Samantha Wardell

FHS 1500
Observation #2
Background information:
Childs age:
Approx. 4
Fictitious name: McKinley
Location:
McDonalds
Brief
McKinley stood out to me out of the other children playing at McDonalds
Description:
play area because of her colorful outfit choice and her cute smile. I also
picked her because she arrived around the same time as me so I knew they
wouldnt be leaving after 10 minutes of me observing her.
Physical Development
McKinley is a little girl who looked around the age of 4 to me because of her height and
outfit choice. McKinley stood out to me because she was wearing a long sleeve shirt with frogs
on the sleeves and a blue princess dress over the top. She also had one long blue sock on and one
short light blue sock with polka dots and she had some red leggings under the dress that came up
to her knee. The way that nothing on her outfit was matching tells me that she picked that styling
outfit out all by herself. On the chart in my book under Developing Motor Skills (Berger,
2014, p.171) children at the age of 4 are learning to get dressed by themselves which shows her
motor skills improving as she gets older. The mother obviously encourages that part of her
development and let her wear whatever she wanted to wear today. She probably insisted on
having things done her way or just right (Berger, 2014, p.169) One of the things I noticed
about McKinley was that she told her mom what she wanted to eat for lunch and didnt have to
have help choosing. I think that this shows her prefrontal cortex development in her ability to
make choices and selecting on her own. (Berger, 2014, p.177). She also seemed to regulate her
emotions when she wanted to play really bad, but her mom told her she needed to finish her
hamburger before she could go play. Instead of throwing a fit, she asked her mom if she could
just eat a couple bites then come back and when the mom said she needed to eat it all, she just
accepted it and said okay. Kids under the age of 2 probably would have thrown a fit until they
could go play because their prefrontal cortex isnt as developed as McKinleys is at age 4.
Cognitive Development
McKinley was playing with another little girl who looked like she was about 5. She was
a little bit bigger than McKinley, but they seemed to have some of the same interests. The little
girl that McKinley was playing with brought an Elsa stuffed animal and they were playing the
game Frozen together. McKinley went and asked her mom for a pen and it looked like she was
using it as a magic wand or something. She was pointing it at other people and saying Zam!
and then both the girls would start laugh hysterically. She was using symbolic thought when she
was pretending the pen was a wand (Berger, 2014, p.182). They have computers at this
McDonalds and both the little girls were playing over there for a while. They were playing a
game where they have to click on all the things that are the color it shows in a box on the top of
the screen and they were just clicking on all the objects on the screen regardless of color.
McKinleys mom came over and asked the little girls what they were doing and the little girl that
McKinley was playing with replied playing and the mom ask the girls what color is this? and

pointed to the screen. McKinley said PINK! and the mom asked the girl sitting next to her and
she said red. It was red. Then the mom asked the girls if they saw anything else on the screen
that was red and they both clicked on the apples that were in the tree. She told them very good
and helped scaffold them for the next color that popped up on the screen too so she could show
them how the game really worked. She helped scaffold the girls by asking them questions to test
their knowledge and to help improve their learning (Berger, 2014, p.185)
Social/Emotional Development
Before McKinley was able to play, her mom told her she had to finish her hamburger. The
mother was using extrinsic motivation to help motivate McKinley to finish her food. Extrinsic
motivation is a reason to pursue a goal (usually a reward) from a source outside of the person. In
this case the goal was eating her lunch and the reward was getting to play at McDonalds.
(Berger, 2014, p.207). In a lot of cases, I dont think extrinsic motivation is a good idea to use
very often because it takes away the childs intrinsic motivation which is motivation that comes
from within the child like the childs natural love for learning and wanting to learn new things
(Berger, 2014, p.207). With this specific example of McKinleys mom using extrinsic
motivation, I think it is okay because they came to McDonalds for McKinley to have lunch and
then play, so telling her she has to eat before she can go play is okay, and I dont think it will ruin
her intrinsic motivation for eating her lunch. Before McKinley was playing with the little girl I
talked about above, she was playing with a little boy who also looked like her was 5, just a little
older than McKinley and his little sister who was only 3. I heard the little boy and girls mom
telling her friend with a newborn about how old her children were now. They were playing house
and McKinley was the mom, the little boy, Jackson, was the dad, and his little sister, Julie, was
the baby. I think they picked these roles to play due to their ages and knowing that Julie was
younger than them, so she got to be their baby. This applies to self-concept and understanding
who he/she is (Berger, 2014, p.206) and McKinley understood that she was older than Julie and
it also applies to sociodramatic play which is when they were acting out roles and playing
pretend play (Berger, 2014, p.207).
Sources
Berger, Kathleen Stassen. Invitation to the Lifespan: With Dsm5 Update. 2nd ed. S.l.:
Worth Pub, 2014. Print.