The day is sunday, April 2, 2017, I am at my grandmas house. I am observing my cousin Audrey, who is 5 years-old. The time is approximately 11:30 am. Audrey and I sit at the kitchen table for the observation. I give Audrey a set of shapes that are in two sizes in red, yellow, and blue. The shapes are triangles, rectangles, squares and hexagons. Audrey scans the pile, then picks out shapes that are they same size of each color and places them in stacks. She places the large shapes next to the same shape in a smaller size. For example, a stack of large squares of each color is stacked next to a stack of small squares.
Audrey says “done. ” I ask her to tell me about the groups. Audrey says, “There are three. They’re different colors. ” She smiles and laughs a little then says, “I don’t know. I put them on top of eachother. ” I ask if there is another way to put those things things together. She looks at her groups on the table for a minute, then responds, “I don’t know. ” I give Audrey a set of wooden sticks of different lengths. I ask her to put the things in a row from smallest to largest. Audrey compares the sizes of two, then compares another one to them and puts them in order.
She is able to place them from smallest to largest by comparing the lengths of each stick. Audrey says “done. ” I ask her to tell me about what she did. As she points from the largest to smallest, she describes each wooden stick and says, “This is the biggest largest, this is the middle largest, this is the little largest, this is the middle one, this is the little one, this is the littlest one. ” The next thing I do is line up six bingo chips in one row, then line up six more in another row above the first row. I ask Audrey if both of the rows have the same number of items.
Audrey counts each row, then responds “yes. ” I ask her why she thinks that. Audrey responds, “Because they end like the same. Because they’re like in there, they are both six. ” I then space out the bottom row, then I ask if each row has more or if they are the same amount. Audrey says, “Same amount. ” I ask why she thinks that. She responds, “Because they’re like, if you put both of them like this or like this (she moves the chips around, so the top row has spaces then moves them back to the way they were), they’re both six still. ” Now we roll out playdough into two balls.
I ask Audrey if both of the balls of playdough have the same amount. Audrey responds, “yes. ” I roll one of the balls into a hot dog shape, then ask if the ball has more play dough or does the hot dog shape have more, or do they have the same amount. Audrey says, “the hot dog,” I ask her why she thinks that. Audrey responds, “because this one is wider. ” I take two blue straws and line them up parallel, then ask Audrey if the straws are the same length. Audrey responds, “yes. ” I then move the bottom one slightly, then ask if the top one is longer, is the bottom stick longer, or are they the same length.
Audrey responds, “the same. ” I ask why she thinks that. Audrey says, “Because if you put it like this they’re the same, (moves the straws back together), if you put it like this they’re the same (she slides the straws apart from eachother, similar to what I did). Because it’s like, mmmh. Because if you put it like this (she stands the straws up next to each other) then they’re the same. Because, um, because if you put them like this (she lays them back down together on the table) they’re gonna be the same thing as this (she moves them apart again). ” I pour an even amount of water into two, small glasses.
I ask Audrey if the amount of water in the glasses is the same amount. Audrey brings her face down to the level of the glasses, brings her face closer to the glasses, then uses her right, pointer finger to compare the two together, then responds, “yes. ” I then pour water from one of the small cups into a wider, larger cup. I ask if the small glass has more water, if the big glass has more water, or if they are the same amount. Audrey points to the larger, wider glass and says, “because this one has less,” then she points to the small, skinnier cup and says, “and this one has more.
Then she says, “because this one is wider (she points to the larger cup) and this one is skinnier (she points to the small cup). ” Developmental Analysis From what I’ve seen in this observation, it appears to me that Audrey is in the intuitive thought substage of preoperational thought. On page 177 of the book, a child in this stage is described as being able to develop their own ideas about the world around them, but not able to think it out. During the observation, Audrey was able to tell me that when the two straws were lined up, they didn’t change length when I slid one over a little.
She knew the straws didn’t change length, but she wasn’t able to tell me why she knew that. When I asked her what made her think that, she responded by telling me when she put the straws in different positions they stayed the same, but didn’t tell me why she knew that. According to the book on page 178, children at this age vary in their ability to conserve number, matter, and length. It appears to me that Audrey is able to grasp the conservation of number and length, but lacks conservation of matter. Her grasp of conservation shows when I laid out the bingo chips in two identical rows, then spread out one of those rows.
Audrey was able to identify that both rows had six bingo chips, and that no matter how far apart I spaced them, the rows would continue to have the same number of items. Again with the straws, she knew that moving one straw over did not change the length of the straws, and the stayed the same. However, when it came to conservation of matter, Audrey was not able to show the same level of understanding. This showed when used the play dough, and Audrey saw that the two balls of playdough were the same amount.
When I rolled out one of the balls into a hot dog shape, she said the hot dog shape had more because it was wider than the ball. In the book, on page 177, it says that children at this age struggle with this because of centration. I can definitely see where this caused Audrey to struggle a bit, because she was able to tell me that at first when the two playdough shapes where in balls they were the same to her. When I changed the shape of one into a hot dog shape, she was only able to focus on the width of the shapes. I think that Audrey shows some progress towards the 5-7 shift.
There are areas where she demonstrates logical thinking, but she still doesn’t know how she knows what she does. Her thinking is also influenced by centration, and it appears a few times throughout the observation. Another time this showed, aside from the playdough task from my previous example, is when we did conservation of liquid. She was only able to focus on the width of the glasses, and said that because one glass was wider and the other was skinner, that the skinnier glass had more water. Because of this, I think that she has made a move towards the 5-7 shift, but isn’t quite there yet.
