Play Observation Essay

Kiahi a boy of about 3 years old was playing alone stood on a small hill of dirt , at first it looked like her was just looking at the other kids play. When I kept looking at him to see if he was just going to continue to doing nothing, but watch the other children I noticed that he was standing there like a solider tall and with determination on his face. With his hand to his forehead looking about as the other children ran around. After a while I see that he is pointing to his class mates at random and looks to be giving directions, more like orders, of some sort, although no one is paying attention. After giving off orders in a solider like manner he nods his head, as though satisfied with himself and his team though it was just him playing, and pulls out some kind of black/sliver rectangular key chain object out of his shirt pocket. He clicks on it, as if it had buttons, brings it up to his ear and talks and nods, he’s using it as a cell phone. After he is done he clicks i t again to end the call and puts it back to his pocket. Then he just runs off the hill and goes plays at the play structure, as if what he just did never happened. At first I thought Kiahi was engaging in unoccupied play, because to me it looked as if he was doing nothing at all but just looking at what everyone else was doing. As I kept observing him it looked to him that his was doing solitary play. Playing out a role of someone with authorization giving out orders, and taking calls. It was solitary because no one else was engaging with him in is play even though he pointed out to other kids when giving off orders no one paid him attention. Sophia a girl of about 4 years old with a temperament of a being shy and quite, wasn’t playing with anybody else. She was reluctant to join anybody for play. After a while Sophia looks to have acquired a play mate Elena a soft spoken 3 years old, though in some occasions I did hear her be a little louder towards other kids, they are playing in the sand box. It looks like they are playing kitchen; cooking, serving, cutting and cleaning. Throughout the play not a word was spoken, but they seemed to communicate in their own silent way. After a while Sophia and Elena moved to play with the balls, when Sophia would turn her back on the ball and it rolled away from her instead of calling out to Sophia to get the ball Elena runs after the ball and gives it back to Sophia in her hands and points to the baskets behind her. In a silent gesture to throw the ball at the basket. I found these  girls interesting because I’ve observed them for a while during the morning time when dropped off up until free play outside. I know for a fact that both girls speak Elena even yells at times when kids don’t pay attention for following the rules. Sophia is new to the pre-school program at Head Start and cries when her Mom, as Ms.Perla informed me, leaves her but just for a few minutes. It takes Sophia a few hours to get into play with actual words being spoken. Elena is a sweet little that separated from her little group of friends to play with Sophia and to me it looked as if Elena understood Sophia not wanting to speak, seeing as Elena ever attempted to say a single word to her. At first Sophia was engaging in solitary play, playing on her own on the play structure. In the sand box Sophia and Elena cooperative playing, even though they didn’t say a word, the worked together to prepare, cook and serve a meal and clean up after they were done. They had a common goal in playing kitchen. After that they played with the balls which turned to associative play still playing together but without a common goal because Sophia wasn’t as engaged as Elena in trying to play basketball.