Thursday, May 29, 2014

Social Interaction Observation

This past Thursday morning I went to Minigym Explorations in San Jose. I arrived at
9:00. The classroom is structured as a gym. It has slides, monkey bars, lots of mats, climbing house, kitchen and etc. Its theory aims at optimizing physical interaction.
At one side of the classroom, there is a plastic track, up and down like a wave so kids can ride on a car and the car can ride through the whole track. A girl named
Aden is riding on the car and calling her friend to come over to look at her. So her girl friend goes there to see her also a boy Matty goes there too. Aden is at the beginning point of the track, ready to ride and her girl friend gives her a push so the car rides right through the track. Once Aden is done, Matty runs to grab the car. Aden’s girl friend says, “It’s my turn, take turns.” So she runs to the car and takes it from Matty. Matty lets go and watches her ride through the track. He goes to the car again and rides again. The girl at the side is ready to give Matty a push to start. Matty says, “I don’t need your help.” He stands on the car and the car goes through the track. The teacher sees this and tells Matty to sit down and just ride.
One boy—Ben--is standing by the Thomas train table playing. Boys Tyler and
Matty come over to play with the train, too. They both grab the same blue train. Matty gets it first, and Tyler says, “It’s mine, it’s mine.” He grabs Matty from behind and tries to take the train from Matty. Somehow both fall on carpet and tussle. Tyler gets the train. No one cries or yells. Both get up and Tyler goes back to the train table. Ben is there still playing. Tyler starts to chase Ben around train table. They are laughing and chasing.
A boy Ryan is pushing a truck. Tyler goes to the truck place, picks one up and starts to push a truck around classroom with Ryan. They go under the slides and pretend it is a tunnel. They stop by another slide and pretend it is a gas station. They start to fill their trucks with gas. Matty joins their group, too. Very soon they all go off to do other things. Matty starts to stack building blocks. Tyler and Ryan start to push trucks again. When Tyler gets near Matty, Tyler slows down and looks at Matty, then pushes the truck right through the blocks. “Hey, what are you doing?” asks Matty. He picks up the blocks and start to build again. Tyler and the other boy still carry on, pushing the truck around.
Aden is wearing a yard duty vest. Amentha is wearing a pink Ballarina skirt. They are climbing to top of the side. Aden is in front, one hand holding a camera, and says, “I’m stuck, I can’t climb any faster.” Each time she steps on the outfit because it is too long. Amentha--at her back--helps her by lifting Aden’s outfit. Finally both reach the top of the platform. Aden tells Amentha to stand still--she is going to take a picture of her. “Say cheese,” she says. Aden also comes closer to Amentha and turns Amentha’s face to the right a little bit, then Aden moves backward. “Say cheese,” she says and then takes the picture. “How about you do it now,” she says, and both switch positions. They toss the camera aside and slide down the slides and take off the dress.
In the corner of the classroom is a climbing house. Wendy, another student, is on top of the house, calling out, “I’m stuck. I’m stuck.” The teacher comes over. “You have to come down by yourself,” she says. “I’ll show you how. First you need to sit down. Now put your hands on the top bar and your foot on the lower bar. Come down slowly. You got it.” Once Wendy is down she goes underneath the slide where two boys and a girl are sitting, pretending to make a phone call. One boy says to Wendy, “This is our house, please go away.” Wendy turns away immediately and goes to a doll house. The boy that asked Wendy to leave follows Wendy to the doll house and says, “Actually, it’s ok, if you only visit.” Wendy says, “Don’t follow me, I don’t care.” The boy goes back under the stair. Soon Wendy is back to the climbing house again. She also asks the girl in the green shirt to follow her. The girl in green is pretending to be a cat. She says, “meo meo” and crawls on the floor. Quickly Wendy climbs to the top of the house . Again she calls, “Help help.” The teacher comes over and says, “Have you heard story about crying wolf?” “I already know the story,” says Wendy. She manages to get down on her own.
Towards the end of free play time, a few kids leave the classroom to go outside.
Teacher calls them in. They get a time out: they either stand by the closet or sit in a chair for 2 minutes. The teacher sits across from them and asks, “Who knows the reason why we can not go outside?” As this is happening, Ben wanders outside classroom again. The teacher has to bring him back and asks him to sit in the chair for 2 minutes. She talks about the reason again. One girl comes over to sit next to him to accompany him. Teacher mentions to Ben how nice the girl is. Very soon Ben is dismissed from sitting. The kids are going to have circle time. But before that is clean up time. The kids sing songs and pick up toys. I finished my observation. at 10:30.

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