Respond to your peers by addressing the following:
• Explain a physical or cognitive development learning activity that aligns with the ideas shared in your peer’s post. Make sure to explain the activity and how it supports their ideas.
Explain how advances in thinking during the concrete operational stage will allow you to incorporate more complex tasks into your daily routine.
The concrete operational stage is the third stage of Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory which occurs from age seven to age eleven (Berk, 2022). When children experience this stage of cognitive development, there is an increase in their development of logical thought (Lynch, 2021). Additionally, children during this stage are more adapted to thoroughly investigate a problem at hand rather than just focus on one aspect of it (Berk, 2022). They are more flexible with their ability to think, reason, and learn. This stage of cognitive development will allow me to incorporate more complex tasks into our daily routine because my students will be able to understand directions better. During the concrete operational stage, children can process information better and they have better control of their working memory (Berk, 2022). Thus, they would be able to keep up with what is being discussed and/or demonstrated while focusing on the task at hand.
Discuss why small cooperative groups are a developmentally appropriate format for learning in early childhood.
Small cooperative groups are a developmentally appropriate format for learning in early childhood. It promotes socialization and builds social skills, it also helps teach children how to collaborate their thinking with others, it allows children to challenge one another, and it allows them the opportunity to resolve their differences while providing explanations and/or evidence (Berk, 2022).
Describe how incorporating games, such as hopscotch or tag, can support both physical and cognitive development in early childhood.
When a teacher incorporates games, such as hopscotch or tag it supports both physical and cognitive development in early childhood. It promotes physical development because the games get the children moving. It increases their flexibility, muscle strength, balance, agility, and force (Berk, 2022). It promotes their cognitive development because they use their brain to correlate their moves to the instructions being presented. It also allows the children to use their listening skills which also helps with their cognitive ability (Berk, 2022).