Child Care and Pre School

Who: 3.4 years old Josh, black male, about 15 other children

What: Observation of Pre-k

When: November 5,2008 7:30 until about 8:35

Where: M.O.L. Child care and Pre school

Josh attends a preschool while his parents both work. His parents drop him off at the center at 7:30, and pick him up at 4:00. I started my observation with his arrival, but did not stay for the entire day. Instead, I observed Josh for one hour, with the first fifteen minutes given to simply watching him. During this first fifteen minutes, I avoided taking notes, not wanting to miss any behaviors that might go unnoticed if I was busy writing. For the following fifteen minutes, however, I jotted down, with as much detail as I could, everything that Josh said or did.

When Josh's father dropped him off, he was riding on his father's shoulders. I watched Josh try to take a leaf from a tree before coming up to the preschool door. His father stopped so he could get the leaf. Josh entered the door and immediately went over to a table, which contained some modeling clay. While he was handling the clay, his father signed him into the preschool for the day. Josh said goodbye to his father. While Josh was rolling, pounding, and tearing the modeling clay, other preschoolers kept arriving. Later, he said hello to Todd, David, and Troy. He showed the others what he was doing with the clay. He got up from the table several times to get various toys in different parts of the room. When he returned to the table right before breakfast was to begin a little boy named Todd was sitting in his seat. He tried to get the attention of the teacher but she was busy with another child, so he pulled Todd by the shirt and begin to cry saying "get out my chair" Todd refuse to move. Once the teacher got to them they had already started to tussle a little. They both were placed in time out, but before than the teacher made them apologize to each other and give hugs, and told them that they were friends and they had to be nice to each other. Josh continued to cry for the duration of his time out.

After about two or three minutes in timeout Josh was sat in a sassy set at the table to eat. He cracked a smile when he received his food. The class begins to say grace and started to eat. Josh was the last one to finish his food, which he had no problems feeding himself. After eating Josh climbed out of the sassy set and ran back to the table that he was sitting at earlier that morning. The teacher didn't notice that he was gone until Todd told, "Josh is sitting in my seat". Josh once again was put in time out for climbing out of the chair and was told how dangerous it was for him to have done that with out permission and help from a teacher. Josh begins to cry again but this time a little louder, he says "This is not fair, I didn't do nothing" The teacher asked him if he wanted her to call his dad and he replied "NO"

As the children were instructed to set at the different tables were their name was Josh remained in time out until he was told to sit in his seat by a girl named Jessica. The teacher passed out a paper that had the days of the week on one side and the word Monday on the other. Josh took