Observation of Cognitive Development

ED 231

Child: Will

Date: 4/3/14

Age (years and months): 5 years, 7 months

Before and during the observation
Language and cognitive development are closely related domains of development. You have already observed
for language development. This observation will focus on cognition. You will be looking at Physical
Knowledge, Logical-mathematical Knowledge, Representational Knowledge, Social-conventional Knowledge,
and Metacognitive Knowledge. All of these are defined in the Kostelnik text. You may bring materials or use
things from the classroom that you have selected ahead of time. You will plan for this observation by thinking
about what kinds of materials will encourage exploration on the part of the child.
In order to capture authentic evidence of cognitive development, the activities should be designed in a childdirected way. You may interact with the child to clarify their thinking but remember you are NOT trying to
teach them anything. Your goal is to capture the childs thinking or document her thinking processes and
understanding of concepts. Good questions and comments are usually the most effective. Record what the
child does with the materials. Make note of his/her strategies including any language used by the child.
Remember to record how the child is doing something regardless of whether or not he or she is successful.
Noting what the child says while working/playing gives a great deal of information about thinking.

Cognitive Observation Plan

Activity/Material

Magnatiles in room if available

Possible Prompts or Questions

What shape is that?

Is this piece bigger or smaller than the other one?
That is very cool, what else could it be?
How did you make that? Do you think you could make another one

After the observation

Use your data to develop brief anecdotes that describe the child using the cognitive skill(s) or understanding(s).
Be sure to label the cognitive skill or concept that you are describing in the anecdote. The knowledge areas are
already categorized on the recording sheet.

Cognitive Observation
Child:

Will

Date: 4/3/14

Age: 5 years, 7 months

Setting: Room 16 in Day Care Center
Cognitive Area
Physical Knowledge

Logical-Mathematical Knowledge

Representational Knowledge

Evidence
When Will was trying to get his sleeping bag into his locker, he had
a little bit of a problem doing so.
Will took his sleeping bag and stuffed it into his locker. Right before
he was going to close the locker, he decided that he wanted his
sweater out of his locker. He was able to pull it out from behind his
sleeping bag at first, but then had a difficult time closing the locker.
He had to stuff the sleeping bag into the locker more. Will put his
sweater on the floor and tried to push the locker closed again. Shay
and Julia came over to help Will. Then Julia noticed that Wills
sweater was in the way of the locker. Will pushed the sleeping bag
in more and moved his sweater out of the way before finally closing
it shut.
When Will picked a game out for table toy time, he picked out a
game similar to one he saw one girl using at the table. It was a
magnet board game that had buckets listed 1-10, and a lot of small
colorful metal balls that needed to be sorted into the buckets. Each
bucket had a number on it and needed that many balls in each.
Will was concentrated when he first began.
After he figured out how to work the magnet pen well enough, he
was putting balls into whichever bucket they would drop in. It
seemed a bit random at first, but then he would go back and add
however many more balls each bucket needed to complete the
number on it. He was creating groups with the board and following
the certain pattern that was on the board.
On his way out of the bathroom after a potty break, Will was
walking down the hall clapping his hands and making seal noises.
I asked if he was a seal and he clapped and made the seal noises
faster.
When he got back to the room, Will was instructed to put his
sleeping bag into his locker. He went to get his sleeping bag and
when he came out into the hallway, he put the sleeping bag over his
head and in a deep voice, kept saying Im getting married.
He followed Shay and Julia around for a little bit saying the same
thing with his sleeping bag on his head as a sort of veil.

Social-Conventional Knowledge

Meta-cognition

While Will and another girl were playing with frogs on top of one of
the magnet board games, Julia came over and tried to take the board
out from under where Will and the other girl were playing with it.
The girl told Julia she was still using it, but Julia said she wasnt
anymore. Will told Julia that the other girl had it first and she
couldnt take it. Julia is stealing ________s toy. You cant have
it. _______ was using it. She was playing with it, so you cant use
it. Even before this occurred, he was also telling his other friends
that they all needed to share the toys instead of fighting over them.
Will held onto the board game in between Julia and the other girl
until I got them to say that they would share and then he let it go and
continued playing with his frog.
While will was playing with the magnet game at the table, I asked
him how the game worked, and he told me you have to move the
pen with the ball on it on the line and in the hole. Im putting
some in here then Ill put some in there again. A couple more times,
he explained to me what he was doing and also how other peoples
games worked.
After giving up on the magnet game, Will decided to play with some
rubber frogs. He was making them fly all over the place, and also
walk on the magnet game pen saying, Hello, Im walking on a log
or when he made the frogs eat the log, he would laugh and say,
Its eating the log! The frogs eating the log!

Cognitive Development Observation Reflection

ED 231
Reread the explanation of inquiry as an instructional approach. Look back at your observation notes and the anecdotes you
wrote. Consider one of them in light of the aspects of inquiry and describe how you might expand that interaction into an
inquiry experience.

I think I would use the magnet board game as an activity to expand into an inquiry experience.
I would use the game as an extension into how to make different kinds of groups.
If we can make groups with different numbers only, do you think we can make different groups of
different colored balls? Or maybe even different sizes? What other kinds of groups could we make out
of these balls?