Amani stands near to table on which there are name tags of students, she leans to pick her name’s tag with a little hesitance: Child Development Observations Assignment, NCI, Ireland

Amani stands near to table on which there are name tags of students, she leans to pick her name’s tag with a little hesitance and picks the tag, and pastes it on the name board. During this time, she has a smile on her face and looks pleased with this activity.

She goes into her classroom and sits on the floor along with her all classmates, she is smiling and has her eyes on her teacher, and pays attention to what the Teacher is saying intently. She is constantly smiling and moving her body in a swinging way. Now the Teacher is singing a song called ‘Mary’ and Amani is singing along with the teacher and continuously smiling. The teacher then reads the children a story about growing flower plants.

The Teacher speaks of flower planting and tells the children that she has some seeds!  She tells the children that they will plant them later and that they will grow into beautiful flowers. Amani says ‘flower’ with the teacher. The teacher asks the children what they think the seeds will need to grow. Amani says water, water loudly.

The Teacher says that the children can go and play, and Amani raises her hand and turns back and forth to her classmates.  She walks around touching the different objects, goes to the painting area and takes the color out of the jar, and writes her name with her right hand.

She draws with the green color and then picks another marker. She gets up and walks to the garden.  She puts on her apron and ties the laces and ribbons. She stands by a large soil pot where other children are getting soil.  She has a soil pot and tries to get the soil from a child standing close to her.  Another boy standing next to her has two scoops and she tries to snatch one because the other boy is not letting her have the soil scoop.

She snatches a scoop of the boy and cheerfully puts some soil into the pot and says ‘put some soil and it will make soil’ She picks a scoop and presses the soil inside the pot and says ‘I am gonna show my soil’ and she then goes and sits next to her teacher who is making wax dough.  She tries to take some wax dough and laughs when her teacher refuses to give her the wax dough.

The Teacher splits the dough and gives her half.  She smells it and kneads it with her hand. The Teacher asks her ‘how does it feel?’ She says ‘good’.  The Teacher asks, ‘what does it feel like?’ Amani says ‘soft’ and smiling, shifts the dough from one hand to another. She says, ‘where is the stick to put it on?’ She leans forward to get one and crushes an object on the table.

The teacher exclaims ‘Oops!’ Amani says she needs sticks and she holds the stick plate and puts that near to her and picks the sticks one by one and puts them in the dough. The Teacher says, ‘you could sing a song?’ She says ‘yes’ and walks back to the garden accompanied by her teacher.  After finishing with the wax dough, she puts the dough near to the flowerpots and waters the plants using a watering can.