Early Childhood Education Observation Report
Meal Time
On the first day, I observed Noah during his lunch at daycare. The observation lasted fifteen minutes. There are fourteen children in his group. The group is supervised by two teachers. Apart from me, there was one observer present at the lunch. During the observation, Noah seemed calm and friendly, yet it was hard to make a conversation because he refused to talk. When he received his food, Noah informed the teacher that he will not drink the milk because he has an allergy. Later his parents confirmed that he has lactose intolerance. After receiving his food he asked whether it has milk. Receiving negative answer, he said ‘thank you’ to the teacher and started eating. During the meal, while smiling, he limited his answers to ‘yes’ and ‘no’, both communicated by shakes of his head. When I asked him whether he likes the food, Noah nodded ‘yes’. When I asked him what he likes the most, he told me that he likes all kinds of food, but he should not eat “anything with milk” because of his allergy.
During his time at daycare, Noah spends most of his time with three other children, Branen, Adin, and Thomas. I noticed that during the lunch he was not sitting with them and asked him if he wants to change his place in order to sit with them. He replied that during the lunch he prefers to sit alone and does not want to change his place. Nonetheless, none of the children were disturbed or seemed alarmed by this behavior. Noah also seemed cheered and friendly despite the fact that he was eating on his own. Later teachers told me that he always asks them to let him sit alone during his lunch, so they already got used to it.
Meal Time Interpretation
While Noah has lactose intolerance, he is able to adequately communicate his need for the special diet. Not only he understands that he has this diet issue, he knows that dairy products may have different looks. Thus, he asks his teachers whether something has milk in it before eating. This indicates high cognitive competencies and critical thinking potential. What surprised me is that he is able to communicate his needs with no help from his parents and supervision from teachers. In fact, he is the one supervising the teachers. At the same time, he did not feel bad about his problem, nor did he feel jealous for other children at the daycare group who received milk. This type of behavior indicates developed language and cognitive competencies. I was impressed that while being only three years old, Noah is able to communicate and comprehend his needs so accurately.
During the meal, Noah did not interact with me or other children. While my first assumption was that he may have problems with social competencies or emotional development, I later …
