Child Observation and Interview

Child Observation/Interview

This observation took place inside of a pre-k classroom at Field Elementary School. The child was five years old and I gave him the name "Johnny" and I gave his friend who joined us "Sam."

I have done observations where I have interacted with the child. This meant that I would write everything I saw and later evaluate what I saw. I do not have an issue with joining in on an activity but I was contemplating on how to invite a child into one and enter the flow of his exploration. I believe one should know the child well and the child should feel comfortable sharing an activity with the adult/other child.. After visiting the preschool several times I chose two activities that were twenty five minute each. Also, another activity came up as well. The first activity was play dough and some Popsicle sticks for fine motor development and creativity. The second activity was blacks, little people and some pebbles. The third activity was making an Easter basket as a class project.

Observation

I called Johnny to the table where I set up the materials, he ran over. He said that he wanted the blue play dough. He said, "Oh, it's hard. Let's put some water in it. That's what we do with my mom when we bake. If the dough is hard my mom says lets add some water." We did not add water because another child (Sam) approached the table and grabbed the green play dough. He started making small balls. When Johnny saw that the green play dough was not hard he left the blue one and took some of the green. He said "I'm gonna make an elephant." Sam said, "You should make a turtle. Elephants are grey, turtles are green." "No, turtles are brown." Sam turned to me and asked what would happen if we mixed green and brown since the turtles are both colors. Then Johnny looked at me. I said, "let's see," and grabbed the water color and mixed green and brown on a construction paper and made another shade. Sam said, "That's the color of the turtle." Johnny was still working on his elephant. With a loud voice he said, "I can't make the trunk. Help me, please." I made a trunk and attached it to the elephant. Johnny screamed and told Sam to look at his elephant. Sam was making a turtle; he made four round balls and said, "Now, these are his feet and he doesn't have legs." Johnny asked "Can I show my elephant to my teacher?" I said "Yes, you may". He carried the elephant to his teacher. The teacher said, "Good job!" He came back to the table when Sam said he had never seen a green elephant. Johnny turned to Sam and asked, "What colors should we mix to have grey, because we don't have grey?" The bell rang and we transitioned to the next activity; blocks, little people and some pebbles. Johnny started to put the blocks on top of each other. I was holding a couple of the little people. Johnny said, "I'm gonna make steps so the little people can go up to the castle." As he was putting the wider blocks first and arranging the narrower blocks to make the steps, he saw the pebbles, "Oh," he said "I need rocks because the castle is made of rock." When he grabbed the rock, he looked at me and said, "Teacher this is like chocolate." The rock was to brown. He went on and put several of the rocks on the steps and said, "Someone must spilled it because its heavy." He said, "And he couldn't put it in his wagon because the wagon had wheels, we can't take a wagon up the steps, so he had to carry it and because the rocks are heavy he spilled it." He leaned towards me and whispered "Pretend." After building five steps he ran out of blocks and said, "It's done!" He lined up the little people across the 1st step and said, "They are ready to go up."

At this point he looked around and head his teacher saying, "Everyone, let's come to the rug, its time to work on our Easter baskets. "Do you want to make a basket for your mom?" He asked me. I said "Sure." We went to the rug and the class was distributed into three different groups. I went with Johnny and the materials were 32 oz water bottles cut in the middle, some shredded green tissue paper for grass, and chocolate eggs, one chick for each child and also some strips of laminated construction paper for the handle of the baskets. Johnny and I picked our containers and he stuffed his with green paper and some blue and red chocolates and said, "My mom likes these colors." Next he attached the handle and wrote the first letter of his name and asked me if I liked it. I said, "Yes, I do." The teacher announced that all those who were done needed to go to the library. He said bye to his teacher and walked to the library.

Evaluation

Johnny was happy to see me because I have met him before and explained to him that