Team Presentation Summary
Early Childhood: The Obstacle Course
The developmental period known as early childhood ranges from the years two to six. These years are often called the play years. During this time play flourishes and supports all of the phases of life. Early childhood has many physical developments like body growth, brain development, and motor development. During this time both gross and fine motor skills develop dramatically. Children can walk upstairs with alternating feet, ride a tricycle, and even catch a ball with their hands. They can also put on and remove simple clothing items, feed themselves, and draw their first pictures of people.
For our team presentation we chose to do an obstacle course designed for a two to six year old child. The obstacle course consists of six activities that deal with cognitive and physical development. For the activity we chose a three year old boy named Christian. He is called CJ for short. The first activity is throwing hoops over a cone. C. J. has to stand behind a piece of tape and try to throw the hoops over the cone. This is testing physical development of the gross motor skill of throwing. The next activity is testing cognitive development. CJ has to match colored blocks with color-coded cut out squares on a poster board. There are yellow, red, blue, and green blocks. The poster board has four squares that are cut out with the colors blue, yellow, red, and green around them. It is CJ’s job to match the colors and place the blocks into the correct squares. The third obstacle is another physical one. Christian has to sit on a scooter and scoot his way down a lane made of cones to the end where a bag of cookies is waiting for him. This shows the development of a gross motor skill. He is able to push the riding toy with his feet and steer. Our fourth obstacle is also dealing with colors. There are three cones setup. Under each cone is a car. Two cars are blue and the other car is silver. CJ’s job is to find the silver car. He must look under the cones until he finds the silver car. Next is another physical activity. CJ must stand a certain distance, measured by a piece of tape, from a bucket. The object is to throw the three balls into the bucket. This tests the development of arm motion and coordination. Finally, the last obstacle deals with conservation. Conservation is the idea that physical characteristics of objects remain the same when their outward appearance changes. This comes from Piaget’s preoperational stage. We had two glass filled with the same amount of liquid. CJ was asked if the two glass had the same amount. Next we poured one glass of liquid into a bowl, and asked if they had the same amount or if one had more. Of course CJ could not answer this question. In early childhood, children cannot conserve.
