Becca Shanks

EDUC 115
Alison Silver
May 12, 2015

Case Study: Nikolas

This semester I had the opportunity of observing Nikolas, a 3 year old who goes to
Building Blocks Learning Center, a local nursery school/Pre-k program in Hilltown,
Pennsylvania. Over the course of this semester, I have been able to observe his various
developmental skills in various domains. I observed his physical skills, both gross and fine
motor, his social/emotional skills, his cognitive, his play skills and finally his creative skills.
Through all of this time, I was able to determine the general functioning level of Nikolas as
compared to the developmental milestone check list for his age group. I will also include
classroom activities that would help enhance the developmental skills of Nikolas.
First, I will discuss Nikolass physical development; the gross skills. He was able to catch
a ball when I threw it to him. The developmental milestones for his age say that he should be
able to throw a ball over his head and be able to catch it. I observed during their gross motor
time of free play and the environment has various big balls, slides, a balance beam, self-motored
cars, and a road that they enjoy to run/drive on. While I didnt observe him throwing the ball,
he thought of me throwing a ball to him as a little game and was happy to play. In this big room,
the road consists of a different colored tile that forms a big rectangle around the perimeter of
the room. The kids enjoy playing on this. They treat it as an actual road and stop at the stop
signs, (the corners). I was able watch his running skills and he was able to run with control of

himself. He could control his speed and his direction. If there were obstacles, he was able to run
around it. The developmental milestones for his age state that he should be able to run around
obstacles with no problem so I would definitely say that he is in the spectrum in that area. He
did not watch his feet while walking or running, alternating his feet. The developmental
milestones for his age state that he should be able to walk with ease, almost adult like. I never
once thought that he had trouble walking or running so his development there is spot on.
He was able to climb up and down climbing equipment. In the big room, there are
slides and a balance beam. He was able to climb the stairs of the slides with no difficulty. The
developmental milestones for his age state that he should be able to climb ladders and use a slide
independently. The milestones also state that he should be able to alternate feet when climbing
stairs and he had no problem doing that; he did not need to look down at his feet.
I was able to observe his fine motor skills a few times during the semester during their
fine motor time which is before the gross motor time. The developmental milestones for his age
state that he should be able to hold a crayon, pencil, paintbrush, with his fingers not his fist. He
placed his fingers around the implements with no issue. I got to see him do a dinosaur project.
He was first given a dinosaur to paint. Nikolas did not grab the paintbrush using his fist but
instead placing his fingers around it, the proper way. The next part of the project was making
the grass. He was given a rectangle and was told to cut little slits in it to resemble grass. He
followed the instruction and had no issue cutting the slits. His teacher even said You know what
youre doing, good job!
In ways, he was in the spectrum with his social/emotional skills but in ways, I would say
that he needed some improvement. As I started observing while they were well into their school
year, some things were different at the beginning of the year as what the teacher said. His teacher

informed me that at the beginning of the year he had trouble separating from his primary care
giver, but by the time I started observing, he had gotten over that and came a long way. The
developmental milestones for his age state that he should be able to follow simple directions. I
was able to observe this when he was doing his dinosaur project. He followed each step therefore
completing the task successfully. I could definitely see him developing a secure attachment with
the teacher. There was a scenario where it was time to clean up so that they could go to circle
time and the teacher asked many of the children to clean up the Legos, but Nikolas was the only
person to stay behind and help; all of the other children left to find their circle time seats.
I did notice that he doesnt have the words yet for some situations. He is not really able to
release stressful feelings in an appropriate manner; no words to express his feelings. In these
frightening situations, he looks to the teacher to resolve the problem. In some cases however, he
expresses his anger in some words, but he never had a problem in expressing anger with negative
actions. At circle time, a little boy was causing a disturbance and it made him upset and he turned
to him and said NOOOOO.
I would say that for the most part he was in the spectrum with his cognitive skills. He was
able to classify objects by color but nothing else. At circle time, they had these color/letter
popsicles. They did an activity with them. The popsicles came apart by Velcro and had an
uppercase letter on one and a lower case letter on the other. For older children they would put the
letters together but for this age they just did the colors. Nikolas was able to complete the task. He
was able to place objects in a sequence. The car bin, the doll bin, and the action figure bin were
all in front of him and he was able to sort the cars, dolls and action figures in their proper bin. He
did okay with counting by rote. He stopped at twelve and skipped seven, eight and nine, so his
counting was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, and 12. He displayed one to one correspondence while

working with his teacher for the dinosaur project, and various other projects. He was also able to
display one to one correspondence at snack one time when his teacher asked him to give
everyone a paper cup. He went around to both of the tables and did not miss anyone.
His play skills I would say need some work. While he wasnt doing anything wrong, he
continued to play with the same boy each and every time. This was where I noticed he smiled the
most. He was able to play by himself with his own materials that were similar to the rest of the
group. There were about four kids at a table playing with dishes and ice-cream. He got the same
supplies but played at the next table down by himself. He stuck to playing with the same little
boy each time. He played with others in group play with the action figures and cars and also in
the big room. But where ever Nikolas went, his friend Max had to be right there. He was able to
gain access to ongoing play in positive manner by taking turns on the slide with a few other
children. When there is conflict in his play, although he cannot express himself, he redirects
himself in some sort other play.
He was very good in creative play. Before his friend was done his project, he sat by
himself with a pirate and pretended he was a pirate. When his friend joined him, he assigned
Nikolas the role of a pirate by saying lets be pirates! and together they pretended they were
pirates. They needed props to do this pretend play (the pirate ship), but they went over to the
girls in the dolls center and talked in a pirate voice. They were able to figure out the
characteristics related to being a pirate and so the took things from the girls like pirates would
steal. They used language for creating the plot by saying We took your babysitter! (one of the
dolls). In conclusion he was able to enact exciting, danger-packed themes. He played with the
action figures and related it to the Spiderman comics.

In conclusion, for the most part, Nikolas is perfectly in his age range developmentally.
Some activities that the teacher could do to help Nikolas with his words would be to instead of
solving his conflict matter, to have him use his words and do it himself. This would give him
practice in using his words. For help with his numbers, he should everyday have some sort of
practice counting whether its counting blocks, numbers etc For his other friend, his teacher
even said that it would be beneficial to Nikolas if he branched out and found other children to
play with. A way to do that is to do activities where they are in separate groups, and having him
sit next to other children at circle time.