At the Children’s School, I observed 5-year-olds grabbing a handful of blocks and counting how many blocks they grabbed by placing each block on a table of numbers. The task required them to do this 6 times. Children followed the task and were proud to show the teacher how many blocks they could grab with their one hand. This activity displayed autonomy and industry, where children took the initiative to start and complete this task by themselves and also be proud of what they could accomplish from doing the task. Although simple, this task illustrates children’s ability to independently follow instructions and complete a task to the best of their ability without external influences.

In particular, I noticed one child had tried to hand in his paper, only having done the task once although it instructed the child to repeat the task 6 times. A teacher came over to correct him, but the child asked why he had to repeat the task 6 times. From this, we can see that this activity also illustrates how some children can intuit the repetitiveness of a task and deem it purposeless from only doing it once.