Child Play Observation

Video Description: 

Allison picks up the blue shark piece. She puts the piece in backwards in its blue spot in the base at first. She rotates the piece 180 degrees to fit into the puzzle correctly and looks at her mom behind the camera. She picks up the yellow fish next. It doesn’t fit in the yellow spot this way; she rotates it around. Allison moves on to the orange fish. It's not fitting with the way she is holding it. She bites her tongue and puts the piece down on top of the corresponding orange colored divot in the base. Allison picks up the purple octopus piece; she rotates the piece until it snaps into the purple spot in the puzzle. She picks up a nearby pencil with her fisted right hand while continuing the puzzle with her left hand. Allison attempts to fit the red crab puzzle piece by moving it back and forth on the board. She puts the pencil down, moves it aside, and continues the puzzle with her right hand; she fits it in its red divot. Her brows are furrowed. Allison puts the green turtle piece in the green spot on the first try and then goes back to finish fitting the orange fish in the puzzle. 

Analysis:

Allison seems to know where each piece goes in the puzzle with little thinking time. This might suggest that this isn’t her first time playing with the puzzle; she is familair with this object. She seems to recognize that color of the puzzle piece needs to match the base color of the puzzle. She has more trouble fitting the pieces in their exact orientation so that the outward shape is lined up with the divot. She twirls the shapes around to try new orientations after the previous ones don't work - she knows something is not right. Moving the small pieces back and forth across the board allows her to develop her fine motor skills. Allison is aware that the pencil is not apart of this puzzle, and eventually moves it out of the way to avoid confusion and to reject the item in this situation. Her facial expressions suggest that she is focusing really hard to do this task. This puzzle acts as a medium to develop her problem-solving and perseverance skills. As seen with the orange fish and green turtle pieces, at first Allison could not fit the orange piece in. Instead of continuing to struggle with that piece, she sets it down and moves on to the turtle piece in instead. After fitting the turtle piece in, she goes back to the orange fish and is able to fit the piece into the puzzle. This suggests Allison learned from successfully fitting the turtle piece in, and used that experience to go back and fix the orange piece she was struggling with earlier. 

Video Description: 

Allison picks up a big yellow square piece and her gaze shifts across the puzzle. She fits the piece into the square divot in the puzzle base. She picks up a small orange pentagon piece and tries fitting it into each shape one by one; she eventually places the orange pentagon in the yellow square piece. She is biting her lip and going slow, one piece at a time

She picks up blue triangle piece and fits it into the blue triangle place on the base. Mom says “Yay!” Allison picks up a small green piece, turns it around in her hand, and looks at the pieces for several seconds. She fits it into the medium green piece. She takes turns putting the small green piece and the medium green piece in the large green place. Mom shows her a pentagon piece and asks “Where does the orange go?” Allison tries to put the medium orange pentagon into large green rectangle; she takes it out when it doesn’t fit. Allison removes all the puzzle pieces from the puzzle. She flips over the puzzle board to look at the bottom side. Her facial expression is neutral.

Analysis:

The shifting of Allison's gaze across the puzzle signals that she is critically thinking about where to put each piece she has in her hand. She seems to be looking for certain pieces. She goes one by one and focuses her attention on one shape at a time. This eye movement suggests that she is actively practicing problem-solving skills by scanning the board for where to put her piece. Once she spots a divot that seems correct, she uses trial-and-error strategy to determine if it's right. Her mom helps to guide her thinking with positive reinforcement and asking questions. The pentagon is a more obscure shape so maybe that’s why she gets the square in the “correct” place, but not the pentagon. She doesn't yet seem to understand that the same shapes are colored the same, just in varying shades of that color, as she doesn't attempt to stack the same shapes within each other. At the end, she has a couple pieces in their corresponding places, but flips over the puzzle. She doesn't appear frustrated. Perhaps the pieces she was working with didn’t fit into the puzzle immediately and she is looking for another place or slot to fit the pieces into.