Allegra is a very unique and exciting child. During the course of the study, she revealed many covert characteristics about herself. By creating various projects we were able to inspire her creativity, imagination, and personality.
Although Allegra has a great imagination, she sometimes seems to fear putting it to use. She is very insightful when drawing things that she has to visualize. For example she was very successful when imagining her play room and then drawing it. She pictured all of the bins with the toys along the wall and had me label them as she remembered the location of each. She really concentrated on trying to see them and remembering what each bin contained. She also displayed her great memory when she was painting her Halloween costume. The costume was very colorful and she made sure to get all of the colors that she needed and to put them in the correct places on her costume. She remained focused on her task until she felt that she had done a good job. She always puts a lot of thought into what she does and it shows.
She also displayed her imagination the day we played dress up and also when we tried to have her recreate her Thanksgiving dinner. She enjoyed trying on different clothes and pretending to be other people. She did not really say what she was doing, but she would give herself a name and say what she was dressed up as. Then on the day that we tried to have Allegra recreate with fake food, although unsuccessful, she used her imagination in a way that I had not seen before. She put all of the food in a basket and pretended that she was grocery shopping. When she finished, she paid Mike for her food, told us how much she paid, and pretended to go home. When she arrived home, she told us that she needed to put all of her food in her refrigerator. We did not prompt her to do any of this, she made it up all on her own. She imagined doing different things even though she really was not at a store or anything. Some young children do not enjoy this, but Allegra was having a great time pretending.
During dress up she did not think that Nicole or I should be dressing up. Nathaniel wanted us to wear different outfits or hats and be part of what was going on, but she wanted us to watch. She said that someone has to watch and was very persistent. She seemed very worried that no one would be watching. I think she just likes someone watching what she is doing, but not to say if she is doing something right or wrong. She never asked us for criticism, she just wanted to make sure that we were paying attention to her.
Even though Allegra does not seek praise for her work, she does seek responses quite often. When she says something and you do not respond, she will repeat what she has said until you respond. When she wants a response, she is determined to get one. She does not really seek a critical response. Instead, she seems to just need an acknowledgment of what she is saying or doing.
Allegra seems to have trouble with imagining the unreal. She does not really like making up stories of things that do not make any sense. If she tells any story, it is just what is going on in a picture. She basically tells things as they are, she is very literal. Many times she does not want to talk about things that she has created. She will say what is in the picture and what the people are doing, but nothing more. She also lets you know when she is done with a project and when she is finished, that is it. This is a good quality to have, though, because it seems to mean that she has a sense of completion that some people never really have. She is able to say that she is done something because she is satisfied with it and proud of what she has done.
The one project that she seemed really excited about doing was the magic painting project. She saw what one younger girl and Nathaniel had created and she wanted to get started right away on her own painting. A difference that I noted between Allegra's work and that of Nathaniel and the younger girl was that she actually took the time to make a picture first even though she knew that we were going to fold it over. The younger girl and Nathaniel just painted and did not really care about really creating a picture. She drew people in her picture and when we folded the paper over, it was amazing. It looked like two people holding hands. When we asked her what she thought it was, she said two people holding hands and dancing. She seemed very excited that hers actually looked like something even after it was folded.
Allegra seems to have an intrinsic motivation to strive for perfection. She is never satisfied until she feels that she is done. Everything also has to be done exactly how she thinks it should be done or she will continue to work. During two of the projects, the play doh project and the drawing of a room in her house, Allegra had started to draw and create with her hands. Then when she really looked at what she had done, she changed her mind about what she wanted it to be. Many kids really do not care as much about what they do, but she takes great pride in her creations. This seems to be a quality that will stick with her and get her far in life. She has the need to achieve, but unlike many, she does it for herself. She does not really seem to care what anyone else thinks, as long as she is happy with what she has done.
She also seems to not like taking the chance of being wrong. On the day that we did the sound project, Allegra was enjoying herself until we played unfamiliar sounds. On the sounds that she knew, she told us right away what she thought they were and the things that went along with that sound. Then when we got to the unfamiliar sounds, she only told us "I don't know." We did not care if she got them correct or not, we just wanted to see what she was imagining when she heard the sound. She would not tell us what she saw because she did not know what it was. If she is unsure of herself, she will not take the risk of being wrong. She seems only comfortable with concrete things that she has a grasp of, the abstract bothers her and makes her very frustrated.
On the other hand, Allegra is very much a child. She likes acting silly, running around, laughing, and playing, just like any other four year old does. She loves art projects and dressing up. With these types of activities, there is really no way to be wrong. She loves to draw people in her art creations, most of the time holding hands. This may show that she enjoys the security that her parents or friends provide for her.
Allegra seems to enjoy being a girl very much. She seems to be at the age in which the girls and the boys are separate, girls play with girls and boys with boys. She never wants to play with "boy" toys or do "boy" things. When we played dress up with her, she only wore "girl" clothes, unlike the younger girl who is a year younger than Allegra. The younger girl does not really see the distinction between the two yet, it seems. She does not seem to see a problem with wearing any kinds of dress up clothes, while Allegra does. She dressed up as a princess and a girl Indian, just to name a few. The funniest thing that she said during dress up was "I'm not ready yet" when we wanted to take her picture. She did not want us to take her picture until she felt that she looked good enough to have her picture taken, which is stereotypical of female behavior.
Another time in which she expressed the differences between girls and boys was when she was drawing a picture of her play room with lots of people in it. Everyone was wearing their proper clothes until she started to draw her dad. She said first that she wanted to give him "girl hair" which I thought was kind of funny. In her mind's eye, long hair is for a girl and short hair for a boy. In her picture she wanted to dress her dad up like a girl so she used the stereotypical characteristics to portray him in this way. To do this she gave him long hair and a dress. She found this to be very amusing because she knows that, according to our society, he is not supposed to dress in this way or have this type of hair.
Allegra seems to have a great relationship with her brother because every time she talks about him she gets happy and usually laughs about something that he did that was silly, as she would say. He seems to always be making her laugh, which she enjoys and so does he. They definitely have a great connection and when he is not around it is though something is missing.
On the last day, Nathaniel was home sick and Allegra acted like a totally different person. She did not want to sit and do the activity that we had planned for her. She just wanted to run around and act silly. Her brother is like that a lot of the time, but he does focus when he sets his mind to it. It was as though she had to take over his role that day since he was not there. She seemed to really miss him because she kept telling us that he was not there because he was sick.
It was also interesting one day when we showed one of Nathaniel's drawings to Allegra. The picture was of Nathaniel's play doh project which was of a hill and some other things. When we showed it to Allegra and asked her what she thought it was, she said a hill. It is amazing that she could recognize something that he had drawn and that what she said it looked like was exactly what he said it was.
On the day that our project was the puzzle of her painting of her Halloween costume, Allegra did a really great job. Although it was difficult, she persisted through it. She knew that she could do the puzzle and when she set her mind to it, she did not stop until it was done. She did not recognize the pieces at first, but after we had shown her the original that she had painted, she knew what it was and was eager to get started right away. I think she thought it was great that we had made a puzzle of something she had done and that she was getting a chance to reconstruct her own work all over again. She has great determination, which is a really strong quality to have. She is definitely not a quitter when she sets her mind to doing something.
Another interesting observation that I made from the puzzle project was that she seemed to be using the colors and patterns of the puzzle to put it together. She was not really concerned with the shape of the piece, what mattered more was the colors. I guess as you grow older you learn to use both the shape of the piece and also the picture on the piece. She never tried to put any part of the puzzle together in this way, but she did do a very good job by putting it together just by the use of color and patterns and eventually the shape so that it all fit together the right way.
One of her most remarkable displays of imagination and creativeness was apparent in the sound project. The sound was that of the piano. Mike tapped on keys randomly, hoping that Allegra would just recognize the sound of a piano. She did, but she also connected the notes into familiar songs. She thought that she heard the songs "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Bah, Bah Black Sheep." I thought that this was amazing. She did not just hear the piano, she connected the notes together to form a song. She went way beyond what we asked for from her and all of us could not believe that she had this ability at such a young age.
Allegra was a great child to have for this study. She went along with all of the projects and never complained that she did not like them. She seemed to enjoy experiencing new activities even when she seemed to have her doubts. This study provided us with the time to explore Allegra's imagination, creativity, and personality in new ways. In every day life, children are not always given these opportunities. Many times they are subjected to the same sort of activities that really do not give them the opportunity to use their special talents to their fullest potential. I think every child should be given this opportunity to shine, to have the feeling that they possess the power to do whatever they put their mind to, if they were just given the chance. Allegra was given this chance and she proved that she has great determination. She knows that she can do whatever she puts her mind to, in all aspects of her life.
