Nora Ko, Madison Long, James Pham, Sakina Pegany Professor Cynthia Passmore 11/17/11 Observing Child Development

and Learning Through Play Scenarios At first glance, an infant and a toddler at play may seem insignificant; however, upon further investigation, their interaction is the result of an important time of growth. In Oaksville Daycare Center, infant caregiver Stacy is working with two very young siblings as they play with Lego blocks for the first time. The Legos are on a miniature table at the right side of the room. Misha, who just turned two, is the older sister of Jonathan, who is shy of seven months old. Jonathan barely has any hair on his head and is wearing only a diaper. Misha wears pink pajamas because she is about to take an afternoon nap. Their blond hair and almond shaped eyes show that they are a mix of Asian and Caucasian decent. As we observe Misha and Jonathan playing, occasionally aided by Stacy, they experiment with their actions and emotions in order to gather information about their world and the people around them. You want bwock? Misha asks her little brother. She reaches over to the bucket of Lego pieces, picks a yellow piece up, and stacks it on the table in front of Jonathan. She takes another Lego piece, stacks it next to the first one and says, You want bwock? Two bwocks? Two bwocks. She takes a third block and places it in a way that the three blocks create an S shape. This is an S, she tells her little brother, and quickly gets up with her hand reaching over him. Anticipating danger, Stacy intervenes immediately by saying, Be careful! Be careful; do not push your little brother, sweetie. Misha gives Stacy a look and slows down her movements to a gentle pat on his head and then attempts to give a Lego block to Jonathan but unable to grab hold of it, the Lego falls to the floor and under the table. Jonathan looks down, and looks back up. He does not continue to search for the missing piece, as if it disappeared because he can no

longer see it. Misha responds to Jonathan dropping the block by looking down to the floor and saying, bye-bye as she opens and closes her hand in waving gesture. Misha then hands another Lego block to her brother. Stacy says, Good girl, to Misha, encouraging the children to share. Jonathan takes the new, blue Lego from Misha with both hands and is able to keep hold of it. Jonathan looks at the block in his hands for a few moments before putting it in his mouth. Misha, meanwhile, continues to play by building onto her S shape with individual Legos, placing them on the table one by one. Misha begins to dig through the bucket vigorously as if she is searching for something, then she pulls out a stack of Legos about five blocks high that are stuck together and says, Big bwock, before putting them on top of the S. Jonathan takes the blue Lego out of his mouth and begins to touch the block on the table. He now holds the Lego with his left hand only and begins tapping it against the tables edge. Next, Jonathan rubs the block up and down on the leg of the table, seemingly unaware of his sisters more structured play just a few feet away. Misha looks to Stacy and says, Big bwock, again. Stacy explains, Those are lots of blocks stuck together. Stacy walks to the table and detaches the top Lego from the stack. See? she says. Mishas eyes grow wide and she looks up at Stacy, then back to the stack of Legos. Misha reaches for the stack and grasps the top block with her right hand, trying to pull it off but she cant seem to pry the block from the stack. Misha continues to wiggle the stack until the tower of four comes off in her hand in one piece. Misha immediately begins to cry. Uh-oh, lets fix it! says Stacy, taking a hold of Mishas hand. Stacy guides Mishas hand back toward the table and helps her put the stack back where it came from. Mishas tears quickly disappear and a big smile comes across her face as she claps her hands together with joy. Stacy turns her attention to Jonathan who is now holding the blue block with his right hand and sliding it side to side on top of the Lego table. Stacy says to him, It looks like youre

trying to put the block on the table, I can help you. She places her hand on his, gently turns the Lego to match up with the table and finally pushes down, gently connecting the block to the table. Stacy then says, We did it! We put the block on the table. Jonathan gazed at Stacy while a big grin appeared on his face. Seeing Mishas big smile after helping her with the stack of blocks, Stacy decides to help some more. She grabs more blocks from the bucket and begins to stack them on Mishas S Lego shape. Misha suddenly yells, No! Me do! while grabbing a Lego from Stacys hand. Misha also has a slight frown on her face so Stacy says, Alright, you can do it on your own. Misha turns her attention to the block that she took from Stacy and begins to stack it on top of the blocks already on the table in the S shape. Misha adds more blocks to the stack and when she stops adding blocks, Stacy claps her hands together and says, You did it all by yourself! Misha looks up at Stacy and has a big grin on her face once again, clapping as well. Misha starts a new stack with one block, then attempts to stack two more on top of the first. Bwocks! She exclaimed. She tries to stack more blocks, but because they are different sizes, the tower she attempts to build suddenly collapses. No! she yells in frustration. She sits down on the floor and starts to throw the blocks. Seeing her angry outburst, Stacy comes over and sits down next to Misha. I see youre angry, it looks like you want to build a tall tower. Maybe I can help you with that. Slowly and carefully, Stacy stacks a few blocks, then a few more onto the table. Misha now has her eyes fixed on Stacys hands and the blocks she is using. Once the blocks are stacked, Stacy looks at Misha. Do you want to try, Misha? Ill bring you more blocks. Stacy gathers more blocks and stacks them by Misha. One at a time, Misha stacked the blocks as Stacy offers advice such as Put the blocks on softly, so you dont knock over your tower! With this verbal coaching, Misha slowly stacks the blocks, and this time her tower doesnt fall. Her eyes glisten as she grins once more at Stacy.

At the same time, Jonathan is trying to grab a new block. However, Jonathan has yet to learn how to walk, though he can stand with support. Seeing him struggle to reach the bucket in his sitting position, Stacy walks over and kneels down beside him. Jonathan! It looks like you want a block. He looks at Stacy inquisitively. Stacy watches him attempt to grab a block and quickly realizes that he needs support to stand. I can help you Jonathan, I know you want to stand up, says Stacy. Stacy holds on the edge of the table and pushes herself into a more upright position to demonstrate that it could support her. In an act of imitation, Jonathan quickly mimics Stacys actions. With clumsy hands, he puts his palms on the edge of the table and very slowly pushes himself up. The table was just the right height for Jonathan to stand comfortably. Yay! Youre standing up Jonathan!! Now you can play with the toys again. Jonathan grasps a block, sits down, then repeats the new skill of standing up using the table to grab another block. Clearly pleased with his new ability, he repeats this action several more times. Misha begins to rub her eyes and sits down on the floor, no longer interested in playing with the Legos. Jonathan appears tuckered out from all of the standing up and sitting down he has just done. The clock reads 1:00pm and it is time for both children to have a nap. Stacy picks up Jonathan and puts out her hand for Misha to hold. Misha, Jonathan and Stacy leave the play area with a silent satisfaction, soon to return again. In the case study, the two toddlers playing Legos exemplifies Piagets idea that children go through different stages of development depending on their age. From birth to two years old, children go through what is called the Sensorimotor Stage. (Passmore, 11-1-2011) In this stage, perceptions are largely based on physical interactions with surroundings, which involves their five sensesseeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. In the scenario, Misha and Jonathan perceive their environment solely based on the physical building of Lego blocks and interacting with each other, and is unable to tie more

complex ideas into their thought process while playing. At such an early stage, the children are normally unable to perceive of concepts like volume, density, and much less the history of the Lego Company that created the blocks, or the chemical composition of the blocks. In comparison, older children, those in the Concrete Operations or Formal Operations, may be able to grasp those more complex ideas, and engage in thoughts about those concepts while interacting with the Legos. Being at the Sensorimotor Stage, they are naturally unable to reason about abstract entities, like the idea of matter and how solid molecules are what the blocks are made up of, because they have not reached that degree of knowledge yet. Even more unlikely is their ability to have metacognition, which is the skill of figuring out or separating what they already know, from what they do not know, and knowing what they understand, and what they do not understand about Lego blocks while they are playing with them. For them, the only perceptions during the activity of playing with Legos are the physical interactions, and this is seeing the different colors and shapes of the blocks, feeling the solid texture them, and consolidating the blocks to form shapes and towers. Nevertheless, the Sensorimotor Stage is just as important as any other stage; in fact, it is a fundamental stage that every human being must go through. Stimulation of the five senses is arguably the most effective way to learn about an environment that is quite new for babies, because there is no better way of learning than by experience and direction association. Even though Misha and Jonathan are both at the sensorimotor age, Misha is slightly older than Jonathan, and demonstrates a readiness for the preoperational stage, Piagets next stage of development. She can speak in meaningful fragments like Big bwock, and act with purpose, such as making an S shape with three pieces of Lego blocks. On the other hand, Jonathan, whos a more than a year younger, can barely speak, and can only make facial

expressions. Consequently, Jonathans behavior best represents an early development in the Sensorimotor Stage. When Jonathan dropped the block of Lego after Misha handed it to him, he did not search for it, acting as if the block had disappeared. Jonathans behavior relates to the idea of object permanence. (Passmore, 11-1-2011) Babies at the sensorimotor stage are unable to perceive that objects can be hidden. When an object is out of sight, they think the object had disappeared. In the case scenario, when the block had only dropped under the table where he cannot see it, Jonathan thinks the block has disappeared, and did not look for it. The idea of object permanence can possibly explain why most babies at this stage love to play the game of Peek-A-Boo. They find it amusing because they think that the other persons face can magically disappear and reappear. The activity of playing with Legos also allows Misha and Jonathan the opportunity to learn and grow through socially interacting with each other. According to Piaget, interaction with other people is critical for learning and development. (Passmore 11-3-11) Through the guidance of Stacy, Misha learns to share blocks with Jonathan, and to be gentle with him due to his delicate age. Already Misha is learning how to treat her baby brother in a loving and sisterly way. Furthermore, when Misha accidently broke a tower of four blocks from the table, her first reaction was a frustrated cry, but she learns through social interaction as Stacy shows her how to fix it back by standing it onto the table again. Also, when Mishas tower collapsed, Stacy gave her verbal advice accompanied a physical demonstration of a strategy to place the blocks so they do not knock over easily. Misha quickly learns the technique to build a stable tower, and proudly smiles to Stacy. Through these simple social exchanges, Misha develops self-confidence, and slowly accumulates knowledge of social behavior and problem solving skills in which she will build off of when she enters preschool and kindergarten.

The case scenario illustrated above also displays Eriksons theory of the psychosocial crisis, which asserts that at the toddler stage, they either develop a sense of autonomy or shame/doubt that either characterize them or shadow them for the rest of their lives. (Passmore, 11-1-2011) Both of the children develop a sense of autonomy by practicing what they have learned by themselves without Stacys help. More specifically, after Stacys verbal and physical guidance, Misha tries and succeeds in stacking the Lego blocks in a stable configuration on her own, therefore demonstrating a sense of autonomy, rather than shame that would lead to dependence. Similarly, although Jonathan needed Stacys help when she teaches him to use the edge of the table as a support to stand up, Jonathan practices this new skill he had acquired over and over on his own until he has mastered it. The process of learning is when Jonathan watched and imitated Stacy, and it is through this learning process that he is able to confidently master the skill of standing up on his own. Stacys support and guidance for Misha and Jonathan exemplifies Piagets idea of scaffolding. In both instances of learning, the toddlers were operating at a Zone of Proximal Development; in other words, it is the process of learning, or gap between novice and mastery, that involves a person of guidance. The gap for Misha was getting from building unstable Lego towers, to building stable and solid Lego towers, while Jonathans gap was the process of striving to get from not knowing how to stand up, to standing up with an external support. During the zone or proximal development, they needed Stacy to scaffold or guide them along the way. Stacy provided Jonathan with guidelines such as Push against the edge of the table. She helped Misha learn by dividing the task into smaller pieces, such as First, line the blocks up, and then up stack them softly. Therefore, children playing Legos may seem like a mere activity for pastime, but in reality, they are continually in the process of learning and development. Analogous to the story

of the Sailing of the Ulysses Boat, each activity that involves the zone of proximal development is like a journey for the children. (Passmore, 11-1-2011) At the end of each journey, their minds will have grown, their ideas of the world will have changed, and the knowledge will be substantially solidified.