At UCP, I am in the yellow room, which is reserved for Pre-K kids, meaning somewhere in the age range of 3-5ish. This leaves almost a two-year age gap in between some of the kids, and so they are kind of all over the place when you compare them to one another. In terms of where they should be based on physical development standards, they are all hitting those milestones. However, they are all hitting them at wildly different times and just by walking in the first day, you could tell they range much more than middle school or elementary school.
GROWTH AND APPEARANCE
The standards of physical development for preschool age children are that they are developing at an increasing rate and it is mostly consistent, which I certainly see in the classroom. This pattern is not really seen in specific genders or ethnicity, but mostly by age. When you walk in the classroom, you can tell which ones are younger and which are older. The older ones seem to be a bit longer and leaner than the others, and their heads are a bit more in proportion with their bodies. You can tell that they grow a lot in a small period of time just by looking at one who is 3, and another who is 5 years old. I feel like another tell-tale sign of their age is their voice. I know some of this is cognitive development, but the younger ones also seem to have a matching “baby voice” that matches with their height. They have a much higher pitched voice and they still talk in a “baby” kind of manner. They’re sentences aren’t as easily formed and they have trouble pronouncing certain sounds. Just because of the age range in my class, there is a lot of variation from one child to the next, but it just shows how steadily and consistently they are growing during this time in their lives.
GROSS MOTOR SKILLS
In terms of their gross motor skills, the children all kind of meld together on the playground. But, you can tell that some children are better at certain activities than others. I think the key identifier is in how well they can balance. Usually, the kids that are older are a lot less accident prone than the smaller ones. Usually if someone is crying because they are hurt, it is more often one of the younger children. For instance, one little boy was trying to get toy food out on the playground, and having to bend down to get it, and when another kid came by without touching him, it seemed to knock his balance off and he fell over. They all have the ability to kick balls, climb up the playground equipment, and run fairly well, but some are just better than others and it usually will show you how old they are. It is easier for me to tell now that I am looking out for it. I think it is good though how the students are given lots of time to play outside and make these big movements in order to practice their gross motor skills. I’d say without all of the time they are given outside, they would be much less developed than they are. I think time outside is really good for them.
FINE MOTOR SKILLS
Fine motor skills seems to be practiced a bit more on the inside of the classroom, however there are options outside with the toy food station or the science equipment, where students can practice making small movements. The extent of students being able to draw or write is extremely limited. For example, when we made “hot air balloons” and the kids had to color their coffee filters, most of their designs were scribbles and they were very bare, as the kids could not do these types of movements for an extremely long time. I also noticed that the older kids were able to draw some sort of pictures such as Raptor Blue or a pictures of themselves doing something, but these were also very shaky and not nearly what, for example, the first graders pictures would look like. They are still learning a lot of these small movements and developing the capacity to be able to do them for an extended period of time. I haven’t really seen them doing many more small movements other than coloring or drawing, but I have seen them out on the playground being able to stack objects or picking up small things that they will find on the playground. They seem to be just starting to learn how to do these things and they get a lot better as they get older, as I saw with their drawings. Luckily, they are given many opportunities to practice these skills inside and outdoors.
It was really interesting to come into such a diverse classroom in terms of physical size and abilities. In all the other classrooms I have been in, the kids have been so close in age that there aren’t such big differences. But activities are made to accommodate all of their sizes, as well as things around the room. Everything is in reach for each kid and they are able to play together. They seem to also be stimulated to develop their level of physical activity by their peers, and trying to attain each other’s ability so they can play together. I think the preschool classroom provides a large opportunity for them to grow and learn all of these skills that they need to.
ARTICLES
Physical Development Milestones
Understanding Physical Development
Teaching Portfolio 