I recently went to Happy School, a preschool in my hometown of Smallville, California, to spend the morning with the students. In the time I spent there, the children, ages 3 to 5, engaged in unstructured play and sat in circles to stick to the schedule and read aloud. Preschool is primarily child-centered in terms of organization, meaning it incorporates many child-directed activities and less structured, or adult-directed, learning (Berk, 2008). I observed the group of about twenty children with the intention of studying them as a whole, but I found myself forced to observe two children in particular, Addison and Jack, because they displayed particularly intriguing behaviors. (p187) THESIS, such as behavior, theories, etc. In one case, the children all gathered together on the colorful carpet to tell the story. Mrs. Hunt, the teacher, read to the group the story of an ally cat who stole from garbage cans. Throughout the story, Mrs. Hunt promoted children's active participation by stopping periodically to ask questions such as, "Who can tell me what a thief is?" and “Can anyone think of a word that rhymes with cat?” Around that time I noticed a little girl named Addison, a particularly energetic and sociable five-year-old. When the teacher asked the group questions, they answered particularly loudly. As the story was read, she had difficulty sitting still and had to be reminded several times to sit on her butt, not her knees, and to raise a silent hand and use her inner voice when she had an answer. “Inner voice, quiet hand,” Addison murmured to herself after hearing the instructions. At one point, Addison, still bouncing on her knees, leaned forward and tugged on Lizzy's ponytail to get her attention. Liz... in the center of the paper... simply a reflection of her temperament. However, it is clear from his growth since entering Garden School that his development has progressed toward Erikson's positive early childhood outcome: initiative. This progress toward initiative was manifested in Jack's progress from parallel to associative play (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 1998), which he demonstrated while playing with Legos. His progress towards independence and courage was most likely aided by the same warm, child-centred environment and support (of particular importance to Vygotsky's social learning theory) (Berk 2008) that Addison benefited from .Works CitedBerk, L. E. (2008). Exploring lifespan development. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Smith, P. K., Cowie, H., & Blades, M. (1998). Understanding Children's Development, Third Edition. Malden: Blackwell Publishers Inc.