My Observational Study On An Unstructured Activity Time At...

My observational study took place on May 17th. On that day, I had the opportunity of observing two children during an unstructured activity time at a domestic violence shelter for mothers and children. The two students I was there to observe were named Tom and Lucy (ages 7 and 5). In addition, there were three other children and one adult. The three additional children were Tom’s siblings—a 14 year-old brother, and two younger sisters ages 3 and 4. Tom is one of five siblings and is of Puerto Rican and Caucasian descent. He has two brothers ages 8 and 14 and three sisters ages 2, 4, and 5. Tom’s mother is a 30-years-old, Caucasian woman with type 1 diabetes. At the time of the observation, Tom and his family had been living in the shelter†¦show more content†¦At the time of the observation, Lucy had been living in the shelter for a year and a half. She shares a room with her mother and younger brother age 2. Lucy had never attended any type of childcare prior to starting school last fall. Lucy has issues of self-regulating and often times she needs to be reminded to not get in adult conversations. Also, Lucy often times would demonstrate feeling of sadness, depression, and anxiety. However, with the help of the shelter staff, residents, and school staff, Lucy has demonstrated improvements in this area. Lucy only speaks English and is at grade level according to school reports. During this initial observation on Tom and Lucy, I believed that I would not gain insight about their language use. Yet, during the process of analyzing my notes I have found that the session provided me with many insights. The session with Tom and Lucy involved the activity of a 45-minute game of catch with one Velcro grip mitten and a ball. The objective of the game was for a ball to be thrown between two people and caught with mittens. However, only one of them had a mitten, since I had misplaced the second mitten. Nevertheless, Tom and Lucy did not seem to mind and began to engage in play immediately. Analysis Coming in, I recognize I had a certain belief that Tom and Lucy would not encounter any difficulty in understanding how to play the game. This assumption was based on the fact that both children spoke English and had the same