EDET460 - Assessment Task 2: Assessment Plan and Portfolio

Observation 1 – Blocks, cars and roads

Adjo is nearly five years old. He spends much time playing in the block corner, building similar structures. His structures often include roads, and he often drives cars along them. When he builds with a friend, he is very determined about where the road should go, and you have noticed that his friends move away after a few minutes. Adjo often narrates his games as he plays.

Observation 3 – Building a rocket

Louis was playing with magnetic tiles on the floor, sticking them together in one long line. From time to time, Louis would lie down and compare the length of the line with the length of his body. A teacher sat down with Louis and asked him what he was doing. ‘I’m making a rocket, but it’s not tall enough yet,’ said Louis. ‘I need to be able to fit inside’.

Observation 4 – Making with the sand

Akiko was playing in the outdoor kitchen area. She is five and a half years old. She put a small mound of wet sand in the sink, took a spoon, and banged in the mound. When she saw the flat shape of the wet sand, she laughed and made it into a mound again with her hands. Then, she took the spoon and flattened it again. Akiko repeated these actions several times.

Observation 5– Mixing colours with finger paint

Four-and-a-half-year-old Ava was at the finger-painting table with a friend, Sascha. Ava used blue finger paint, and his friend used yellow paint. Ava reached across with a hand covered in blue paint and wiped it over his friend’s yellow paint. He rubbed it back and forth many times, watching closely as the yellow paint turned green. Sascha stopped his own painting and watched Pawan closely. Then, he joined in, rubbing blue paint into the yellow to make green.

Observation 6 - Springtime

Five-year-old Amelia had been walking around the garden with an adult. As they walked, the adult pointed to new buds on the bushes and trees and to the bulbs that were beginning to grow out of the earth. ‘Look, Amelia!’ the adult said each time she pointed to a bud or a bulb. She explained, ‘It’s springtime. Look at the plants beginning to grow again’. A short time later, Amelia played in a different part of the garden when she called the adult over. ‘Look!’ she said, smiling and pointing to a bulb emerging from the earth.