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Early Learning Guidelines

Across all five domains

3-year-olds

Stage Infants Toddlers Preschool Early elementary
Age 0–9 months 8–16 months 15–24 months 24–36 months 3-year-olds 4-year-olds 5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds
Domain All domains I. Approaches to Learning II. Physical Well-Being, Health and Motor Development III. Social and Emotional Development IV. Communication, Language, and Literacy V. Cognitive Development
Show Both What educators might observe Ways educators might support the child's development
I

Approaches to Learning

A

Curiosity and Interest

Child approaches the world with curiosity and develops knowledge about specific topics.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • When a child asks a “why” question:
    • Restate their question
    • Acknowledge their curiosity (“That’s an interesting question!”)
    • Ask what they think the answer might be
    • Talk together about how you might find the answer
    • Go together to consult an expert, look for a relevant book, or visit a website
  • Welcome the child to contribute to caregiving routines
  • Join the child in making up stories
B

Initiative

Child pursues their own goals.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include duplicates of toys in the learning environment so that multiple children can play next to each other simultaneously
  • Help children to initiate play by giving verbal cues (e.g., “Your turn! Now it’s Chelsea’s turn, which means that you run and try to catch her!”)
  • Involve the child in small group activities where they can contribute, participate, take turns, and anticipate as well as initiate turn-taking
C

Persistence and Attentiveness

Child focuses on tasks and perseveres in accomplishing them.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Follow the child’s lead in play; this may mean that the child assigns a role to the educator, often with the educator being a child, and the child assuming an adult role
  • Though materials in the learning environment should be rotated, allow for previously used materials to reappear at the child’s request, and keep materials that the children are actively engaged with available to them
  • Allow for ample time for the child to practice tasks such as dressing themselves and to develop self-help skills
D

Creativity and Inventiveness

Child uses their imagination to create and invent.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide access in the learning environment to open-ended materials children can use in a variety of ways
    • Blank paper of different sizes, textures, and colors
    • Watercolor and tempera paints
    • Pencils, colored pencils, crayons, and markers
    • Collage materials such as origami paper, pom-poms, and buttons
    • S culpture materials, such as pipe cleaners and cardboard
    • Pieces of cloth in a pretend area
    • Boxes
    • Scissors
    • Masking tape and glue
  • Guide the child’s use of materials, noticing and commenting on their actions
II

Physical Well-Being, Health and Motor Development

A

Large Motor Skills

Child uses and coordinates their large muscle groups.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide access to playground materials that support the development of gross motor skills
    • Balls of various sizes
    • Ribbon dancers
    • Tricycles
    • Scooters
    • Low steps
    • Large blocks
    • Balance beams
  • If possible, take children on walks in nature during which they have the opportunity to walk on different surfaces and climb over rocks and logs
B

Small Motor Skills

Child controls the small muscles in their hands and wrists.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include materials in the learning environment that foster fine motor skills
    • Safety Scissors
    • Magazines to tear and cut
    • Clay and play dough
    • Small blocks
    • Duplos
    • Fingerpaint
    • Easel painting
    • Pegboards
    • Puzzles
    • Small cups and containers in the sand and water areas
    • Chunky crayons
    • Stickers
    • Large wooden beads for stringing
C

Sensory Integration

The child uses sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, proprioception (deep pressure), and vestibular function (balance) to perceive and respond to the world around them.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite children to explore different textured materials, such as velvet, felt, satin, cotton, dry leaves, seeds, dirt, and flowers
  • Create simple cooking experiences with the children that involve smelling the ingredients, pouring, mixing, and stirring
  • Add scents such as lavender or apple pie spice to homemade play dough, checking for allergies beforehand
  • Provide opportunities for children to use sensory tables, including light tables and water/sand tables on a daily basis
  • Provide a quiet space with soft furnishings that may also include a listening center, soft animals, objects to squeeze, or picture books
D

Self-Care

Child cares for their physical well-being.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Transition a tired child to a quieter activity or area so that their body can rest
  • Provide enough time during transitions so that the children can practice selfhelp skills such as putting on their coats
  • Notice and acknowledge children’s growing independence
  • Establish times in the daily schedule for toilet use, and remind children who are learning to use the toilet to go more frequently
  • Establish good health routines, including tooth brushing, serving healthy foods, and hand washing
E

Healthy Sexuality

Child develops a healthy relationship to their body, pleasure, and others. This healthy sense of self is supported and demonstrated through respectful, caring, and loving relationships with families, educators, and other children.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to children about the human body (parts and functions); equip children with accurate vocabulary for their genitals in the same way you provide accurate vocabulary for all of their other body parts
  • Model consent throughout your everyday teaching practices; for example, give children options for how they would like to be greeted in the morning (e.g., hug, high five, or wave)
  • Communicate with children about your own physical boundaries (“I don’t like when people touch my hair without asking. It’s great to be curious. So, if you are feeling curious about how my hair feels, you can ask me, and I might say yes and I might say no.”)
  • Teach children that “no” and “stop” are important words and should be honored in relation to their own bodies and the bodies of others; support children as they begin to learn how to read and respond to others’ non-verbal communication
III

Social and Emotional Development

A

Trusting Relationships with Adults

Child develops trusting relationships with nurturing adults.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Build relationships with individual children throughout the day (e.g., during small groups, one on one play with child, conversation at meal times, etc.)
  • Create predictable separation routines at drop-off
  • Meet children’s caregiving needs promptly and empathetically (e.g., when a child has a toileting accident, shows compassion and respect)
  • Listen to children and show you value what they are saying by acknowledging them and expanding upon their ideas
  • When a child is talking with you, get down at their level, either by sitting in a chair or on the floor; allow the child to talk and explain as much as possible
  • Thank child for coming to get you in times of need
B

Sense of Belonging

Child experiences a sense of belonging in environments that link, extend, and affirm the child’s family and community. Child expresses comfort and joy with human diversity.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Describe gender as how a person feels (“Josie is a boy because Josie feels like a boy on the inside.”)
  • Make the child’s home language seen and heard in the learning environment
  • Adapt curriculum and materials in the learning environment so that all children are able to participate
  • Connect families in their learning environment to one another
    • Family breakfast in the classroom or program
    • Book groups
    • Parenting reflection groups
  • Encourage families to engage in play-based learning activities in their home language
  • Accept silence or quiet observation as an acceptable way for children to participate, particularly when they are new to the learning environment or if that is consistent with their personality
  • Reflect on your own biases and the ways those biases manifest in your interactions with children, colleagues, and families
C

Sense of Self

Child develops a sense of self through noticing and developing their own interests, preferences, and abilities. Child increasingly develops self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Assist child in exploring “All about Me” by making collages and books with pictures and captions; include the family, extended family, and community members when possible
  • Affirm children’s self-identification and model accurate and appropriate vocabulary around race, ethnicity, and gender
  • Encourage children to try new things and talk with them about their impressions
  • Observe children’s interests and plan activities to support them
  • Create opportunities for the child to make meaningful decisions (e.g., what to name the pet fish)
  • Ensure that children’s home languages are visible in the classroom, in the library, and on charts and labels
  • Acknowledge children’s accomplishments when they have solved a task or problem on their own
  • Encourage all types of play for children of all genders (for example, allow boys to hold the babies and pretend to breastfeed; allow girls to splash in mud puddles)
  • Include books in the learning environment that can support your ongoing conversations about gender and gender stereotypes, and affirm a wide variety of gender identities and expression, such as
    • Who Are You? by Brook Pessin-Whedbee
    • I’m Jay, Let’s Play , by Beth Reichmuth
    • Julian is a Mermaid , by Jessica Love
D

Empathy

Child forms deep, caring, human connections by imagining what someone else may be thinking or feeling and responding with care. Child recognizes unfairness and understands that unfairness hurts.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Validate child’s feelings (“You’re sad. I would feel sad if I lost my teddy bear too.”)
  • Read books about feelings and discuss character’s feelings, asking such questions as, “How would you feel if that happened?”
  • Demonstrate how to ask for and understand the viewpoints and opinions of others (“Tell me how you feel about that.”)
  • Use pretend play to help children develop understanding of others’ feelings (“The hippo’s mommy is going to work. How does baby hippo feel?”)
  • Teach children that feelings change; help them reflect on how they felt earlier in the day and how they feel now
E

Cooperation and Negotiation

Child navigates friendships with peers through cooperation and negotiation.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Ensure that there are enough materials for each child to have a reasonable amount
  • Observe, record, and reflect on the efforts of emergent multilingual learners to connect with their peers; intentionally create opportunities to extend these connections
  • Make adaptations so that all children can be involved in a meaningful way in individual and group activities
  • Create puppet shows in which conflicts between children are dramatized; allow children to identify how to solve the conflict
  • Use naturally occurring problems as an example to practice problem-solving skills (“Uh-oh, we have only one of those trucks and I see that Juan is mad that Devonte grabbed it from him. What can we do to help Juan not feel mad?”)
  • Provide activities that are done in pairs (e.g., “marbles in box” painting, which requires two children to hold and tilt the corners of the box)
F

Emotional Self-Regulation

Child expresses and manages their feelings and impulses.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to families about how emotions are expressed in their family, community, and culture
  • Reflect on personal beliefs regarding the acceptability and unacceptability of specific types of child behavior
  • Create a cozy area with books, pillows, soft fabrics, and a variety of objects they can pull or squeeze
  • Use self-talk to label own emotions and coping strategies (e.g.,” I am feeling frustrated, so I am taking a deep breath to calm down.”)
  • Incorporate books on feelings reflective of the language and cultural background of the children
G

Rhythms, Rules, and Routines

Child follows the rhythms, rules, and routines of the learning environment.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk with families about their beliefs regarding discipline and how they would like their child to relate to authority figures
  • Design the schedule to include a balance of large and small group activities, and active and quiet times
  • Design the schedule to minimize the number of transitions in the day and the amount of waiting during transitions; this may involve breaking up the classroom into smaller groups
  • Recognize there are individual variations in what forms of acknowledgement are interpreted as positive by children and choose the best fit for each child (e.g., verbal, physical, non-verbal, etc.)
  • Provide frequent, clear, and consistent verbal and non-verbal positive feedback
IV

Communication, Language, and Literacy

A

Speaking

Child will develop the ability to speak and/ or sign in increasingly complete, complex, precise, and varied ways.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Conduct a home language survey at the start of the year and ask families
    • What languages does the child speak and understand?
    • What languages does the child speak to their siblings?
    • In what language does the child play with peers?
    • What has the child’s exposure to English been?
  • Set up the dramatic play area to resemble home and real-life situations to guide and promote language
    • Include details such as a tablecloth and flowers on a table
    • Turn the area into a laundromat, fire station, or other community location
    • Ask families to bring in empty boxes of food to include in dramatic play
    • Include items that are specific to children’s home cultures
B

Listening and Understanding

Child will develop their ability to listen and understand complete, complex, precise, and varied language.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Bring the child to places where you can introduce new vocabulary
    • Neighborhood walk
    • Garden
    • Farm
    • Grocery store
    • Zoo
    • Museum
    • Post office
    • Laundromat
  • Give clear and simple directions with tasks that you know that the child can accomplish on their own, for example, “Please get the cup from the bottom shelf and place it onto the table.”
  • Incorporate opposites into everyday interactions; for example, point out hot and cold objects or cars stopping and going
  • Use increasingly complex words, in context, and explain their meaning when talking with child
C

Social Communication

Child uses language to relate to others according to the social expectations of their family, community, and culture.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Model polite language in social situations, such as saying “Please” and “Thank You”
  • When asking questions, pause and wait for answers; the child may need time to think about the answer
  • If child interrupts another child, say something like, “Frank was talking. Why don’t we wait and see what he has to say and then respond? I know you have something else to say but let’s let Frank continue.”
D

Engaging with Stories and Books

Child enjoys, attends to, understands, and makes meanings from spoken and written language of storytelling and books.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to families about joining the library
  • Visit the local library with children, and invite the librarian to visit your class
  • Read books one-on-one with a child; allow the child to gaze at pictures in books that have caught their interest, and talk about the pictures with them
  • Provide various texts, pictures, photographs, and books that reflect the home cultures of the children in the classroom
  • When reading a book, if the children become unengaged, gently close the book and move on to the next activity
  • When reading to the whole group, allow the children to sit in a group, not a circle, to promote optimal viewing of the text and pictures
  • Display books at the child’s level so that they are able to access them throughout the day
  • Keep favorite books available to children and rotate new books, including non-fiction books into the learning environment
E

Phonological Awareness

Child develops the ability to recognize and manipulate the different sounds in spoken language(s).

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Incorporate finger plays and interactive stories into everyday meetings (e.g., Here is the Beehive; 5 Little Ducks )
  • Make felt board characters for favorite rhymes that children can interact with outside of circle time
  • Encourage children to “fill in the blank” with rhyming words by using stories and pictures
F

Composing

Child uses materials and/ or language to make meaning for themselves and/or an audience.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Learn about, support, and show respect for children’s home languages and cultures
  • Encourage families to share photographs from home and write down children’s words about what is happening in the photo
  • Invite children to tell you about what they just wrote or drew
  • Observe children as they pretend to write. Are they moving their pencil in the same direction as the script in their home language?
  • Observe children’s composing in the dramatic play area
    • Are they planning roles?
    • Are they dramatizing characters?
    • W hat scenarios are they acting out?
G

Creating and Interpreting Multimedia Texts

Child views, creates, and makes meaning of visual communication and multimedia documentation, which includes drawings, collections, photographs, videos and displays.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Encourage families to share photos and videos documenting the child’s experience and development at home
  • Provide child with time to view image or object and reflect on related experience
  • Record children’s dictation as they look at documentation of experiences
  • Ask follow-up questions around child’s creations and utterances, focusing on having the child tell you more detail and expanding the story
V

Cognitive Development

A

Understanding Stability and Change

Child recognizes and develops the ability to explain how material objects change and how they remain stable.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Ask follow-up questions to children’s magical explanations of how things change (e.g., ”Tell me more about that.” “What makes you think that?”)
  • Encourage child to draw or paint a picture to express their thoughts or feelings about change
  • Gently clarify when children suggest that a dead person or animal will come alive again; use simple language
B

Representing

Child uses symbolic thought to represent.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Ask child what would help further their play, such as what other materials they could use to represent something
  • Read familiar stories such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff many times and encourage the child to act it out
  • Reflect with children about their dramatic play, and talk about the different roles in a family, while being mindful of different kinds of families and cultural differences; what does it mean to the child to act like a mommy, daddy, aunt, grandma, or other family member?
C

Memory and History

Child develops the ability to store, retrieve, and share information about past experiences.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite families to share photographs of the child when they were younger, or of past family events; use these photographs to have conversations with the child about their memories
  • When recounting events, use visual representation
    • Artifacts, such as a ticket
    • Art made by the child
    • Photographs related to the experience
    • Natural objects, such as shells or leaves
D

Investigating and Exploring

Child becomes a scientific thinker by manipulating objects, asking questions, making observations and predictions, and developing generalizations.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Add natural materials, such as smooth stones or pieces of wood, to different centers
  • Conduct simple baking experiments with small groups, such as making muffins or quesadillas
  • Ask prediction questions (”What will happen to the flour when the milk is poured in?”)
  • Provide access to a sand and water table on a daily basis, and encourage children to mix the substances together
  • Use eye droppers to drop different colored oil into water to see what happens
  • Acknowledge that when children are asking “why” questions they are not questioning your authority, but needing additional information and trusting you to give it
E

Understanding Cause and Effect

Child understands and explores the causes and effects of actions and events.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Encourage children to explain their thinking about magical causes without correcting them
  • Engage families in observing and recording their children’s poetic descriptions of causes
  • Offer simple experiments that develop children’s understanding of cause and effect
    • Color mixing
    • Ramp play
    • Objec ts frozen in ice
F

Engineering: Problem-solving with Materials

Child plans and uses hands, tools, and technology to solve problems with materials.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Have everyday materials accessible for building and creating
    • Pipe cleaners
    • Paper towel rolls
    • Different kinds of tape
    • Shoe boxes
    • Paper bags
    • Wheels from broken toy trucks
    • Clay
    • Recyclables
    • String
    • Glue
  • Experiment with the effect of natural forces on materials. For example, create a wind tunnel by blowing through a tube or float scarves, pompoms, and other objects through the tube
G

Math

1. Comparing and Categorizing

Child recognizes some similarities and differences between familiar and unfamiliar people, objects, or experiences.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Openly discuss differences children remark on in their community (“Yes, Mr. Brown has no legs. He uses his electric wheelchair to move around.”)
  • Extend this learning about differences (“In what other ways do people move around?”)
  • Play simple sorting games with children; for example, dress a paper doll for different kinds of weather
  • Read books, such as those by Ann Morris, that show types of shoes, hats, bread, or transportation around the world

2. Number Sense and Quantity

Child understands and explores numbers and quantity.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Use numbers and counting throughout the day, such as counting how many children are at the sand table
  • Present sets of one to four objects and ask “How many?” questions; encourage children to name the sets before counting (“How many blocks do I have? That’s right I have two blocks.”)
  • Point out quantities of items that the child possesses, such as two shoes, one hat, one jacket, or three stuffed animals; count each item out loud to correspond the number with the quantity of the items
  • Model placing the objects that the child wants to count in a line
  • Give child simple tasks that involve counting (“Give every child one cracker”)

3. Patterning

Child develops the ability to identify, describe, extend, and create patterns.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create simple patterns with music; play the drums and dance with children
  • Encourage children to point out patterns in the environment
  • Engage children in patterns of movement

4. Spatial Sense and Geometry

Child understands how objects, points, lines, and shapes fit in space.

3-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Set up simple obstacle courses with children such as hopscotch, hopping over a hoop, jumping up and down, or twirling with a ribbon, use positional words such as “over,” “under” and “through” as children move through the obstacle course
  • Tape shapes on the ground, and ask children to do movements as they go around them
  • Name and identify shapes children make while drawing and writing
  • Invite children to reach into “feely boxes” and pull out a shape that matches the one the educator is holding
  • Identify shapes and angles in everyday life, such as a circles on the tops of cup, rectangular pieces of paper, the angle made when the scissors open, or the angle at the edge of the table

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