PEPSI Lesson Plan ----- By Susan Nietfeld

GOAL: The parent will understand that our goal is to teach the whole child.

OBJECTIVES:

1. Introduce parents to the PEPSI model

2. Discuss how PEPSI helps us view the child as a whole person.

3. Show how looking at the child as a colorful rainbow helps us to see all of him/her instead of seeing just one side.

4. Help parents to understand typical development of a child of this age.

INTRODUCTION: Shine the light of a flashlight or a slide projector through a sheet of glass. Ask for response about how we see the light. It’s a straight beam, it’s white, the light goes through the glass, etc. Shine the light through a prism, now how do we view the light? The beam bends and fans out after passing through the prism. We can now see many colors in the light, not just one. As adults we sometimes see children like the beam of white light, we may see only one characteristic, we may think that children are all the same, that they will act the same in certain situations, or that they develop the same ways. Children are not like the white light however, they are all individual, each one unique in his or her own way and each one has many sides to his personality and they develop in many different ways. We will look at how the child develops in five areas, the areas of Physical, Emotional, Philosophical, Social, and Intellectual development. These areas are not listed in degree of importance, as they are equal in importance, but rather to give us a clue to remembering each area.

Let’s take a look at what the typical development is of a child who is about 4 years old, and as we do, think about the things your child does. See where you think he or she fits. But be aware, all children do not develop the same. One child may develop more quickly in one area, but not as quickly in another. For this reason, we’ll talk about development of children from 3 to 5, adjusting the discussion depending upon the ages of the children of the parents who are present on that occasion.

Since we see light in different colors as it passes through the prism, we will use different colors in our discussion about the different areas of child development, listing them briefly on the white board for 3, 4 and/or 5 year olds.

P = Physical ( RED) A three year old has learned to use his gross motor muscles pretty confidently. He walks and runs in a balanced fashion with arms swinging rhythmically. Three year old children can usually jump down from a step and jump up off the floor, forward, backward and side to side, sometimes imitating a model rather than in response to a spoken direction. They can go up and down stairs, but enjoy it more if they can go down a slide. Most three year olds can ride a tricycle if they have had the opportunity to learn to do so. They can throw and catch a large ball, but don’t always hit their target. The three year old is beginning to enjoy fine motor tasks. they usually hold a crayon with their whole hand, and can scribble on paper. They are beginning to copy circles and lines, and snip paper with scissors. and really enjoy manipulating play dough, though they may be very hesitant at their first exposure to it. They can manage a spoon and fork at the table, but do not yet use a knife. They are usually pros at undressing, and they can put on some clothes, but have not yet mastered all the fasteners. Many children are toilet trained by three years old but not all, and many do not yet stay dry all night. A three year old’s typical language is easily understood, consisting of short sentences with nouns, verbs, some modifiers and pronouns. Their conversations are usually one or two turns long per topic.

The four year old child has progressed in his motor control, and nearly all love to play outdoors on trikes, swings and jungle gyms and in the water! They are able to stand on one foot briefly and usually go up and down stair easily while holding on to the rail, sometimes marking time with their feet. Given the opportunity, ball play becomes more smooth and enjoyable. Four year olds are able to do form board puzzles and some large jigsaw puzzles. They are beginning to hold pencils and crayons in a tripod grasp if it has been demonstrated for them and can copy some shapes and letters. They can pour from containers usually spilling very little. A four year old can usually manage all fasteners except sometimes belt buckles, snaps on pants and the bottom clasp of a zipper. The four year old has usually learned to use negatives in speech and has begun to ask more why, who, where and how questions rather than just what questions. They are usually able to take more than two turns in a conversation.

Five year old children love to run, jump, climb, throw and kick balls and enjoy making up games to do these activities. They are able to hop on one foot, and usually learn to combine running and hopping to skip late this year. Stair climbing and descending becomes more smooth with one foot per stair and often without needing to hold the rail. Children at this age are usually completely toilet trained, though some still have night accidents. Tripod control of crayon or pencil increases as five year olds learn to write their name and color within the lines, shapes and letters can be imitated and sometimes written on request. Scissors control increases as children learn to cut following straight and curved lines. A five year old child will have very good articulation and carry on a fairly lengthy conversation. They use words to plan and carry out their play and enjoy telling stories about what has happened in their home or at play, sometimes real, sometimes pure fiction.

E = Emotional (GREEN) The emotional area is not as easy to see or evaluate as the physical, but the child does a lot of changing between the years of three and five in the emotional area. A child of three years is still usually pretty self-centered. Although s/he is beginning to recognize the other people in his/her life, they are mostly recognized for what they do for the child.

By four and five years old, a child begins to recognize that people can and do things for others besides himself. They learn that they, as the child, can do things to help others as well. Children move from playing by themselves, to parallel play, and then to cooperative play between two and four years of age.

By five, children can play a number of games and activities in a group. Children learn to make choices between three and five years of age, the choices becoming more intense and creative as they grow older, and they are often accompanied by strong feelings when “I’m right and you’re wrong.” or when someone else doesn’t obey the rules. By the time children are five, they usually enjoy working together to reach a common goal or to solve a problem, but they all want to get their share of the credit for a job well done.

P = Philosophical (BLUE) One of the delightful things about a three year old is that even though they may do things that are “naughty”, they are not done maliciously, but innocently. The child is still very innocent of what is right and what is wrong, and there is no real intention to hurt others or make them angry. They are very willing to please and are usually anxious to do what they can to help. By age four , children are beginning to have a better understanding of right and wrong, but things that adults perceive to be wrong such as lying, cheating at games and taking things are not done just to be naughty, but rather to get out of trouble, to succeed or just because that is what he wants to do at the time.

Four year olds are still learning what is socially acceptable, and his own needs are more important to him than society’s needs.

Five year olds are learning that when they follow society’s rules, they are perceived as “good”, that often brings its own rewards, and they like to be good. This sometimes leads to exaggeration of their goodly deeds in reporting them to others, as well as “tattling” when others don’t follow the rules. A child of five is beginning to see that other people may need and want different things than s/he does.

S = Social (PURPLE) Three year old children are beginning to be more social and enjoy being with other people. They begin to do more cooperative play rather than parallel play and play dates are beginning to be very enjoyable. Three year olds are more talkative and are beginning to communicate all their wants and needs verbally and they are beginning to form negatives in their speech rather than just using “No”.

As children near four, friends become more important and their play becomes more dramatic with lots of role playing and more involved plots, often reenacting or making up stories using their favorite television hero, Superman, Power Rangers, Pokemon, whatever is popular at the time. The boys tend to be more aggressive in their play, like their heroes. Children at this age want very much to please and positive reinforcement and praise are very good tools for encouraging behavior.

Five year olds are great helpers and this is a good age for giving children some regular household chores that they can assume responsibility for. Along with this is a respect for adults and adult roles which they like to portray in their play. Sentences like, “I’ll be the dad, you be the mom and I’m a doctor and I’m going to work” are wonderfully common to five year olds and make their play very fun to watch. Whatever a parent or teacher says has the ultimate authority for a five year old.

I = Intellectual (MAGENTA) As the child begins to talk more, the intellectual ability is measured more through verbal communication. This age is characterized by great vocabulary expansion and more turn taking in conversation, and they stay on one subject for more turns. They are beginning to understand past, present and future events, but tend to use “yesterday” for anything in the past and “tomorrow” for anything in the future. Children of three are beginning to enjoy fine motor, pre-writing activities like coloring and sometimes cutting, and puzzle play. They enjoy learning and working.

Four year old children are becoming more talkative and really enjoy conversing with others, hence the “Why” questions that four year olds are famous for. They use language to learn and to express themselves. They begin to play with language, telling and making up jokes and talk to and about everything, especially their toys, whether they be dolls or trucks. They even learn to manipulate people and situations using language. Additionally they love music and enjoy singing. Four year olds are beginning to classify things in their play , like all the red ones here, and the blue ones here; or the farm animals in this “barn” and the zoo animals in this “cage”. They are beginning to count and learn the ABC’s and are understanding spatial concepts. The four year old is very busy developing intellectually.

Five year olds have another busy year for intellectual development. A five year old’s attention span has increased and they can spend a long time focused on a task. This enables more intensive concentration on figuring out how things work or how to make something work to do what s/he wants it to do. This is the time when most children want to learn numbers, colors, letters and naming all kinds of things. They are more independent in their personal care, more modest in dressing, and taking care of their bathroom needs. They have begun to understand the association between letters and words and reading and are often beginning to desire the ability to read. Words they see often in their environment are recognized by sight, like Stop, McDonald’s, Walmart, and their own and family names. After discussing the age development of the in each area we will look at an example of a child’s profile to see how PEPSI could actually tell us how a child is progressing and if we might need to do more intensive evaluations for areas of concern.

We may actually use the child of a parent in attendance if arrangements have been made with the parent before hand to be certain that they would be comfortable with it. As an example, let’s look at Janna . Janna is a four year old child who was adopted by her family about two or three month ago. Janna has a brother, also adopted, in our program who has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, so after Janna was adopted she came to us for screening. These are some of the things we noted.

Physical area: Walks and runs with a smooth and even gait, jumps and hops a little Enjoys outdoor play, likes jungle gym and rides trikes Enjoys puzzles and playdough Colors, but mostly scribbles Does not trace letters or shapes Can snip with scissors but not cut on a line Has good articulation, takes two to three turns in conversations Is toileting independently, takes care of nose and hand washing independently

Emotional area: Cries when mom leaves her Does not like to eat breakfast and lunch away from home, she seems to feel that this indicates she will be adopted by these “new people” Seems to prefer parallel play, but becomes upset when someone doesn’t want to “be her friend”. She uses this threat with others and punishes others with this statement. Watches others play for a time before joining in Will stop playing a game if it is not going her way or if she feels she may not come out on top

Philosophical area: Is aware of rules and tells teacher when others are not following rules, Is beginning to know right from wrong Wants others to know when she does something good.

Social Area: Enjoys telling stories about what happened at her house, with her siblings or animals, or experiences she has had, but they are often made up Is very talkative Is very helpful to adults, not so much with other children Does not do much role playing Has friends at school and at home Does not clean up after herself without lots of reminders or help

Intellectual area: Enjoys figuring out how to put puzzles together, how to build with big legos and blocks, and tells all about why she places things as she does. Likes to group things together in her play Tries to manipulate situations to her desires Does not like to work in one area very long, hurries through tasks. Is learning to recognize her name but does not want to learn to write it

If we make a little chart that shows where Janna is in each of these five areas, it will help us to see if there are areas we need to be concerned about. As demonstrated on this chart, we see that although Janna is slightly lower in Emotional and Physical areas, she is right on target in Philosophical and Intellectual areas, while she has some skills which are high in the Social area. It appears that her development is pretty normal when we look at the whole child. She appears not to have been traumatized by her experience of adoption although there are some difficulties, and she is developing well. The fact that she has some higher social skills indicates that she is adapting well to her new situation.

We can see that Janna is a beautiful rainbow when we take the time to focus on all of her rather than just looking at her difficulties in the emotional area. We also see that she is developing normally in most area and that where there may be deficiencies, they are not great and she will probably grow in those areas given a little time. In the meantime, we as her caretakers and teachers can provide a safe and healthy environment in which she can grow and feel secure. We can appreciate the growth she has made, admire her resiliency and provide opportunities for learning and becoming. This is our goal for all the children we teach and with whom work. Each child is a unique and colorful treasure, it is our opportunity to get to know them and help them along their path.