Praxis II Exam - Education of Young Child: Observation, Documentation, and Assessment

Activities Promoting Development

Using Integrated Curricula
Integrating subject/domain content across the curriculum has been used for years at every educational level, from higher education to early childhood education. However, recent demands for accountability, as exemplified and escalated by No Child Left Behind, can distract educators from holistic and overall learning toward preoccupation with developing isolated skills and using test scores to measure achievement. But rather than discarding teaching methods proven effective, early childhood educators need to integrate newer, mandate-related practices into existing plans and methods. Teaching integrated curricula in early childhood classrooms has proven effective for both children and teachers. Integrating learning domains and subject content in turn integrates the child’s developing skills with the whole child. When teachers use topics children find interesting and exciting, in-depth projects focusing on particular themes, and good children’s literature, they give children motivation to learn the important concepts and skills they need for school and life success. Children should bring home from preschool not only further developed skills, but also knowledge useful and meaningful in life.

Using Manipulatives for Preschool Math Learning
Young children learn primarily through visually inspecting, touching, holding, and manipulating concrete objects. While they are less likely to understand abstract concepts presented abstractly, such concepts are likelier accessible to preschoolers through the medium of real things they can see, feel, and manipulate. Manipulatives are proven as effective learning devices; some early math curricula (e.g. Horizons) even require them. They are also particularly useful for children with tactile or visual learning styles. Many math manipulatives are available for sale, e.g. linking cubes; 3-dimensional geometric shapes and “geoboards”; large magnetized numbers for whiteboards; weights, scales, and balances for measurements; math blocks; math games; number boards and color tiles; flash cards; play money, toy cash registers, and activities; objects for sorting and patterning; or tangrams for recognizing shapes, reproducing and designing patterns, and spatial problem-solving. Teachers can create homemade math manipulatives using bottle caps/lids; seashells, pebbles/stones; buttons; keys; variously sized, shaped, and colored balls; coffee stirrers; or cardboard tubes from paper products.

Helping Young Children Use Inquiry and Discovery in Science
EC teachers are advised to “teach what they know,” i.e. use materials with which they are familiar. For example, teachers who like plants can have young children plant beans, water and watch them grow, moreover incorporating this activity with the story “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Teachers can bring in plants, leaves, and flowers for children to observe and measure their sizes, shapes, or textures. Experts recommend teachers utilize their everyday environments to procure learning materials, such as pine needles and cones; loose feathers and leaves found outdoors; animal fur from pets or groomers; and/or snakeskins or turtle shells from local pet stores. Experts advise teachers to use their observational skills during inquiry and discovery activities: if children apply nonstandard and/or unusual uses of some materials, teachers should observe what could be a new discovery, wherein students teach adults new learning, too. Teachers should let children play with and explore new materials to understand their purposes, uses, and care before using them in structured activities.

Process Skills Developed by Preschool Science Programs
Experts find three process skills that good EC science programs help develop are observation, classification, and communication. Young children are inherently curious about the world and hence enjoy many activities involving inquiry and discovery. Teachers can uncover science in many existing preschool activities. For example, since young children relate to activities focusing on themselves, teachers can have them construct skeletons of dry pasta, using their pictures as heads. Cooking activities involve science, as do art activities. Teachers can have children explore various substances’ solubility in water, which colors are produced by mixing which other colors, etc. They can have them compare/contrast similarities/differences among objects. They can create inexpensive science centers using animal puppets; models; thematically-related games, puzzles, books, and writing materials; mirrors, prisms, magnifiers; scales, magnets; and various observable, measurable objects. Teachers should regularly vary materials to sustain children’s interest.

Preschool Activities for Developing Physical Coordination, Fine Motor Skills, and Large Muscle Skills
Preschoolers are more likely to fall because their lower bodies are not yet developed equally to their upper bodies, giving them higher centers of gravity. Therefore, seeing how long they can balance on one foot and hopping exercises help improve balance and coordination. Hopping races let preschoolers participate in groups and observe peer outcomes, which can also enhance self-confidence and supporting others. “Freeze dancing” (like Musical Chairs without the chair-sitting), without eliminations, provides physical activity and improves coordination. Using writing implements, tying shoes, and playing with small items develop fine motor skills. With preschoolers, it is more effective and developmentally appropriate to incorporate fine motor activities into playtime than to separate quiet activity from play. For example, on nature walks, teachers can have children collect pebbles and twigs and throw them into a stream, developing coordination and various muscles. Running, skipping, and playing tag develop large muscle skills. Kicking, throwing, and catching balls give good unstructured exercise without game rules preschoolers cannot understand. Preschoolers’ short attention spans preclude long activity durations.

Benefits of Aesthetic Experiences
To help children learn color names and develop sensory discrimination and classification abilities, some art museums offer preschool lessons, which teachers can also use as models. For example, a teacher can read a children’s story or sing a song about color, then present a painting/artwork for children to examine, and then a separate display with circles/squares/ovals of colors used by the artist, asking children to name these and any other colors they know, and identify any other colors the artist used not represented in the second display. The teacher then demonstrates how mixing produces other colors. After this demonstration with children’s discussion, the teacher gives each child a piece of heavy-duty paper and a brush. The teacher pours about an inch-sized puddle of each of the three primary colors—red, blue, and yellow—in the middle of each child’s paper. The teacher then tells the children to use their brushes to explore mixing colors and see the variety of other colors they can create.

Benefits of the Line in Visual Arts
Activities focusing on line in art help young children expand their symbol recognition, develop their comparison-making ability, and facilitate shape recognition. Teachers can begin by singing a song or reading a children’s story about lines. Then they can present one painting/drawing/artwork and help children point at various kinds of lines that the artist used. The teacher can draw various line types on a separate piece of paper, e.g. wavy, pointy, spiral, and ask children to find similar lines in the artwork. Then the teacher can ask children to try drawing these different lines themselves. Teachers should also inform children of various tools for drawing lines and let them experiment with these, e.g. crayons, pencils, markers, chalk, paint. An EC teacher can also supply butcher paper or other roll paper for each child to lie down on in whatever creative body positions they can make. The teacher outlines their body shapes with a marker. Then the teacher has the children explore drawing different kinds of lines, using various kinds of drawing tools, to enhance and personalize their individual body outlines.

Aesthetic Experiences Involving Shape
Giving young children learning activities that focus on shape used in art helps them develop their abilities to form concepts and identify discrepancies. Manipulating basic geometric shapes also stimulates their creative thinking skills and imaginations, as well as developing early geometric math skills. For example, an EC teacher can first read aloud a children’s book about shapes, of which many are available. After reading it through, the teacher can go back through the story asking children to point to and name shapes they recognize. Then the teacher can show children an artwork. Using line drawings and/or solid geometric shapes, they discuss what shapes the artist used. The teacher can help children arrange solid shapes to form different images (people, flowers, houses). The teacher can then give children paper pulp trays/heavy paper/board, assorted wooden/cardboard/plastic shapes, and instructions to think and arrange shapes they can make with them, and then give them glue to affix the shapes to their trays/paper/board. They can paint their creations after the glue dries.

Exploring Texture in Art
Preschoolers learn much through looking at and touching concrete materials. Activities involving visual and tactile examination and manipulation plus verbal discussion enhance young children’s representational/symbolic thinking abilities. Such activities also enable children to explore various ways of representing different textures visually. Teachers can provide “feely bags/boxes”—bags/boxes with variously textured items inside, e.g. sandpaper, fleece, clay, wool, or tree bark—for children to feel and describe textures before seeing them, and identify objects based on feel. A teacher can then show children a selected artwork; they discuss together which textures are included, e.g. smooth, rough, jagged, bumpy, sharp, prickly, soft, or slippery. The teacher can then demonstrate using plaster/thickened paste/clay how to create various textures using assorted tools (e.g. tongue depressors, plastic tableware, chopsticks, small toys, or child-safe pottery tools) and have children experiment with discovering and producing as many different textures as they can. After children’s products dry, they can paint them the next day.

Providing Affective Learning Experiences
Providing affective experiences supports young children’s emotional development, including understanding and expressing their emotions. These enable development of emotional self-regulation/self-control. Emotional development is also prerequisite to and supportive of social interactions and development. Affective activities also help teachers understand how children feel, which activities they find most fascinating, and/or why they are not participating. “Feelings and Faces” activities are useful. For example, a teacher can have each child draw four different “feeling” faces on paper plates—e.g. happy, sad, angry, confused, excited—and discuss each. A teacher can offer various scenarios, like learning a new song, painting a picture, getting a new pet, or feeling sick, and ask children how they feel about each. Then the teacher can give them new paper plates, having them draw faces showing feelings they often have. Gluing Popsicle sticks to the plates turns them into “masks.” The teacher can prompt the children on later days to hold up their masks to illustrate how they feel on a given day and about specific activities/experiences.

Most Important Social Skills
Experts find it crucial for young children’s later success in school and life to have experiences that develop understanding of their own and others’ emotions; constructive management of their strong feelings; and skills in forming and maintaining relationships. Young children use earlier developed motor skills like pushing/shoving, biting, hitting, or kicking, to get what they want rather than later developing verbal skills. Since physical aggression is antisocial, social development includes learning more acceptable, verbal emotional expressions. “Punch and Judy”–type puppet-shows depicting aggression’s failures entertain preschoolers; discussing puppet behavior develops social skills. Teachers have children say which puppets they liked/disliked and considered good/bad; what happened; what might happen next; and how puppets could act differently. Teachers can reinforce children’s discussion of meeting needs using words, not violence. Many read-aloud stories explain why people behave certain ways in social contexts; discussion/question-and-answer groups promote empathy, understanding, and listening skills. Assigning collaborative projects, like scrapbooking in small groups, helps young children learn cooperation, turn taking, listening, and verbally expressing what they want.

Providing Affective Experiences and Promoting Emotional Development, Physical Activity, and Creativity
Early childhood teachers can help children understand their feelings and others’ feelings, express their emotions, engage in physical exercise, use creative thinking, and have fun by using emotional movement activities. For example, the teacher can begin with prompting the children to demonstrate various types of body movements and postures, like crawling, walking, tiptoeing, skipping, hopping, crouching, slouching, limping, or dancing. Then the teacher can ask the children which feelings they associate with each type of movement and body position. The teacher can play some music for children to move to, and give them instructions such as “Move like you are happy… like you are sad… like you are scared… like you are surprised… like you are angry…” Teachers can also use “freeze”/“statue” dances or games, wherein children move to music and must freeze in position like statues when the music stops; for affective practice, teachers instruct children to depict a certain emotion each time they freeze in place.