Observation
The first detail I noticed about their interactions was that they were split into groups without apparent instruction from their teachers. The youngest of them sat all together, watching the fountain and eating lunch. The older ones, however, were split by their gender: the girls stood closer to the fountain and enjoyed the show and mist while the boys stood further back against the benches and talked amongst themselves. There was one small group of 5 children, boys and girls, who stood as …show more content…
Some replication of Bandura’s theory of Modeling was found as well. In the case of the 1st graders, the Centration aspect of Piaget’s Preoperational Stage was apparent. This tendency to only focus on one facet of a situation at a time (McLeod, S. A. 2015) meant that the little ones sat and ate for a time, paying some but very little attention to the fountain. This idea was confirmed as lack of attention rather than lack of interest when they finished their meals and greatly enjoyed themselves with the fountain. Another characteristic of this stage is Parallel Play, which is to say that while children may play in the same general space, and even the same age, their play is not with the others. From my observation I saw that the youngest children played in the same space, and played the same way, but play was individual. They did not pay much mind to their peers, only the mist and occasionally a teacher who chased