Play Observation Assignment

ECE 125

Rachel Handley

October 12, 2010

 On September 23, I observed at Oakton Community College Early Child hood
center. Today I observed Flower shop play. I observed a little girl in a pink shirt who was
three. There are four adults in the classroom. There are two full time teachers and one
student and one assistant teacher.

Madison (made up name) is playing in the flower shop in the dramatic play area.
There are five children in this area, but only two are interacting with Madison. “That will
be fifty dollars,” she says holding the flower out to another child. The other child gives
her the money. She gave the flower to another child. Now she walks up to the teacher
and gives the flowers to the teacher. Now the child says “I need some more.” Now she
says “twenty flowers.” Now she calls out “flowers, flowers for sale.” She says to another
child “These are for another person. Look how much I have. I have this much.” Now she
is saying “Flowers, flowers for sale.” Now she says “I have these purple flowers.” Now
she’s pounding on the cash register. She says to another child “These are my flowers.”
Now she says “Flowers, flowers for sale.” She turns to a child and says “Do you want
some flowers? Flowers, flowers for sale”, waving her arms with the flowers in her hands.
She says “There twenty five cents.” Now she hands a flower to another child with a
quizzical look on her face. She looks kind of confused. Again she calls out “Flowers,
flowers for sale.” She looks around the room. Now she is offering a flower to a visitor, a
volunteer. Now she sits at the cash register. She picks up some more flowers. She and
another child start talking under the loft. She and the other child peer over the couch that
is under the loft. She says to a teacher “grandma” and the teacher says “Grandma? I’m
too old to be a grandma.” A visitor, the visitor is a volunteer, comes in. She offers the
flowers to a visitor.

I will now discuss what cognitive learning I think took place during this play
episode. In the flower shop Madison learned the concept of money. She says that will be
fifty dollars and when the child hands the money to her she gives the flower to the child.
When she says “That will be fifty dollars,” there is no money in the cash register. Even
though there is no money in the cash register she still has enough imagination to pretend
like she is giving money to the other child, just like the child in the video we saw in class
of the child who was using her hand to write with one hand on another, using one hand to
write on her other hand. Mary Mayesky says on page 125 of Creative Activities for the
Young Child that using imagination is one of the purest forms of symbolic thought
available to the young child. Piaget calls this imaginative play (Creative Activities for
the Young Child, Mary Mayesky, p.125) When Madison says “These are purple flowers,”
she is learning the concept of color. Mayesky says on page 124 that a child learns how to
sort, classify and probe for answers. The child identifying the color is a great example of
classifying. When she was waving her arms around she learned that this gets people’s
attention. Madison was the only child I heard calling out “Flowers, flowers, flowers for
sale,” so she really understood what to do to in order to sell flowers. Piaget defines this
as assimilation that is “the child’s efforts to make environmental stimuli match his or her
own concepts. (Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky, p. 125)
 Now I will discuss what kind of physical learning took place. Mayesky says that
play helps to develop a child’s hand eye coordination and it also helps develop a child’s
muscles. (123). When Madison was holding the flowers in her hand this helped her to
develop her fine motor skills because she had to use those smaller muscles to hold onto
the flowers. When she picked them up this helped her to develop her hand eye
coordination. When Madison pressed the buttons on the cash register this also helped
with her fine motor skills.

A child’s emotional growth and development are equally as important as a child’s

cognitive and physical growth and development. Mayesky points out in Creative
Activities for Young Children that children develop a positive self concept and that
children are not faced with the threat of failure in play activities. When Madison was
playing in the flower play shop, she was in control of the situation. This made her feel
good about herself; this is what Mayesky refers to as positive self concept. While
Madison was playing in the flower shop she was free to be a child and explore freely with
the flowers and the cash register. Mayesky also points out on p. 127 that children gain
mastery of their environment and the child has control of the situation in creative play.
For example: Madison was playing in flower shop, but she was free to play with the
flowers and the cash register in whatever way she chose to. Mayesky says p. 127
Creative Activities that play is a safe and acceptable way to test out his or her own
feelings. For example: when Madison was pounding on the cash register that was her way
of relieving stress and at the same time she felt safe.

Social Development is also important in a child’s life. Mary Mayesky states that
through play children learn social skills that as the child becomes proficient in his or her
social relating, he or she learns to deal with more than one person at a time. Mayesky also
points out on p. 128 of Creative Activities for Young Children that children learn what
acceptable behavior is and what is not. (Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary
Mayesky, p. 128) So, Madison knew when she was playing in the flower shop that she
needed to sell the flowers, but she was never pushy about it. She just continued to call out
“Flowers, flowers for sale!” She was persistent because she kept at it. She didn’t get
angry at another child for not buying her flowers. She just continued to call out
“Flowers, flowers for sale!” and she asked a child nicely “Do you want some flowers?”
However, she never pushed the flowers on anyone or tried to force another child to take
them. When other children weren’t buying her flowers, she finally went on to play
somewhere else. Mayesky also says that “when children play together they learn to be
together. They develop common interests and goals.” (Creative Activities for Young
Children, Mary Mayesky,p.128) In the case with Madison in the flower shop, this was
hard to develop because she didn’t really have much interaction with the other children.
However, she did learn to be together with the other children, although the other children
may not have been interested in what Madison was doing. Mary Mayesky also refers to
the give and take of the social interactions. “They must learn to give a little as well as
take a little.” (Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky,p.128) She learned
that you have to be persistent and not pushy and if she is not selling any flowers to go
play somewhere else.
 Now I will state what sequence of play the child was involved in. Associative play
is defined as” This type of play may take the form of the child merely being present in the
group.” (Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky, p.122) Although
Madison was playing in the flower shop, she wasn’t really talking to anyone, except
when she gave them a flower. When Madison was playing in the flower shop and calling
out “Flowers, flowers, flowers for sale.” A child would take a flower from her but he
didn’t say anything to her. She was calling out across the room, but she wasn’t speaking
directly to anyone. Although she was in the group, there were only a few times when she
actually talked to another child. They were all involved in flower shop, but the other
children were so involved in whatever it was that they were doing with the flowers that
they didn’t really talk to Madison.

While playing in the flower shop Madison started out by saying “That will be fifty
dollars.” Only one child bought her flowers, so then she lowered the price to twenty five
cents. This is a great example of experimenting. Divergent thinking is defined by Mary
Mayesky as a way of opening things up and results in many answers. She also altered
her body movements. She waved her arms in the air as she called out “Flowers, flowers
for sale,” when no one was buying her flowers. When she had given away or sold all of
her flowers she said to the teacher “I need some more.” This was an example of problem
solving because she realized that she had sold all of her flowers and needed some more,
so she went to the teacher to ask for some more.

I always knew from my experience and from classes that I have taken, that play is
essential to how a child learns and develops. I just didn’t know how much was involved.
I would never have thought that you could learn so much from a simple flower play
activity. Now I know that a child can develop gross motor skills just from picking up and
handing flowers to other children. I also know that this involves hand eye coordination
as well. I have learned a lot about this child from this observation as well. Out of all the
children she was the only one actively trying to sell the flowers. So she understands
flower play. In conclusion, I have learned a lot about the different kinds of learning and
how many different ways a child can learn through play. This will help me to be a better
teacher by being more hands off and not inserting my own agenda, but letting the kids
have the freedom to let things play out the way they want them too.

On Tuesday, November 2, I observed airplane play and music play. The child I
observed is 3 years old. There were 2 adults. There was one teacher and one Assistant
teacher. The child I observed was playing air plane play and music play in the dramatic
play area. When I walked in there were chairs set up for an airplane. They had
headphones on. Devin (made up name) was controlling the airplane with the remote
control. He said “I’m flying the plane.” He says, speaking into the end of the head
phones again, “Fire on the airplane! Fire on the air plane.” He and some of his friends
started saying “Fire on the air plane.” Then he and his friends started going “shh,” like
the sound of a hose. Now he says “Our airplane is starting.” Now he says “Guys, our
airplane is starting.” He looks at them earnestly. He says again, “everyone get on the air
plane!” Now he gets out of his chair and he walks over to the other children in dramatic
play and says to them “Get on the air plane guys.” He calls out again “Get on the air
plane guys,” but he doesn’t really look any one in the eye. Now he gets up on the chair,
saying “Get on the air plane guys!” Get on the air plane guys!” He is still wearing the
headphones. He puts the pegs together and says “I got a popsicle.”

Now he starts tapping the pots and pans with markers in time to the beat. Now he
says “We gotta get a purple one (marker).” He resumes tapping on the pots and pans.
He taps quickly, one marker right after the other. Then he starts tapping them together,
slower. He picks up one of the bowls and starts tapping it. He also starts tapping soft and
then gets loud. Now he is tapping on the xylophone with the markers. Now he starts
humming along with the rhythm of one of the songs. Now he starts tapping with a paint
brush on the pots and pans. Another child is tapping on the pan right next to him. He
says to the child “stop.” Then he says “listen.” Now he is moving to the music while he
is tapping on the pots and pans.

The first thing I am going to discuss is what Devin learned physically through
dramatic play. In putting the head phones on his head, he was developing his hand eye
coordination because he was using his hands and his eyes at the same time. (Creative
Activities for Young Children, p…Mary Mayesky). When he was using the controller to
control the air plane he was developing his fine motor skills by using his finger to hold
and move the knob. When he was standing up on the chair saying “Get on the plane” and
waving his arms he was developing his gross motor skills because he was waving his
arms. When Devin was taping on the pots and pans with the markers he was developing
fine and gross motor skills. He was using his fine motor skills to hold the marker and the
movement of his arms helped him to develop his gross motor skills.

Next I am going to discuss how Devin’s cognitive skills were enhanced through
dramatic play. When Devin was using the end of the head phones to speak into his head
phones and when he was saying “There’s a fire on the plane,” he was developing his
imagination. “Piaget describes imaginative play as one of the purest forms of symbolic
thought available to the young child.” (Creaitve Activities for Young Children, Mary
Mayesky, p. 125) When Devin was using markers to tap on the pots and pans, he was
using his imagination again. He also switched to using paint brushes, which was a new
idea. So this supports Vygotsky’s theory. Vygotsky says “Children not only practice
what they already know-they also learn new things.” (Creative Activities for Young
Children, Mary Mayesky, p.125) He is also learning color each time he goes to get a
different color marker; he tells you what color it is. According to Vygotsky while
engaged in play “Children not only practice what they have already learned-they also
learn new thing. Play does not so much reflect thought, so much as it creates thought,”
(Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky, p.125) Devin learned that when
he used pain brushes instead of rhythm sticks to hit the dishes with that they made a
different sound.

Next I am going to discuss what emotional learning took place through Devin’s
play. “Another emotional value of creative play is that it offers the child the opportunity
to achieve mastery of his or her environment. The child has control of the situation using
what props he or she chooses and in the manner that he or she chooses.” (Creative
Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky,p.127) When Devin was playing in air
plane play he was in control because he was flying the plane. Flying the plane would
also help Devin to feel good about himself. This is what Mayesky refers to as self
concept. “One of the keys to the quality of children’s emotional health is how they feel
about themselves. Creative Play Activities help a child develop positive self concept.
(Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky, p.126)

Next I will discuss what Social learning took place. When he was calling to the
other children to get on the plane and they weren’t listening, he then went up to them and
said “Let’s get on the plane guys.” They still didn’t listen, so he got up on the chair and
said “Get on the plane guys.” Devin finds out that not everyone wants to play the air
plane game with him. Mayesky says that “they must learn to ‘give a little’ as well as
‘take a little,’ when involved in creative play activities. (Creative Activities for Young
Children, Mary Maesky, p. 128) Through air plane play Devin learned to relate to other
children and be in a group. “When children play together, they learn to be together.”
(Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky, p. 128) When Devin and his
friends were playing with the air plane, they were all engaged in the same kind of play
activity. “The development of common interests and goals takes place.” (Creative
Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky, p.128)

I will now discuss what stages of play Devin was engaged in. Parten says that in
cooperative play “Children cooperate with others to construct something or act out
coordinating roles.” (Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary Maeyesky, p.125) So
in this case Devin had share the role of pilot with his two friends. It is also cooperative
because some of the children were the pilot and some were the passengers. When Devin
was tapping the dishes with a marker, there was another child next to him doing to the
same thing. Ocassionally he would say “stop.” Parten calls this parallel play. “A child
plays with another child side by side with some interaction, but without direct
involvement.” (Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky, p.122)

Devin used divergent thinking when he used the markers to tap on the pots and
pans and when he was trying to get the other children to play with him on the air plane.
He was using divergent thinking by varying his approach to the children. First he tried
calling to them “Guys, get on the plane.” Then he walked up to them and said “Guys get
on the plane.” Last, he stood up on the chair and said “Guys, get on the plane.”
“Divergent thinking opens things up and results in many answers to a single problem.”
(Creative Activities for Young Children, Mary Mayesky, p.5) When he was the pilot, two
other children wanted to be the pilot too, so he let them be the pilot as well. This was an
example of problem solving. He experimented with different materials. First he hit the
pots and pans with the markers. Then he hit the pots and pans with the paint brush to see
what sound they would make.

In Conclusion, I have learned that young children will often use other objects for different
ways than they are supposed to be used. I have learned that young children will try
different approaches to get the attention of the teacher and their peers. I have also
observed that a child can learn different ways of exploring and playing with the toys
when you allow them the freedom to do so. Like the example with Madison, I think that
this will help me be a better teacher because I know to be more hands off and just let the
children explore on their own.