Introduction
The purpose of this report is to describe and facilitate the learning and development of a three-year-old child, Nami (pseudonym), in an early childhood daycare center. As seen from the report, the focus is to assess how certain educational practices affect her development in different social, physical, and cognitive aspects of her life through her participation in certain activities. Learning through play and belonging that is in line with children's rights and the principles of the New South Wales and the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) is evident at Namias the context is a structured daycare center. Science Week, with a focus on motion and Harmony Week projects, offered numerous more or less structured social and physical learning experiences that contributed to Nami’s learning of communication, empathy, and problem-solving skills. Altogether, one can observe curiosity and perseverance, which are typical at Nami’s age, as well as hands-on solid learning enthusiasm in her activities (Cronin-Golomb& Bauer, 2023). These developmental areas will be discussed critically in this report, and ways of enhancing Nami’s development in education will be recommended.
Child and Learning
Social and Emotional Development
Nami exposes a number of social and emotional competencies, as shown through interaction with peers during bowling and collaging or while they play. She also demonstrated maintaining distance from other students and obeying a safety regulation in which she was only allowed to roll the ball on the gross motor activity during bowling. All these actions can be linked to EYLF Outcome 2.1 as from this interaction Nami is learning the values of reciprocal responsibility as well as contributing positively to her early childhood community (ACECQA, 2020). Pike's awareness of and willingness to help her peers, such as carrying and making sure that Piper's water bottle had water, shows some aspect of emerging care, part and parcel of niche-mindedness in the early years of development. These are essential events since they enable Nami to feel as though she belongs and is safe in any social interaction that she has or that is in a position to have with other children in a daycare setting, thus propping up her optimistic outlook to meet and interact with new people relativity.
Language and Communication Skills
With the storytelling of felt animals, viewers see how Nami’s language and communication are progressing. In one of the activities, she devoted much time to laying felt animals and telling a story of how she was making scenes with dinosaurs and tigers. This play activity enabled her to symbolically use language to represent ideas, construct meaning, and use imagination to convey interpretations to others, thus meeting EYLF Outcomes 5.1 and 5.3 (ACECQA, 2020b). It is such activities that assist in the process of a child's word acquisition and narrating, as Nami composes and then translates thoughts into a play (Luckman et al., 2020). Also, her ability to pay attention to her educator by placing the animals in "ponds," as had been suggested to her, exhibits receptiveness to assume learned responses, illustrating mutual communication competency that is in the process of developing among the child and other human beings. Acquiring this particular skill is essential for literacy and social communication when she begins her learning process.
Physical and Motor Skills
The child's physical development is also evident through her gross and fine motor skills. Movements in gross motor development include picking up large foam blocks during outdoor playtime; she demonstrated strength, balance, and coordination. During the collaging activity, using little items like scissors and fabric strips to interlock shows development in her fine motor control. For example, she cleverly used scissors, adjusting the way she held the scissors concerning the observed behaviors, and that points to a heightened ability to exert small body movements and hand-eye coordination as well. These activities relate to EYLF Area of Learning 3: physical development and EYLF Outcome 3.2: children's physical wellbeing and motor skills in the early years (ACECQA, 2022b). In these focal intentional interactions, both confidence and the capacity of Nami are engendered for control of physical work, which creates a fundamental framework for abilities fundamental to daily responsibilities and functional independence acquired.
Cognitive Development and Curiosity
That is why Nami’s thinking and reflecting on the presented activities, such as bowling and magic sand, play a role in cause-and-effect relationship exploration during early childhood. In the bowling activity, Naomi noticed that delivering the ball gently made fewer pins fall, while when applying more force, more pins fell. They enable her to grasp motion force and outcome observations and ideas, which are among the foundational prepossesses of early scientific thinking, according to Piaget, who wrote in 1964. Finally, her maneuver with silly-putty enabled her to express herself on textures, shapes, and structure making. In this way, Nami developed her creative thinking, as well as her reflection and solving problems skills according to EYLF Outcomes 4.1 and 4.2 (ACECQA, 2020b). Such observations prove the capacity to know and take the surroundings, which means that the future student has to learn dispositions such as creativity, curiosity, and persistence. This means that the daycare environment encourages her to develop critical thinking as a fundamental aspect of lifelong learning.
Discussion
Learning Context and Pedagogical Approaches
The methodology used in the daycare is play-based learning. This is a method that follows principles of early childhood development that accord autonomy, imagination, and safety to children. Approved plans include structured and unstructured activities for individualism and cooperation since the progress of children varies according to self-organization. For example, during group games, such as bowling, the children learn about patience and sharing during play, or during activities that may require a child to collate or play with the felt animals, the children learn about self-lead activities and exploration. This framework enables the implementation of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF); balanced programs – hence promoting the learning of discipline while focusing on an area of interest in a safe environment (ACECQA, 2010). For example, the daycare offers chances to play within certain limits, which makes a child-like Nami grow self-esteem and develop a secure working groundwork for provoking creativity as well as decision-making (Alcruz& Blair, 2022). Such a combination of group and individual learning is vital for the cognitive development of social skills as well as for personality identity.
Impact of Curriculum Design and Educational Practices
The themes of the weeks that are still carried out at the daycare are, for example, Science Week and Harmony Week. Experiences such as the bowling experiment during Science Week made children understand fundamental physics by engaging them in motion, force, and cause and effect. During works of art related to Harmony Week like collaging, Nami continued to enhance his creativity as well as fine motor development through the different activities through the experience of the works of art. The curriculum design corresponds to the developmental protocols of learning activities that can be repeated several times; it fosters independence and intrinsically motivated children (Button, 2021). EYLF is based on experiential learning, identity, and a sense of belonging to a community, which is also reflected in the approach applied. Instead, the daycare lets the children choose and return to the activities they want, which makes children like Nami learn to adapt strategies and genuinely develop an interest in learning.
Developmental Characteristics and Support Needs
That is why the strengths of rocking horse Nami are presented deeper and include watchfulness, inquisitiveness, and willingness to obtain some knowledge through observation. Something as simple as collaging and sand exploration shows some beginning stage of working attention during each of these activities, which is an essential element of cognition for child development. Also, their concern with peers and efforts to help friends such as Piper shows her self-generated social interest and aspect of concern for others. Such strengths point to an environment that may facilitate the Nami peer interaction status and explore self-expression. To build on her development further, activities can be arranged to encourage observational learning on her part and encourage further role play, cooperation, and problem-solving while strengthening the child's social relationships and empathy (Hammond et al., 2020). Hence, by nurturing these qualities, the daycare will have a character structure that is inappropriate correspondence with his/her tendencies and growth pattern of Nami.
Supporting Literature and Theories
Play in learning for young children is supported by core theories such as Vygotsky's Social Constructivist theory, pointing out that interaction is at the core of cognition (Saleem et al., 2021). Vygotsky's sociocultural theory states that children learn essential skills and knowledge from peers and from observing others, assimilating what they have learned into their practice (Evans &Saracho, 2021). Regarding turn-taking, cooperation, and empathy, in Nami’s case, it can be as simple as her participation during group bowling, where, through pro-social play, the activities are reinforced. According to Vygotsky, this means the teacher needs to arrange the children's social learning environment so as to allow enhanced peer tutoring and modeling since they are both critical for enhanced cognitive and social development.
Similarly, in Piaget's cognitive development theory, appreciation of objects has a way of defining constructionism. Piaget postulated that children build knowledge through their activities through interaction with their environment and working out the results of any action. Activities like magic sand exploration and bowling are the constructs of Nami's learning; therefore, she is inclined to play because she mimics what is observable by engaging in experiments of cause and effect and acquiring motor coordination as well. Vygotsky also strongly supports a curriculum that has social interaction combined with individual learning, as both theories support the curriculum that recognizes the children's sovereignty in their learning process while fostering their development. Hence, there is significant alignment of these theories in coming up with a balanced view of educational settings in early childhood that embraces structure, which at the same time fosters an environment that promotes developmental mezzo in young children.
Conclusion
When considering myself as a watcher and enabler of Nami’s development, I understand how children should be introduced to the concept of play, as well as influenced and steered through both free and directed play. Nami’s interactions with different experiences, such as choice play in bowling and personal achievement in collaging, have made me appreciate how much choice can improve a child's competence. In that way, while allowing her to respond to stimuli by questioning, I was able to foster her exploration of challenges and helped her feel less anxious, which allowed her to feel more self-reliant.
I managed to learn about child development and play as an essential aspect in the development of cognitive, social, and physical development. I pointed out that safety versus autonomy is a constant struggle: the activities have to be free in some way, allowing the child to roam, but the boundaries have to be set to ensure the safety of every kid. Knowledge of developmental milestones also became important, because it enables to schedule the activities that are relevant to each child's current stage of development and stimulate his/her development at the same time.
All these observations have been helpful in my professional development as an educator. That is why the experience showed that a responsive approach, when a teacher focuses on each child's characteristics and reactions, improves learning results. This has further enriched me in developmental theory and strengthened my belief in the importance of play activities in young children's learning. There is more to it in future practice since these findings will be helpful in enhancing the kind of learning environment that is appropriate to the children and their developmental level.