Lab 1

When I first got to St. Mary's, I didn't know what to expect. I was nervous and excited all at the same time. There was so much I want to be able to accomplish before my time here is done. I started off in the Pre K. They didn't take kind to a big kid trying to get into their house, but after begging, they let me in. It was amazing watching them play make believe and see their imagination just take over and steal the show. After playing in the house and being the babysitter, I worked with some of the children where we constructed a great road out of magnets. They really had a great time and other started to join in when we started to imagine these magnets as a magically road. Moving in to the gym, I didn't know how the kids were going to respond to me. They looked very happy and very eager to know what game they are going to play. For my first day I feel I did well and I am eager to get back there and further get to know the children and interact with them to see what I can learn from them

From my observations at St.Mary’s there is a big difference between motor behavior and social. I worked with children in pre K. When I worked with the Pre-K in the classroom, we worked on fine motor skills such as playing cards, building blocks, etc. The children had a great time with these activities. When I implemented a task when we were building blocks, the children imagination just took over. While the children were in the gym, they couldn’t wait to start moving around. They were very active and were uncoordinated with their movements. The children were able to throw the ball into a moving hula 1 out of 5 times, whereas, the older groups were able to do it 3 out of 5. Gender did play a role, I viewed most of the boys had a more elementary movement scheme, whereas, most of the girls showed more of an intial movement scheme. We played games such as tag, shooting games with the basketball, soccer and games that showed how good of an aim the children had. Grade level definitely influenced motor behavior because I was able to see what each level were good at and other aspects of movements they needed some adjustments with. Watching the children run around and play tag to see their balance while running was a clear indicator that grade level, gender and ability played a great role in how it was done. observed the children playing such games like tag, basketball, throwing games and moving a egg with only their nose. I immediately observed a difference between the age, gender and ability. During basketball, the more developed children, mostly males were able to get the ball in the net at least once. The younger children had to use every muscle in their body to at least reach the rim, whereas, the older children would just shoot a normal shot as played in the game of basketball. While playing make believe with the children, the males would place the fake baby done with little to no care whatsoever, while the females would act like the baby was real and take real good care of their children, as they would put it. The throwing games, the younger children would need the targets a little closer and at a low range to be able to throw it in the hula loop. The more developed children used little to no effort to hit the target, whether it was moving or not.