observations

[raspberrytart]

How often do you do observations? What about planned and spontaneous obs ? Does it depend on how often the children attend ?
Thanks

[sarah707]

It depends how often they come and what they are doing.

Mine are all 2 days a week and I try to do 4 obs a month - ish.

Hth

[blue bear]

The pre school my mindee attends do 3 spontaneous and 2 focused observations a week on children who attend 15+ hours each week. Personally I think they are crackers, the obs are repetitive and often come a cross as done just to fill the quota.
I only do them when they mean something, so when 'John' pointed out a letter j written on the wall and said "my name" I wrote this up as a observation because it was the first time he had made that connection. some weeks there are loads and other weeks none, I think 4 a month is a good average.

[Tunja]

I don't do planned observations. Mine are all spontaneous and saved for when children do something special or different. They are often only one line long too! This means the more often a child attends the more likely the number of observations increases.

Our local playgroup also does planned observations, narrative style. A full page of nothing happening. EG. She sat down, she stood up. She looked around and sat down again. She played with the toys. This style of observation to me just indicated the child was bored.

[raspberrytart]

Thanks Folks