1. Agenda- May 11th 2015 1. Finish up the Brochures.
2. Complete: Chapter 16 Pre-Reading Activity
3. Chapter 16: Define Egocentrism and Logical Thinking

2. Intellectual Development of the Preschooler

3. Question #1
What is logical thinking??

4. Obstacles to Logical Thinking
There are still some obstacles that preschoolers must overcome before they are able to think logically.
Preschool children under the age of four are egocentric.
What is egocentric? It is the belief that everyone thinks in the same way and has the same ideas as he or she does.

5. Obstacles to Logical Thinking
Egocentrism does not mean children are selfish or too concerned with themselves.
It means that they simply view the world in relation to themselves.
Example: They may offer others a candy from their mouths because they are enjoying it and think others would, too.

6. Obstacles to Logical Thinking
Preschoolers center their attention on only one part of an object or event.
They do not see all parts at the same time. (Refer to Chart 16-3)

7. Obstacles to Logical Thinking
Preschool children tend to focus on single steps, stages, or events, rather than see changes.
Piaget: The focus is like seeing each frame of a film as a separate, unrelated picture rather than a running story.
Preoperational children: after watching an object fall, will draw only the first or the last state.
How something happened or what something was like before a final change took place does not enter their minds.

8. Obstacles to Logical Thinking
They are not able to follow a line of reasoning back to where it starts.
They are not able to retrace steps to undo the task.
Ex: Adding two to three equals five. To reverse the problem, a logical thinker would subtract two from five to equal three.
The preschooler would not be able to see why subtracting can “undo” addition.

9. Obstacles to Logical Thinking
Preschoolers link actions without using logic.
Example: When a mother makes coffee just before a father comes home from work each day. The child may conclude that it is the coffee that brings Dad home.
The preschooler links events to each other when they occur close together in time, but not using logic.

10. New Abilities Emerge
Preschoolers can think in their heads better than before.
The preschoolers’ thinking is marked by a number of new abilities—symbolic play, mental images, drawing and language.

11. New Abilities Emerge Symbolic Play: “Pretend Games.”
In “pretend games,” objects may stand for anything the child wants.
Roles may change, too, as the child can take on adult or even animal roles.
These mentally changed objects and roles are symbols used to represent the pretend world and the child’s role in it.
Children are able to make up their own symbols—such as a leaf for a plate or the child as Baby Bear.
Pretend is a mental step beyond imitation.

12. New Abilities Emerge
Mental Images: Symbols of objects and past experiences that are stored in the mind.
They are pictures in the mind when words or experiences trigger the image.
Unlike imitation and other play, mental images are private and internalized.
Example: what mental images do you have when you hear the following words: cat, thunderstorms, flower?

13. New Abilities Emerge Drawing:
They now attempt to draw objects and depict their world through these drawings.
They intend their drawings to be realistic.
They draw what they think or know about a person, not what is visually accurate.
Ex: A side view of a goldfish in a drawing may show both eyes and even a smiling mouth.
Drawing is a step between symbolic play and mental images.

14. New Abilities Emerge Language:
Spoken words are symbols used to represent something.
Words are more abstract (do not relate to what they represent).
Example: The word car does not look, or sound, or move like a car.

15. Activity I am giving you each 7 words to consider.
Summer, melt, textbook, cellphone, rain, , country
I would like you to first independently—write down words, images, and associations that you make for each word.
I would like you to discuss each word with the person or people sitting with you. Compare and contrast your initial findings.
We will discuss these responses as a class and consider what kind of an affect this would have on a preschool student.

16. Agenda- May 13th 1. Finish up Questions and Definitions from yesterday
2. Finish Chapter 16
3. Questions and Response Paragraph to wrap up Chapter 16

17. Definitions and Questions
Define: Preoperational Stage Preconceptual Substage Intuitive Substage Egocentrism Mental Images Questions: Page 402: Reviewing Key Concepts: 2 & 5 Page 403: Thinking Further: 1 &2

18. Physical Attributes
Physical Knowledge: They learn what happens when objects are acted out by people. (ex: if something is tossed in the air, it will fall)
A child may not note the object’s most important features. (ex: a child must note a zebra’s stripes to distinguish it from a horse)
A preschooler tends to look at parts of an object, so they cannot always mentally “see” the whole object.

19. Classifying Objects
Classifying- the ability to choose an attribute and group all the objects from a set that possess that attribute.
Most preschool children become good at matching objects, they can learn to sort.
To classify, a child must see how objects are alike in one attribute while disregarding other attributes.
Ex: geometric shapes in many colour and sizes, the child chooses one attribute, such as blue.

20. Arranging by Size
Toward the end of the preschool years, many children can arrange dowel rods or sticks in order of their lengths.
To do this, the preschooler must physically lay the rods beside one another and hold all the bottom ends even.

21. Understanding Number Concepts
Many preschooler children can count.
However, counting does not show they understand numbers.
Ex: A preschool child may be able to count to five by saying numbers. The same child may have trouble when asked to find five apples in a basket.

22. Understanding Spatial Concepts
Until about five, a preschooler may not know what is on the other side of a wall in their home.
Preschool children think of the location of an object or person in relation to themselves.

23. Time Concepts Preschoolers can recall the recent past.
Children can link time to events, such as time to eat lunch.
Morning, afternoon, and seasonal changes are gradual.

24. Cause and Effect
Asking questions helps to have a child understand cause and effect.
Many cause and effect questions deal with natural events that may be too complex for young children to understand. Children often settle on their own ideas as an alternative.
Ex: They may believe giants cause the rain.

25. Language Abilities Increase
Preschoolers’ speech is as egocentric as their thinking.
They talk as though the listener would understand as they do.
Egocentric speech includes telling a story from the middle instead of the beginning because preschoolers assume the listener knows the beginning of the story.

26. Language Abilities
Monologue: Talking to themselves while thinking aloud.
Collective Monologue: Talking to another person but not listening to what the other person has said.
Toward the end of the preschool stage, egocentric speech gradually disappears. This makes communication easier.

27. Reading: Page 398-400 Summarize in your own words:
A) Articulation of Preschool Children
B) Vocabulary of Preschool Children
C) Grammar of Preschool Children

28. Questions and Activity
Pg Thinking Further: Questions 2 & 3 Response Pick one area of development that preschoolers have difficulty with ( ex: numbers, spatial concepts etc). What kinds of activities do you think parents can use to nurture this ongoing development during the preschool years?