Play Observation

Play Observation
ED 231
Childs Name: Will
Age in years and months: 5 years, 7 months
For this observation the child MUST be involved in an activity that meets the criteria for play.
Fun, pleasurable
Suspension of reality
Active involvement
Voluntary
Internal coherence
Instructions: On a piece of paper separate from this form, you will need to record detailed notes
describing the play of your child during the 30 minute period. You will use these notes to write 2-3
anecdotes that occurred during this play period. These anecdotes will be short stories or episodes that
demonstrate the cognitive and social dimensions of the play. Here are three examples:
At Sarahs invitation, Molly and Jonah joined her in the dramatic play area. Sarah said
Ill be the mom and you be the children. Jonah picked up a bottle and pretended to
cry. Sarah come over with a stuffed animal and tried to comfort him. Jonah became
quiet. Sarah said Dont worry baby, mommy will take care of you. Molly said Ill be
the sister and Sarah replied OK, youre supposed to help me with the baby. Jonah
said Im done playing house.
Keisha told Mr. H. that she wanted to build a zoo in the block area. Keisha went to
the table toys area and got the rubber zoo animals. Jake and Aaron were already in the
block area when Keisha arrived. Keisha looked at what the boys were making and than
started her own structure. She worked without talking for about 10 minutes building a
square enclosure for each animal.
Pierre and three friends chose the rice table at free play. All four boys stood around the
table filling containers and pouring them out. Pierre said Look how fast the rice
comes out of this hole!!! The other three with smiles on their faces watched as he did
it twice more. After several minutes, Jon, one of the other boys, said Im making a
cake. Does anyone have some sugar?. Pierre said I do. How much do you need?.
Jon said Eight, I think.. Pierre stirred the rice in his bowl and then started to spoon
some into Jons bowl. A third boy pretended to taste his rice and said Mine tastes
yummy!
Be sure to include enough information in your anecdote to document the social and cognitive type of play.
After writing your anecdotes, review them and decide where each one will fit into the play matrix on page 3
of this form. You may have more than one anecdote that will fit into a single cell of this matrix.
Play Anecdotes
Anecdote #1
Upon waking up from his nap, Will walked around the roomfirst the dramatic play area, then
toward the play table. While walking around, Will stopped to watch Julia play with a sticker sheet and a
blank piece of paper. Will quickly picked out a piece of blank paper for himself and stood next to Julia,
playing with the sticker sheets. After Diana pointed out that there was a bin fill of stickers, the kids took it
out and five out of six kids in the room chose to play with the stickers. Will spent about 15 minutes
decorating his one sheet with large and small stickersmainly Hello Kitty and flowers. A few times, Will
asked Julia to borrow stickers or to trade a sticker sheet with him. He did so politely and repeatedly went
around the table to look at other kids pages. He made comments like, I like that sticker, or You have a
lot!, That looks nice.
Anecdote #2
On their way back from their bathroom break, Diana told the kids to walk back like an animal that
lives under the sea (the theme for the week was underwater). Will chose to be a sting ray, which he
announced as soon as they started walking, Im a sting ray! Look at my wings. He walked with his arms
stretched out to the sides and his mouth puckered up. He swerved from left to right as the kids all made their
way down the hallway. When he was back inside the classroom, Will continued his play with the animal
while the other kids went back to their regular play. Will said to no one in particular, These are my wings
and this is my squishy tail. Then he laid on the floortummy downand started squirming around with
his arms stretched out to the sides. He played like that by himself for about two minutes before he got up and
started walking around the room talking gibberish.
Anecdote #3
After a while of walking around, Will noticed that Brayden was pulling out the big bin of magnatiles
that Dianas room got to use for the week. First, Will asked Brayden if he could play with him. When
Brayden said yes, Will picked out a bunch of piecesspecifically telling me that he was picking out some of
each shape. He moved himself and his tiles over to a table nearby to play. Will played with the magnatiles up
until I leftover 15 minutes. He built a rocket ship airport, a rocket ship, a house, an office, and a school.
Each time he built one up, he would tear it down quickly and then begin building again. There were a few
times where Will would tell Brayden what he built and vice versa; other than that, Will played by himself.
PLAY MATRIX
Types of Play
Functional/
Exploratory
Play
Solitary
1
SOCIAL DIMENSIONS
Parallel
Associative
1/3
Cooperative
1
COGNITIVE DIMENSIONS
Construction/
Representational
Play
2
Pretend/ Dramatic
Play
3
Supplementary Category - Games with Rules
Reflection on Play Checklists and Anecdotal Observations

ED 231
Think about the cognitive and social dimensions of play. Describe what you found most informative or
revealing about this child at play.
Generally, Will tends to play either by himself or engages in associative play.Even though he
tends to end up playing by himself, he looks to other people for ideas or suggestions on what he
should be doing and then goes off of that.
How could the information about this childs play skills be useful to you as a classroom teacher? Give
examples.
Specifically in a preschool/kindergarten classroom, play is a major part of a childs day. If a
teacher understands how a child plays, then she/he also knows what the child needs help on. If a
child only chooses to play alone on functional play activities, then perhaps the teacher needs to
nudge the child toward more dramatic play with others. In Wills case, even though he does do a lot
of associative or solitary play, he also does know how to play cooperatively with others and I have
seen him do so in the past, but it seems that his default setting is more solitary.
This play matrix is designed to help you process the relationship between cognitive and social dimensions of
play. As a result, what new insights have you gained about the process or the purpose of play?
Play is very important not only for the social aspect of it, but also for the cognitive
development of the child. It is very important for a student to be able to do those cognitive functions
on their own and while collaborating with others. From what I have observed, for some students
collaborative play would be easier than solitary play, where they are responsible for all of the work
themselves.
Something new and important that I learned about the process of play is the time that has to
be put into it. I honestly figured that the kids would be moving form station to station during their
play time since they are so young. However, when they are fully engaged in an activity, they can and
should spend a lot of time at one station. The idea that children need time to really get into
imaginative play is something I had never really thought of before. During school, I remember
having play time only when there was extra time, meaning that it was timed. Having more time to
really begin to play a role would be and is so much more beneficial for students.

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Play Observation

Age in years and months: 5 years, 7 months

Supplementary Category - Games with Rules

Reflection on Play Checklists and Anecdotal Observations

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