I decided to the the Observation Method. I recently did a study in John Hancock Playground that focused on the importance of public playground and the interactions between children and adolescence. I paid attention to the way they played and their use of the space. This method was one of the easy mathods to do. It doesn’t invlove speaking to the child you just have to observe your surroundings with in a childs space. The only thing about that is that the children and the parents has to feel comfortable with you being in a space that is usually meant for children.
When I went to John Hancock Playground I noticed that there was not as much children in the park as there usually is. Usually as soon as the students come out of school around 3:00 they go straight to the park to hang out and play with their friends. Now that the weather is changing and getting colder not much children are going to the park and not much parents are taking them. I did notice that there were still a few boys who are probably around 12 and 17 years old who are still on the basketball court playing. There was a little Muslim girl who wanted to take out her sweater but her mother would not let her because the weather was not as warm as it probably was last week. There is an area in my park that is behind a wall that people use to sit on its just dirt and tress and I noticed the kids do not go in that area. On the monkey bars there was a black girl and a Muslim girl that was taken turns going on but the Muslim girl was a
bit small so the black girl would help her. That was something I didn’t expect it is good to see that the kids were willing to help each other even though they probably didnt know each other. There was two little kids they looked like they were about 7-9 years old and they were pretending they were in a spaceship. The parents interacted with their children but not as much they let them have a little freedom. Some of the kids didn’t even play on the playground equipment they would just ride their bikes or play some type of game in the open space. I also noticed there was two kids who appeared to be there alone. They must of came together I wasn’t really ablt to hear what the kids were talking about but you can tell they were having fun.
The children acted the way I would think they would at a park. They played with what was their but I noticed they used the space a little different or the way they should. They used their imagination and used the space differently. Yes I would use this method because you get to observe children in their natural state and their true self.