Free Research Paper About Physical Development In 3rd Grade Kids

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Observation

For my observation on physical development in third graders, I visited certain schools of Michigan for a particular analysis of the kind of grooming being received by the third graders of the schools. Physical development is a phenomenon in children that is triggered by various aspects of training and they also include environmental factors as well as personal grooming while they interact and communicate with others their age as well as with their teachers and parents. This grade was chosen by me because third graders are individuals who are on their way to growing up, and their age is one of exploration and important in the process of learning in this stage of life. Children of ages eight or nine are highly energetic and completely submissive to learning new things and are ever ready for games and sports. Moreover, little do they have the realization of the fact that their physical activity is simultaneously affecting their other abilities that overall contribute to their optimum physical development.
The schools I went through were not overcrowded, nicely sized, holding reasonable number of students in them. The schools also had good neighborhoods, not completely affluent yet they were decent homes, apparently provided a safe environment for the students to live in and nearby the area harbored a few shops, some hotels, gas stations, salons, apartment houses and playgrounds for children as well. I also observed that the areas around the schools were inhabited by families who, some of which had children little children where mothers could be seen taking them out in prams and strollers when they went out to run some errands perhaps.
My observation ran during the times the students were in classes and when they were playing outdoors especially during their class of Physical Education. The chosen students who were being observed collectively were about 707 out of which 349 were boys, and 358 were girls.
In their ethnicity, the children were majority white, making 85% of the total which meant 599 were white; 72 were black or African American making about 10% of the total, the remaining children were 5% Hispanic, Asian American or American Indian by race. The mean ages of the children were ranging in eight years, and the mean average was 8.9 years.
The two main propositions being observed here were the effect of physical exercises such as aerobics and physical education on the physical development of children such as developing fine gross motor skills and becoming coordinated and physically healthy. The second was determining the relation between the emotional support, attention and activity level maintained in the classroom with particular academic achievement of a third grader.
For the aerobics session, a group of students was chosen who were required to perform rigorous and about double the amount of physical exercise which included aerobic and extensive sessions of it in duration. On the other hand, the second group was chosen who were required to perform less vigorous aerobics, and their session for exercise was also not too intense. The parents of the students were also required to keep track of the behavior and interaction of the child with them before the rigorous exercise session began and after it ended. The results of it when then gathered and examined. From the results it was concluded generally that although exercise does have a positive impact on the mind of the student and an aerobics is a good way of keeping a child physically fit, it does not necessarily have a vast impact on his development of concepts and understanding of things. There are other factors as well that can lead to better development of children who lie beyond physical exercise and physical education.
On the other hand, assessment was done on the basis of assessment of classroom atmosphere to judge the effect of environment and temperament of the student while in class to access the development in academics. It is proven scientifically that the early academic learning of a student has a long-term impact on his future learning abilities and performance in school or college. For this test, students were observed in the classroom and their performance was to be judged on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 was highly uncharacteristic and 7 meant extremely characteristic, relating to the student doing well by the effect of emotional support and good temperament.

Literature:

Gallagher, Kathleen C, Rudasill, Kathleen M, White, Jamie, M. (2009). Temperamental attention
and activity, classroom emotional support, and academic achievement in third grade. Retrieved (Mar 25, 2015) from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1118&context=edpsychpapers
Purpose: This study wanted to find out if there was any significant effect of emotional support and increased attention on the academic performance and physical development of third graders.
Method: Third graders were divided into groups of two where half of them were sent to classes with teachers who provided high emotional support, ‘teacher sensitivity’ and were closer to the students, in general. On the other hand, the rest of the students were made to go classrooms with lower emotional support and more teacher detachment where the teacher was not any less cooperative with them. In both environments, students were judged on their reading, writing and mathematics skills and their results were recorded from time to time to check their progress or decline in their respective environments.
Results: Students who previously had higher achievement records coupled with higher emotional support, more positive class climate and higher level of activity, had performed significantly better. The results of the students had gone up in mathematics, reading skills and writing skills with an added variance of 1%. The temperance for performance also recorded showed that results had fallen to the students who were lacking attention the most, moderate for those with moderate attention and highest for the ones with most attention. Hence, it is imperative for better physical development that a positive environment with full emotional support needs to be provided.
Scott, T. Walters, John, E. Martin. (2000, March 1). Does Aerobic Exercise Really Enhance Self-
Esteem in Children? A Prospective Evaluation in 3rd - 5th Graders. Retrieved (Mar 25, 2015)fromhttp://www.biomedsearch.com/article/Does-Aerobic-Exercise-Really Enhance/61909297.html
Purpose: It was a study conducted to discover the relation between aerobics and the development of self-esteem in children. Exercise had always been linked to good mental development hence this study was an insight into this finding.
Method: The method applied here was dividing students into two groups; each with equal number of students who were then grouped under ones who were performing rigorous exercise under intense sessions and the other group of third graders was doing normal exercise. Students of the first group were supposed to perform intense aerobic sessions lasting 30-40 minutes, and then they had to run a one mile track and perform other tasks like rope climbing and pushups. These were done on alternate days. The control group only did normal aerobic exercise. In the classroom, they were evaluated on test results.
Results: The students did not show a very different result when they exercised a lot and took part in excessive sports and activities. In fact, the results of male students in the experiment group revealed lower scores in the tests as compared to those in the comparison group. The reason stood that more physical activity led to more tiredness rather than activeness in class. Moderate exercise was best for the students.
Overview: