The 5 W's of my observations

            Assessing and Evaluating Play Based Learning:

              This semester, I have had the opportunity to observe a child at the St. Norbert Preschool.  Starting the first week of the semester, I have observed Kenzie Hnilika over the course of the semester 4 days per week.  Each week I am at the preschool from 9-10AM on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday observing Kenzie during circle time, free play, outside play, and one on one interaction.  Kenzie is a little girl from De Pere, WI.  When I started my observations, Kenzie was 4 years old, throughout the semester she turned 5. 
             To assess Kenzie during her play, I used formal and informal observations.  These observations were done generally between 9:40 and 10:00, after Kenzie had become engaged in some type of play based activity.  Our group created a checklist that I would fill in as I observed to keep track of the things I saw.  During activities, I would also make mental notes or quickly jot something down on a scrap piece of paper in order to remember an observation.  Observing play takes a fine eye and effort into writing.  It was important that I wrote everything down through this whole experience, whether it be on a rubric or notes.  By doing this, I was able to evaluate growth in Kenzie in two specific areas, cognitive and social skills.
             The observations took place at the SNC Children’s Center in each center, outside on the playground, and in the student study lounges in Sensenbrenner.  With the observations, I was looking to see if Kenzie was developing any social skills with her peers along with any physical motor skills and cognitive growth.
             During the science experience playing with milk and food coloring, I was able to observe Kenzie learning the cause and effect of moving a toothpick in and out of the milk with dish soap on it.  This observation helped me understand that Kenzie was having some time of learning experience through play with the toothpick, because she began moving it around after realizing it would create color mixing.  After being able to experience this with her hands, she as able to understand the cause and effect of the experience.  However, one of the most profound observations I was able to make over the course of the semester was the growth Kenzie made through playing with one of the other children at the center.  Generally, Kenzie is a quiet and more laid back person.  After playing with this girl however, she was being bossed around more than she wanted to be.  During their play, they would argue often, and Kenzie would be left upset.  By the end of April, Kenzie had developed the communication and confidence to stand up for her and express to this other girl how she felt.  It is apparent that playing with this certain girl has given Kenzie the ability to express her feelings and cooperate with her peers.

Observation Log

Over the course of this semester, I have been given the opportunity to visit and observe in many different schools and classrooms.  This has been a great experience for me, as I have been able to see many different teaching styles and the way students respond to each one.  This has been a great learning experience for me, as I have gained a lot of knowledge about the different types of play that are use in the classroom.  As a pre-service teacher, it is important that I build up knowledge and skills that will benefit me in my path to becoming and effective early childhood teacher.  Here are the schools and hours I was able to observe over the course of the semester:

St. Norbert Preschool - 56 hours

Aldo Leopold School: Melissa Messenger's Classroom - 11 Hours

Notre Dame Elementary School - 7 hours

Westwood Elementary: Mr. Budek's 3rd Grade Room - 2 hours

Individual Observations - Kenzie

March 2010

Isn’t warming up to me like I had hoped she would, although she does not mind me being around her if I’m trying to observe, she seldom seeks me out to come work with her or ask me questions.

Can write name and address with ease, and good penmanship.  Also, can pick out her address from the little flip ring very quickly.

Tends to go to the art table first during center time.  During the activities where there is no SET out come (such as paintings or collages) Kenzi spends a lot of time working on the art.

Valentine’s Party-Kenzi’s Mom did not come until halfway through morning circle.  Kenzi appeared to be extremely excited to see her Mom.

Kenzi sits close to one of the teachers during circle time, usually by the wall.  It is not always by the same teacher.  In fact, she has sat by Katie, Beth, Hallie, and I in the past two weeks.

During computer time, play games having to do with beginning letter sounds, however, did not take the time to sound out words after the computer would talk to her.  Instead just clicked on every letter until it was right.

Concentrates on puzzles, gets them done quickly and correctly.  She also did ask me to come sit by her and help, however, did not really need my help.  Starting the middle pieces was her biggest challenge.

Is very social during snack time, talks with the other students about whatever they are talking about.  Helps think of things the OLD LADY can eat as they write their own version of There Was an Old Lady

Kenzi sat at the science table first on the day we had corn starch mixed with water to play with.  She only put one finger in at a time to feel it.  Tia had her whole hand in playing with it.  This reminded me of when Bonnie said some children do not like to be messy or feel messy, while others love the feeling.

Kenzi tends to spend most of her time at the same area that Maya is at.  I do not think it is following, as much as they have the same interest, however that is only my opinion.

Works very well with a scissors.  Can cut little circle pieces out of any scrap of paper, and can cut beads and pipe cleaners to add to her collage easily.  Many different pieces were cut of all shapes and sizes; this made it apparent she can maneuver scissors.

Seems very engaged most days during circle time.  She especially wanted to participate the week of working on the alphabet.  Always raising her hand to answer questions, although Anderson usually steals the thunder before any child gets called on.

Liked building the magnetic cars.  Spent the most time putting together pieces of the same color vs. actually playing with the cars.  Did not accept wheels that did not match, she needed to make sure to find four wheels of the same color before the car was complete.  Also noticed when to of the “people” that went with the set looked the same and called them twins.

Kenzie seems to interact well with her Mom, sitting on her lap while she worked on the art table during the Valentine’s party, and in her Mom’s arms during circle time at the Valentine’s party.

April 2010

During my art activity Kenzie absolutely LOVED playing with the shaving cream.  She had shaving cream all over her arms, face, and hands.  I never expected any of the students would get so engrossed, Kenzie stayed at that activity the whole day.  She really seems to enjoy art.

During the fingerprint art activity, Kenzie was able to focus and copy the sheet that had the final products on it to make her own.  Following directions perfectly, Kenzie was able to create animals out of her fingerprints successfully.

Kenzie loves to socialize with her friends during snack time.  Typically she is not the conversation starter, however, she is always engaged in the conversation going on at the snack table.

The writing center is not something Kenzie visits often during the day, yet when she does she is able to write whatever they are practicing.  She is still able to write her address with ease, along with her name.  She now started signing papers K.H. I noticed.  I find it special that she knows what her initials stand for and likes to use them.

Spent some time with the “ball clicking blocks” at the science table.  Although these were straight shaped blocks, she did not create any of the things in the pictures.  She was working on making a circle out of these blocks.  This was a difficult task for me to even complete.

She had a difficult time at first rolling the egg back and forth in the box with paint.  It took a few minutes to get the motions down that it took to work with a partner.  Her and Elliot interacted well and talked with one another to make the egg rolling work.  Great teamwork!

I worked with Kenzie on shoe tying.  She has some difficulty doing this 100% of the time.  She knows the ideas that go into shoe tying, just needs to put all the steps together.

During dental week- Kenzie enjoyed practicing brushing the giant teeth.  She was very particular about getting each area of the teeth.  It appears that she really understood what she learned about brushing. 

Kenzie had some difficulty working the paintbrush when holding the brush with her mouth.  This was a difficult task for most of the preschoolers also.  The motor skills practiced with this type of activity were not something a child normally does.  Although she had difficulty controlling the brush, she did not give up.

During the science experience with Milk and Food Coloring, Kenzie had great interest in manipulating the toothpick to make the colors move.  Kenzie enjoyed creating colors by making movements in the milk.

Can easily rhyme words and recognize rhymes during opening circle. 

Kenzie is very smart when it comes to logical ideas.  

Kenzie shows her knowledge of colors and counting by creating a graph with jelly beans drawn as the units on the graph

Has good motor skills when it comes to working with different brushes as paint brushes.  Using a toothbrush as a paintbrush she did a great job on.

May 2010

Kenzie and Nevaeh are becoming close friends.  Very love/hate type relationship.  There is a lot of fighting occurring, followed by playing

Through her friendship with Nevaeh, Kenzie has shown she is becoming vocal and can communicate with her peers to work through issues.

project reflection

The role of play in learning assignment was a great experience for me to be able to reflect upon children's play and understand and learn how they are developing through their play.  Through understand the stages of development from Piaget and taking into consideration Dewey's ideals on children's play in development, I was able to compare and contrast things I saw in my observations to their theories.

While observing at the pre-school at SNC, I was able to see that while children were 'tattling' on each other to the adult it is normal in their development because at their stages they are not able to take the viewpoints of others very well.  This makes it hard to understand why a child may be doing something another student may not understand.  But simply through talking to each other they are always able to resolve their issues.  Also, children at this stage love to make-believe play and use their imaginations with one another.  It was very neat to watch the children interact with each other during their own made up games.  Thinking back on my childhood, I hardly recall play like this, so viewing it through observation was very refreshing.

I found it interesting that these children did not mind that an adult was watching them, they acted almost as if I was not there.  It is fascinating to hear and see the ideas these children have during play.  Their minds have endless possibilites and their imaginations take them every where.

I would have to say my favorite observation was while I was watching my nieces.  Because I have known them since they were babies, it was very cool to make connections to their different stages Jasmin has gone through, and to make connections with Peyton as she moves through the sensori-motor stage.  Through time Peyton has been able to find that shaking things makes noises, and I have seen her develop the idea of object permanence with her different toys.  During play she tends to play with things that stack, but loves to try and interact with her sister as well, even if she has no idea what Jasmin is doing.

Jasmin was the most interesting to learn from though, because I made an observation during her play that I have not quite been able to figure out, yet I find it very interesting.  While she is playing by herself, she tends to read books and draw.  She does things that do not involve make-believe nor does she let her imagination run wild.  However, when playing with peers, she loves to use make-believe play and her imagination is everywhere.  According to Piaget's stages of development, she has a difficult taking the viewpoints of others, which I can see as well.  She tends to hide from her little sister, Peyton, when she tries to come play with her.  She finds Peyton to be annoying and that she gets in the way.  Perhaps Jasmin just cannot understand that Peyton is younger and does not have the understanding of being annoying or mean during play, she is just trying to be by Jasmin, but Jasmin sees her as a bother.

Overall I feel like I have learned that observation is extremely important in understanding children in multiple different ways.  Not only do we need to be sure to observe children in a learning situation, but we need to be sure that we are observing them during play too.  Play is one of the best learning opportunities for children, and if we are watching this happen, we can better understand them.  Using a theorist like Piaget was very helpful in understanding the stages children go through as they get older.  Although not all children move through the stages at the same pace, comparing their abilities to general stage characteristics was very cool to do as well.

After this project, it was clearer to me how children can and do learn through play.  As my niece played with the same toy, she eventually learned to correlation of objects to their shape.  She also learned about the world around her through sensory movement with the objects.  Often throwing and sucking on objects helped her learn about the world around her.  As for my older niece, she has a hard time relating to the point of view of her younger sisters, and that is apparent as she locks herself away from them.  Also, The children in the pre-school show their difficulty to relate to other view points as they tattle on one another for saying something the other does not agree with.  

Through watching the make-believe play in the SNC children's center, I was also able to see that the children love to learn through playing with their imagination.  They play through being different people, in a made up situation they CHOOSE to be in.  This is one of the most interesting things I have encountered.  Children are able to do and relate to so many things when they are a character outside of themselves.  But in reality, they find it very difficult to do so.

The learning that took place for me in this project was great, and I know look at observation of children playing in a completely different way.

babysitting

I chose to observe my three nieces as I babysat them, because watching them interact and how they have developed is very interesting to me.

Jordan (1 mo)

Very in touch with environment around her.

Watches what you're doing when awake.

Cries a lot of the time for no reason.

Peyton-21 months

It has been interesting to watch her develop over the past year. Her attention span has increased tremendously.  When she is left to play on her own, she gravitates toward toys that she can stack and knock over.  She also really enjoys the toys where she fits a shape through its matching shape's hole.  At 18 months, she was not able to do this.  She would get very frustrated with this toy, and begin crying as she sat all alone.  When I came running to see what was wrong, I would find her in tears because she couldn't get the circle to fit through the star.  Now, watching her play with this toy, she understand the concept.  As she is able to fit the shapes through she screams with excitement and continues to play.  When she stacks blocks and stacking toys she loves to knock them over rapidly, and screams with excitement while doing that also.  Her older sister, Jasmin, is one person she always gravitates towards.  She will constantly be running by Jasmin to see what she is doing, and then ruin it.  If Jasmin is coloring, Peyton will rip the book from underneath her and throw it.  This is when I had to step in to her play because this was unacceptable.  Peyton is constantly tormenting Jasmin and getting into what Jasmin is doing, this is why Jasmin distances herself from her younger sisters.  Peyton also loves to go by her baby sister, Jordan, and give her kisses, however, she can also be very rough with her too.  Peyton got upset that I had Jordan laying by me on the floor and tried to come up and slap her.  I feel that Peyton still has to understand that hitting is not acceptable, but I know that many children her age have this same behavior.

Jasmin-5

Jasmin loves to play alone when she is just with her three sisters.  She often locks herself in the walk in closet in the playroom, where we have an easel set up for her to color at.  In this room she will be reading book after book, or coloring or painting.  She loves to look at pictures and draw pictures.  One thing I noticed is that during her non-structured play time alone, she does not play any games that promote using her imagination or make-believe.  With her friends, however, they do play these imaginary dress up games and pretend to be other people.  I find it very interesting that she has two completely different types of play depending upon who she is playing with.  Her friends and her love to play princesses and dress up with their dresses and other dress up clothes they have.  Alone, Jasmin hardly does anything outside of the box.  Even drawing, she always wants to mimic something she has seen in a book, or has drawn before.  Rarely does she take risks and draw up something never seen before.  She does not enjoy playing with toys much at all.  As her play mostly consists of books and drawing, I have tried to introduce toys to her so I could watch her play with things, and she had no interest.  

4 days/wk - SNCCC

I observe at the SNC Children's Center 4 days per week.  In mornings, I decided to arrive a little early in order to watch the children play with one another before school began.  The children who were in the classroom waiting as everyone arrived were playing house with one another in the circle time area.  Each child agreed what family member they were going to be, and they all got along and accepted and wanted to be the role they were given.  The children all get along during the process, yet the girls seem to lead things more than the boys.  Typically, the girls with say, "oh this is going to happen now and we are going to do this."  nothing they say is bossy, and the boys always gladly go along with it.  

When an issue arises, this is when the children will come to involve an adult.  The adult just simply asks the child "did you talk to he/she about how they made you feel?"  When Kenzie came up to me because someone was in her space, I just told her she needed to ask him to move.  She walked back over to Wesley and asked him to move and he said he was sorry and moved.  This is always a great learning experience that children generally are very forgiving, yet children seem to forget this just as fast as they learn how to solve the problem.

2/25/10 -NDE

I observed at Notre Dame Elementary in De Pere as one of my non-structured environments.  After school, the children spend time in one of the classrooms before their parents come to pick them up.  Watching the children interact with one another was very different than my other experiences.  The children were in fourth grade, both boys and girls.  The interesting thing about them which I did not see in my observations of younger children was how they did not agree with anything they wanted to do.  Also, as they engaged in activities, nothing included any type of imaginary play.

Together, they would walk the room until they found something interesting they wanted to play with.  They found a puzzle and decided to put it together on the floor.  During their time putting this together, the girls sat across from the boys.  Also, the boys always fought with the girls about where certain pieces went.  The girls were very persistent, every time, about the boy being wrong.  Although things got very heated, no one yelled at each other or physically hurt anyone over this.

The children definitely showed gender differences in play.  The male and female separation was  impossible to miss and did create a few small problems.  These problems were overcame when the girls explained situations to the boys, and it appeared that the boys just accepted what they were told.

The boys tended to be a bit more explorative in the classroom as they children were finding things to do.  As they searched for things they would pick things up and play with them a  little, and be very precise about knowing exactly what all the gadgets were on the shelf and what they did.  The girls just shuffled through things quickly and laughed with each other as they did so.