Fieldwork: One

Option 1 (1 hour)
Part I
I chose Aesop’s The Ant and the Grasshopper for my observation project. I worked with two six year old children and one ten year old child. The responses I received were:
Child 1(age 6): “You should not be lazy or you won’t have no food.”
Child 2(age 6): “You have to be ready for winter or you will get sick.”
Child 3(age 10): “You shouldn’t play around when you should be working.”
Part II
I gave the children fifteen objects including; a magazine page, a newspaper article, a crayon, a stapler, a paper clip, a marker, a piece of chalk, a piece of loose-leaf paper, a piece construction paper, a roll of duct tape, a roll of scotch tape, a roll of masking tape, a sandwich bag, a paper bag and a cup. The children grouped the items as followed. Once they grouped the objects, I asked why they put them in the groups they did. (Group/Reasoning)
Child 1(age 6):
(Magazine page, Newspaper article) “You read them.”
(Loose-leaf paper, Construction paper) “You write on them.”
(Masking tape, Duct tape, Scotch tape, Paper clip, Stapler) “They stick stuff together.”
(Sandwich bag, paper bag) “You put stuff in them.”
(Crayon, Marker) “You draw with them.”
(Chalk) “It writes on the chalk board.”
(Cup) “You drink out of it.”

Child 2(age 6):
(Loose-leaf paper, Construction Paper) “They are paper.”
(Paper clip, Stapler) “They stick two pieces of paper to each other.”
(Masking tape, Duct tape, Scotch tape) “They are sticky.”
(Sandwich bag, Paper bag, Cup) “They are for lunch.”
(Crayon, Marker, Chalk) “They write.”

Child 3 (age 10):
(Magazine page, Newspaper article, loose-leaf paper, Construction paper) “They are all made out of paper.”
(Paper clip, Stapler, Masking tape, Duct tape, Scotch tape) “They help hold things together.”
(Sandwich bag, Paper bag, Cup) “You can put things inside of them.”
(Crayon, Marker, Chalk) “You use them to write with.”

Part III
I set up thirty colored tokens in two lines on a table. I moved one set of pennies into a pile in front of the child and the other in front of myself. I asked the children if we had the same amount these are the responses I received:
Child 1 (age 6): “Yup yours is the same.”
Child 2(age 6): “No! I has more!”
Child 3(age 10): “Yea, you have as many as I do.”
I then spread out the tokens into the original lines and asked again if we had the same amount.
Child 1 (age 6): “Yes I have the same.”
Child 2 (age 6): “Yes I have what you have.”
Child 3 (age 10): “Yes you still have the same as me.”

Summary:
All the children appear to be at the appropriate cognitive level for their age, although one of the six year olds did display a small deficit in logical thought. During the first activity, the six year olds used more groups to define the objects than the ten year old did. One of the six year olds was often distracted by small things and grabbed at the tokens I had set aside for myself. The ten year old illustrated advanced social development in that she related to me differently than she did her friends. The six year olds exhibited more signs of egocentrism in the penny activity than the ten year old this is most likely because they are in the Preoperational Stage of development which is right after the Sensory Motor Period in which children display signs of egocentric thought. One of the six year old's answered “No” during the penny activity to the question of whether or not we had the same amount when the pennies were piled in front of them, which indicates a deficit on the grasp of logical concepts.