Children's Center Observations - Playground

Yesterday, February 12th, I went to the Children's Center to do my observations. While it should have been only 30 minutes, I decided to do all 90 minutes because I couldn't handle walking over there on three separate occasions! Anyway, while observing the children in the classroom I first took note of their ages, which range from 4 to 5, possibly 6 for one, the fact that the boys and girls are about even, and also that the entire area was Caucasian, except for one little girl who is Asian American. 

First, I was able to observe the children in their most free experience, the playground. Considering it is cold outside, instead of going to the playground, they were able to go to the Campus Center gym and get out all of their energy there. I noticed that the boys generally played with the boys and the girls played with the girls. There was never much intermingling of the two genders. Also, the boys definitely had a lot more energy than the girls in that they were running around, kicking balls, and screaming like they have been cooped up all of their short lives! I never noticed such a difference before between the two genders. Also, the boys tried to work out their issues on their own by either just pushing each other, or running away with the ball they were sharing. They never went up to the teacher to ask her to resolve their problems, instead they just took it upon themselves even though it might not have been resolved the best way possible. In contrast, the girls hardly played together and if they did, it more of parallel play than interactive play. I found this odd due to their ages. It seemed that the girls would rather walk off  or bounce balls by themselves. They truly did not want to interact with one another. When the girls would get together, they enjoyed talking or bouncing a ball back and forth. They were much calmer with their play even though they were able to run around and scream if they needed to get the energy they had been storing all day out. The differences were definitely remarkable between the two genders. Also, the girls went up to the teacher more often if they had an issue with one another or with one of the boys. They enjoyed playing with the adults that were there while the boys wanted to stay as far away from them as possible.