Piagetian Tasks

Piagetian Tasks
All the tasks I did were to my nephews (for this task I did a 5 year old). I did it unknowingly to them in hopes to get a better understanding as to where they were on the Piaget’s stages. The first one that I did was with a cup of milk. I actually had two glasses of milk. One was in a larger glass, the other in a smaller glass. I drank the smaller and then poured the larger one into the larger glass. I asked if there was a lot in the smaller glass, they said no. Then I poured the milk from the smaller glass into the larger glass. I asked if there was now more milk in the larger and you could probably guess what they said… yes. Amazing. This shows that their stage is at the preoperational stage. I saw that they understood what was being asked, and then they hesitated on their reasoning and thought about it for a second before responding. Which is why I come to the conclusion that they are in the beginning stages of preoperational stage because although they thought there was more milk now in the larger glass than the second, they still hesitated to say something until they were sure about it, which means that they are slowly moving into the preoperational stage rather than being strong in the sensorimotor stage.
The other task that I did was with cars. This one I used my 3 year nephew. We were playing with cars and I lined the cars up in 2 rows so that they would be even. I had my nephew look at them and I asked which one was longer, he just looked at me dumbfounded and continued playing with the cars. I then scooted one row up so that it would appear longer. After doing so I turned to my nephew and asked him which one was longer, he pointed to the row that I just moved. Interesting. This showed to me that he is in the preoperational stage too. He stopped to think about what I was asking, but in the end logic was not the issue. Rather it was how it looked and appeared and beyond that to him of course the longer row would be longer. I also found it interesting that he was content with what he saw and he never second guessed himself. It was as he saw it.
The last task I did was with my 1 month old nephew. With him I had to be a little more creative, but I really want to test out Piaget’s theory and stages and so I thought, why not? It was fun to do it on him. I had him looking at me, really glaring at me, and while I had him staring I asked my husband to come over to try to distract him from looking at me. It took a few minutes for the little guy to glance over at my husband. His focus was completely on me and what I was doing. I was so pleased with my observation. It proved that Piaget really does know what he is talking about. My nephew would be in the sensorimotor stage. He remained in the moment and could do nothing else until he was satisfied with looking at me. He was completely focused on the here and now situation rather than what was happening around him. So, my conclusion with Piaget is that he is correct about the stages and what happens within each stage.