PK-2nd

Observation Guide
Physical Development
Pre-K (4 year olds)
o Grasp pencil in whole fist and
use their arm, hand and
fingers as a single unit
o Focus on visually far away
objects
o Clumsy
o Need lots of physical activity
o Can sit still for short periods
o Awkward with small
movements
o Learn through large muscle
activity
o Unable to switch between
near and far focus

Kindergarten (5 year olds)

o Hold pencils with three-
fingered pincer-like grasp
o Focus on nearby
o Need physical activity
o Controlling large movements
o Somewhat awkward with
small tasks
o Pace themselves well/rest
before exhausted
o Fall out of chars sideways
o Older fives
o Tire quickly
o Stand up to work
o More difficult to sit
still

Physical Development Strategies
o Room should be set up to
o Provide time and space for
provide plenty of space for
free play
movement to minimize

accidents
o Climbing apparatus on
playground
o A quarter of school day
should be in physical activity

Comments:

1st Grade (6 year olds)

o Proper pencil grasp
o Tire easily
o Visual tracking from left to
right (reading)
o Frequently ill
o Sloppy
o Always in a hurry
o Fall backwards out of chairs
o Learning to distinguish from
their left and right
o Active
o Chew on pencils, nails, hair,
books (teething)
o Work standing

2nd grade (7 year olds)

o Often hold pencil near the
point with three finger grasps
that they find difficult to relax
o Focused on nearby, small
areas
o Sensitive to many hurts real
and imagined
o Better at playing sports
o Likes confined spaces
o Sometimes tense
o Prefer individual playground
games (hopscotch, four
square) over team games

o Encourage to work more

slowly
o Clay, paints, dancing, coloring,
book making, weaving,
singing

o Minimize copying from the

board
o Corners with blocks or
manipulatives
o


Cognitive Development

Pre-K (4 year olds)
o Short attention spans
o Learn best by moving large
muscles
o Need to play/explore
o Enjoy music, rhythm, and
repeating patterns
o Love being read t
o Need hands on experiences
o Accepts responsibilities and
individual tasks

Kindergarten (5 year olds)

o Like to copy/repeat
o Single-minded
o Sensory, only accepts tangible
concepts
o Ascribes life to inanimate
objects
o Learn best through active
exploration/hands-on
activities
o Think intuitively/irrationally
o Think aloud before acting
o Routine driven
o Can work quiet for 15-20 min
o Must act on one thing at a
time

o Older fives
o Begin to try new
activities more easily
o Make lots of mistakes
and recognize some
o Learn well from direct
experience
Crave constant validation of their
initiative

1st Grade (6 year olds)

o Learn through discovery
o Eager, curious, driven
o Imaginative
o Develop spatial relationship
o Enjoy process more than
product
o Love to color and paint
o Engages more in cooperative
and dramatic play
o Interested in technology
o Understand past, present, and
how and why things happen
o Artistic explosion (paints, etc)
o Quantity over quality
o Find history difficult and less
associated with the present
o Approach world more
logically, begin to organize
concepts symbolically and
systematically
o Understanding of cause and
effect
o Basic computations with
money
o Complete simple worksheets t
practice basic computation
Experiment with reversing
operations (- and +)

2nd grade (7 year olds)

o Enjoy repeating task and
reviewing learning
o Like to slowly work alone or
in twos and finish what they
start
o Dont like taking risks or
making mistakes
o Work hard to make work
perfected
o Good at classifying and
sorting
o Like to be read to
o Enjoy board and computer
games
o Like to take things apart and
discover how they work
o Able to reflect on learning
o Comfortable with emphasis
on high-quality products and
proper display of work
o Timed tests create frustration
o Enjoy memorization, codes,
puzzles and secrets
o Can do more complex mental
math and solve equations

Cognitive Development Strategies

o Label objects that students
o
frequently use to give them
practice
o Assign jobs, especially jobs
o
that involve counting, such as
attendance
o
o Create activities that allow
students to move from one
area of the classroom to
o
another
o Teach expectations by
o
modeling
o Provide opportunities for
o
students to experiment with
pulleys, magnets, puzzles,
interlocking cubes, scoops,
funnels, measuring cups,
sand, etc
o

o

Comments:

Provide blocks,
manipulatives, clay, sand
water
Predictable and clear daily
schedules
Learning environment that is
both structured and
exploratory
Tie instruction to childrens
interests
Clear and simple directions
and expectations
Provide opportunities for
students to count and sort, do
simple addition and
subtraction with
manipulatives
Hands-on exploration of size,
shape, length, volume
Opportunities to practice
writing numbers and do
simple equations

o Limit the number of complex

tasks so they can produce
products of higher quality
o Connect social studies
content to here and now
o Take on field trips followed
by representational activities
like telling about the trips or
using blocks to recreate what
they saw
o Provide opportunities for
mental math and problem
solving after theyve
mastered necessary skills
with concrete materials
o Have students practice lots of
measuring using sand or
water table, feet, and blocks

o Provide classroom
environment suitable for
sustained, quiet work periods
o Give students a heads-up
that its time to prepare for
transitions
o Discovery centers (inquiry
based learning)
o Ask them to do one task at a
time
o Give opportunities to do
more computations with
money and time
o Let students work with
fractions by measuring,
weighing, and comparing
o Allow students to experiment
with symmetry and geometry
o Provide opportunities for
students to practice
mathematical skills with
games
o Provide quiet corners for
reading or working

Language and Literacy Development

Pre-K (4 year olds)
Kindergarten (5 year olds)
o Very talkative
o Literal when interpreting
o Long explanations
words
o Enjoys experimenting with
o Express themselves in few
big words
words
o Love being read to
o Think out loud
o Scribble writing and drawing o Express fantasy more through
o Large writing
action and less through words
o Begins forming words but
o Focus on one word at a time
letters do not match sounds
when reading

o Uses pointer or finger while
reading
o Reverse letters or numbers
(ot vs to, d vs b)
o Unable to stay within lines
while writing
o Struggles with spacing
o Writes only in uppercase
letters
o Stories represented by letters
clustered as words or a single
drawing
o Older fives
o Give more elaborate
answers to questions
o Use more words than
needed to convey
ideas
o Read out loud, even
during silent reading

1st Grade (6 year olds)

o Enjoy reading and writing
o Enjoy explaining things
o Love jokes and guessing
games
o Boisterous and enthusiastic
language
o Complain frequently
o Begin copying information
from board, but find it
difficult
o Struggle with spacing and
staying on the lines
o Several symbolic
representations of a story
(many pictures)
o Begin to write sentences
often leaving out vowels
o Begins to match written
letters to sounds
o Spontaneous mixture of
upper and lower case
o Handwriting is large and
sloppy but more legible
o Stories begin to develop into
sentences

2nd grade (7 year olds)

o Begin silent, independent
reading, often whispering still
o Listen well and speak
precisely
o Enjoy 1-on-1 conversation
o Rapidly develop vocabulary
o Interested in word meanings
o Writing is neat and small,
anchored to baseline
o Work with head down on
their desk often looking out of
one eye
o Struggle with cursive writing
o Can do reading
comprehension assignments
o Write longer stories with
beginning, middle and end
o Learning capitalization and
punctuation
o Write before drawing
o Begin spelling correctly
o Increased phonetic and sight
word fluency

Language and Literacy Development Strategies

o Allow students to do their
o Learn and practice language
own reading of picture
skills through teacher
books
modeling and directed role
o Boost early literacy skills by
play, as well as dramatic play
scribbling and using invented o Teach students to use finger
spelling
as separator for spacing
o Provide practice for pre-
o Do partner reading peers
writing (finger painting or
helping each other through
painting with brushes at
familiar books (parallel
standup easels)
reading)

o Read short chapter books out
loud
o Have students write theme
stories with classmates and
turn them into books
o Provide predictable books
with few words, much
repetition, and many pictures
o Phonics in small groups with
children at similar skill levels
o Labels, signs, posters and
charts for students to read to
identify familiar objects


Comments:

o Games, poems, rhythms, and

songs rather than workbooks
o Partner reading
o Guided reading with whole
class and in small groups
o Continue reading predictable
books, begin to move onto
easy chapter books
o Provide opportunities for
students to show
understanding of different
genres
o Let students use
manipulatives to show
feelings or thoughts about a
story

o Less partner reading and

more individual reading
(their greater strength)
o Intense phonics instruction in
small groups
o Provide time for students to
create own stories

Self-concept, Identity, and Motivation Development

Pre-K (4 year olds)
Kindergarten (5 year olds)
o Easily redirected from
o Need routines, consistent
inappropriate behavior,
rules and discipline
o Love learning to work
o Respond well to clear and
together
simple instructions
o Physically act out
o Need verbal permission/
o Dependent on adult guidance
approval from adults
o Worried/fearful (older fours) o Have trouble seeing from

anothers viewpoint
o Center of own universe
o Out of fear, wont try
something new
o Initiative drives them forward


Self-concept, Identity, and Motivation Development Strategies
o Small dramas and role plays o Need safe space/
help teach social skills
encouragement to make
o Learn from modeling, need
mistakes and support from
chances to practice new
adults to keep trying
behavior
o Provide clear and consistent

expectations


Comments:

1st Grade (6 year olds)

o Ambitious and motivated to
learn, like to work
o Enthusiastic
o Anxious to do well
o Thrive on encouragement
o Choose challenging projects
o Develop interest in skill and
technique
o Begin to think of others close
to them
o Risk taking
o Sense of inadequacy and
inferiority as they tackle new
frontiers

2nd grade (7 year olds)

o Appreciate personal
relationship with teacher
o Neat with own belongings
o Often feel like no one likes
them
o Depend on adult for
reassurance
o No longer take risks
o Conscientious and serious
o Strong likes and dislikes

o A little bit of encouragement

produces a radiant smile,
hugs and excitement
o A little bit of condemnation
can produce tears, pouting
and withdrawal

o Need humor and games to

moderate seriousness
o Close communication
between teachers and
parents helps ensure their
needs are understood

Peer Relations and Moral Development

Pre-K (4 year olds)
Kindergarten (5 year olds)
o Friendly, talkative, bubbly
o Like to follow rules, be good
o Work near, not with, friends
and to help
o Love being with friends
o Need teacher release to move
o Needs adult advice
to next task, but can self-pace
o Need adult help finding words
during task
to express needs instead of
o Feels safe with structure
reacting physically
o Needs verbal permission
o Roughhouse
o Older fives
o Oppositional
o Insecure with feelings
o Complain, test
authority and limits
o Respond well to
redirection/reminders

Peer Relations and Moral Development Strategies

o Provide consistent guidelines
and carefully planned periods
o Provide opportunities to play
in housekeeping or other
dramatic play corners

Comments:

1st Grade (6 year olds)

o Want to be first
o Competitive
o Poor sports/sore losers
o Invent rules to win
o Bossy/teasing
o Extremely sensitive
o Care a lot about friends; may
have a best friend
o Uses tantrums, complaining
and tattling
o Begins taking more
responsibility for self and
group

2nd grade (7 year olds)

o Inward-looking, moody,
touchy, depressed, or shy
o Change friends frequently
o Need security and structure
o Rely on adults for help and
constant reassurance
o Sensitive to others feelings
and sometimes tattle
Can get sick from worrying about
tests and assignments

o Be understanding but do not o Prepare students in advance

excessively tolerate tantrums
for classroom changes such
complaining, tattling
as a substitute taking over the
o Take the competitive edge off
classroom
games used for learning
o Provide daily routine and
o Allow students to do
classroom structures
cooperative projects,

activities, and tasks