What captivated children’s interests were activities where they were able to exercise their own creativity and had control over the final results. For example, they seemed most engaged in the house building activity where they used blocks to build a house. They seemed to enjoy having a story behind their creations, such as when they placed figurines inside the houses and pretended that families were living in them. They were also very engaged in the lego building activity and were able to combine medium to create something new, such as when they brought curlers from another station to the lego station and used those tools together to create something.

What did not captivate the children’s interests were mandatory activities such as singing the “good morning” song in a circle. Some children were distracted by other objects in the classroom.

Children took initiative in the building activities. I observe a child playing with a block with a bridge on it who told the other kids that he knows how to support the bridge by putting blocks of different sizes beneath it. Children displayed autonomy when they climbed on top of something in the playground and told their teacher to look at them.