Piaget and Vygotsky Child Assessments I observed three different children in room three for the Piaget and

Vygotsky observation. The cognitive abilities I observed for each of the children were as follows; classification, one-to-one correspondence, conservation of number, seriation, causality, artificialism, space, and time. I began by gathering objects from areas in the classroom, like colored blocks, Legos, different sized cups, and a weather book. All of these objects helped to aid me in successfully observing each childs cognitive abilities. Child 1: The first child I observed for the Piaget observation was a young boy at the age of thirty-four months. I began by telling the child we were going to play some fun games and that I needed his help. He was very eager to begin and quickly grabbed some of the colored blocks I had set in front of him. For classification I asked the child if he could separate the blocks by color, but he grabbed the colored bowls out of the bucket and started matching the colored cubes to the corresponding bowls. I did not ask him to stop what he was doing, I just went with it! He did this task with great accuracy. This task could also be recognized as one-to-one correspondence. For conservation of number I put a bunch of five of the same colored cubes together, and spread the other five apart. I then asked the child which bunch had more colored cubes. He had some difficulty with this task, because he could not decide which group had more. For seriation I laid out three different sized Legos and asked him to put them in order from shortest to tallest. The child proceeded to build with the Legos instead of putting them in order. When considering causality, I showed the child a weather book and asked him questions about what he does when it

is a certain temperature outside. When I asked him, Do you wear a coat when it is hot outside? the child responded with no. For artificialism I continued talking about weather, and asked the child what the weather was like on that day. He looked out of the classroom window and said, It is rainy, but it was a sunny day. I observed this childs awareness of space by providing him with three different sized colored cups. I asked him to place a medium sized, round disc into the cup he thought it would fit in. He went straight for the biggest cup and placed the disc in it, and then tried fitting it into the smaller cups but it would not fit. When considering the childs sense of time, I asked him about his daily schedule. When I asked, What did you do when you came in from playing outside? the child did not seem sure of what to say. During the Vygotsky observation I observed using Vygotskys zone of Proximal Development. The same child I had first observed was interrupting during our other assessments and the teacher asked him to walk away, so he started acting out. He threw toys all over the floor and then threw a fit when the teacher asked him to pick them up. He continued to sit on the floor crying until the teacher walked away and ignored his crying. Child 2: The second child I observed was a young girl at the age of thirty-six months. I continued with the same assessments as I did with the first child. When I asked the child to classify the blocks into separate colored piles she did this with accuracy, as well as when I asked her to match the blocks to the corresponding colored bowls. I then arranged the blocks into two separate groups, both containing five blocks, and one group in a straight line. When I asked her which pile contained more blocks she counted both piles and was confused by the group in a

random bunch. I then told her to recount and I helped her as she pointed, she was successful at stating they both had the same amount. When I asked the child to arrange the Legos in order from shortest to tallest, she did so successfully. When I asked her about the weather the child knew that people wore mittens when it was cold outside. I then asked the child about the sun and she stated that people sleep when the moon is out and are awake when the sun is out. I placed the different sized cups in front of the child and asked her which cup the disc would fit in. The child placed the disc in the biggest one and then found a smaller object to place in the smaller cups. When I asked her about her daily schedule the child seemed unsure. For this childs Vygotsky observation I observed her while she was listening to a teacher read a story about farm animals. She was not sitting on her bottom and was pointing at the book. The teacher asked her to sit crisscross applesauce and continued to remind her that other children wanted to see the pictures too. To me it seemed as if the child just wanted to get a closer look at the animals in the book, but the teacher wanted her to do as she asked. Child 3: The third and final child I observed was a boy around the age of three, whom was the oldest child in the classroom. He successfully classified the colored blocks into their correct groups and he also showed one-to-one correspondence by placing the blocks into their matching colored bowls. When I separated the blocks into two different groups, both with the same amount the child still said they contained different numbers. I laid out the Legos and asked the child to put them into order from shortest to longest he just pointed to them. When prompted, the child identified pictures of the different seasons. He also knew that when it is winter he was to wear pants and a coat outside. The child knew it was sunny outside,

but said he would go to sleep when the moon came out at night. To observe this childs sense of space I had him place a large Lego in the cup he thought it would fit in, because another child had taken the disc I was previously using. He knew that the lego could fit in all of the cups if he placed it right-side up. When prompted, the child knew that when he came inside from playing he was to wash his hands. For my final child Vygotsky observation I observed this child while he was playing with his friends in the dramatic play area. The child kept taking items out of the dramatic play area and leaving them around the room. The teacher repeatedly told him to keep the toys in the dramatic play area so that others could play with them too. The child refused until the teacher warned him that he would have to move to a different station. Overall, I feel that the Piaget and Vygotsky child observations were a success and really helped me to adjust the way I assess children. Not all children will sit there quietly and respond exactly the way a teacher wants them to. It is important to go with the flow of things and let the child take the wheel sometimes. These methods of observing and assessing have really broadened my horizons and I am going to continue to utilize them as I continue in the early childhood field.