and a picture of themselves acting out that role. The roles depended on the current theme. When I finished my placement, they were doing a museum theme. This theme included a mom, dad, brother, sister, astronaut, artist, paleontologist, and curator. Through all of many developmentally appropriate activities at the Childrens Center, I was able to observe the progress of a little girl named Jane. Jane is a very quiet, brilliant 4 year old girl. Jane did not necessarily struggle with cognitive development, but she did show improvement with that aspect. She showed tremendous progress with her social skills. Jane is a very shy girl, but I have seen many changes in the way that she interacts with the children around her. As far as physical development is concerned, Jane is exactly where she should be at this age. She is the average weight and height for a child her age, so her physical growth is just fine. Jane always did a fantastic job with activities and tasks that required small motor skills. She never had problems with art projects or taking care of her bathroom needs. She was able to hold a pencil and fork with no problems at all. Janes level of activity seemed to depend on the activity and the day. Jane had days where she would not dance or sing when we did songs to start

the day. Other days she would dance by herself or she would just wiggle back and forth while holding my hand. Towards the end of the semester, I noticed her dancing more, as well as playing with other children more. Most of Janes activity took place out on the playground. She was always a busy bee on the playground. In the beginning, she wanted me to push her on the swing and play basketball. Sometimes she even enjoyed riding a bike or a scooter, which she was very good at. Her balancing skills amazed me. One day when Jane was keeping to herself, I asked her if she wanted to go on a hike. I took her by the hand and we walked around the playground. We talked to entire time and other children joined in too. It worked out really well because Jane was able to talk to other children in front of me, which made her more comfortable than doing it on her own. The next time I was there she asked if we could go on another hike. I was so proud! Overall, Jane is a very active child in most situations that allow her to do her own thing. At the end of the semester, she still was not all that comfortable with dancing, but other than that I saw many improvements. The improvements that I saw in Janes cognitive and language development were fairly easy to assess because of the use of play plans and centers. When looking at her play plans from September and comparing them to the play plans from the end of November, I can see huge improvements. In September it was common for Jane to not combine the letters in her words. I noticed that her play plans from November show that shes starting to understand what a word is and that words have spaces between them, not the letters. The play plans require the children to draw themselves being the role that they chose. I did not see much improvement in her drawings. According to a drawing development chart by Viktor Lowenfeld, Jane has not moved up with her drawings in the couple of months that I observed her. She is drawing at around the 3 year old level, which is called the Preschematic Stage. I do not see any reason that her drawing will suffer

in the future because she has improved in every other area possible. As far as language is concerned, I feel that Jane improved tremendously. She would barely talk in the beginning, but towards the end I saw her talking more and more. I felt that she was even easier to understand. Her words were not muttered together anymore. Jane always showed strengths in telling her friends if something was hurting her feelings or if she did not like something that they were doing. When comparing Jane to Piagets Concrete Operational Stage, she is almost there, but not quite. I feel that in some ways, Jane can think about how things relate to one another. For example, during my last week I taught a short art lesson about dinosaurs. I included a small paragraph to be glued on the project that discussed fossils. When I explained the art project I named the different cut outs of dinosaurs. I had a T-Rex, a Brachiosaurus, and a Stegosaurus. Some of my friends thought that these names meant that they were not dinosaurs, but Jane understood that these were just different types of dinosaurs. Jane related the picture to the type and that type was a dinosaur. I did not see any reason to believe that Jane understands conservation so I feel that is how she is not fully into the Concrete Operational Stage. The biggest developmental change that I saw in Jane was her emotional and social development. Jane really struggled with being at school in the beginning. It was like clockwork because every day around 10 Jane would start to get upset about missing her dad. She never had behavioral issues because of this. Basically, she would just sob for a little while and then she would be fine. Toward the end of the semester, Jane was great throughout the whole morning. Once in a while she would mention dad, but she never starting crying. She would move on with what she was doing and continue her day. I am so proud of how she changed! Through interacting with Jane I felt that she needed more confidence in order to interact with her friends. I tried to compliment Jane whenever possible. When we would play basketball I would tell her

Nice try or Great job! I always tried to tell her when she was acting in a way that I liked. As I mentioned before, performing tasks like dancing and singing with her friends was a struggle in the beginning. By the end, she had days where she was jumping all over the place. I felt that she gained a lot of confidence in herself in just the short time I was there and it helped her interact with her peers. Some of her conservations at the end of the semester really brought a smile to my face. On one occasion she had a very detailed conversation about pumpkin bread with another little girl. It was priceless. On my very last day, she was a paleontologist with a little boy. They were on a dinosaur dig and I did not expect to hear Jane talk at all. Pretty soon they were counting to 50, discussing The Grinch movie, and talking about getting married! I was not sure if I should have a talk with Jane about slowing down or not! She impressed me so much. My jaw dropped when I heard her talking so much, especially when I thought about how she was in the beginning. In relation to the ideas of Lev Vygotsky, I can only assess Janes improved art skills. Her cutting and gluing skills were not the best, but with a little guidance, Jane improved immensely by the end of my placement. She did not need a constant reminder to use small dots of glue and she could use the scissors on her own. As far as Janes Zone of Proximal Development is concerned, I feel that I tried to increase her social abilities because I knew that she could do it. When she wanted to sit on my lap, I would try to make some type of compromise with her. Sometimes I would just tell her that she was fine on her spot to encourage her to be around her peers, rather than under my wing. In relation to the ideas of Erik Erikson, I can assess Janes sense of initiative and industry. I feel that Jane showed a great transformation from guilt to initiative. With a lot of encouragement and growth, Jane was able to perform pretend play on the playground and in centers. By doing these things, she was exploring and being extremely active.

I can still picture her running around on the playground playing bad guys with the boys. She would have never done that at the beginning of my placement. I did not get to see Jane transform from inferiority to industry because I only saw her at the Childrens Center, but I do feel that she is perfectly capable after seeing the progress she made. I did see her interact with some college students when they taught lessons in the gym and music rooms. I think with some encouragement Jane can appropriately interact in different situations and places. In the future, I think Jane will progress at a steady pace in all areas. She showed so much improvement in just a couple of months that I cannot picture her hitting any hiccups. I feel that Jane will be a shy person her entire life, but I think she will start warming up to others quicker. I see Janes cognitive and language development soaring. She is a very bright child. From what I observed, I think she will be fully into Piagets Concrete Operational Stage before the age of 7, which is supposed to be the start of that stage. She is already showing aspects of that stage. Overall, I am so impressed with how well Jane progressed. I obviously cannot take all of the credit, but I would like to think that we made a great connection.