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Early Learning Guidelines

Across all five domains

Preschool

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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Ask families what the child has expressed interest in at home
  • Make those interests present in the learning environment
  • Respect children’s efforts, and make special places to hold their collections
  • Go to the library and check out several books related to a child’s interest
  • Organize outings and field trips related to the children’s interests

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Support children’s ability to learn from one another:
    • Allow time for sharing work
    • Welcome questions and comments from other classmates about one another’s work
  • Provide resources related to children’s interests (e.g., if you hear children talking about dinosaurs, add dinosaur books, figures of dinosaurs to the learning centers)
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Discuss with families ways in which children’s initiative is a value in their family, community, and culture. Acknowledge different perspectives.
  • Recognize that a child may not demonstrate and express initiative in the same way in all settings (e.g., may take initiative with peers but not in the presence of elders)
  • Use vocabulary related to initiative:
    • “You decided to…”
    • “You made a choice…”
    • “You were planning to play…”

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Notice children’s attempts to initiate play ideas with peers, and advocate for those children whose ideas are not acknowledged
  • Use children’s suggestions to set up a helper or job chart, with children volunteering for helper roles on a weekly basis
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Offer the child genuine opportunities to care for the learning environment, indicating how important and meaningful it is to be mindful of such tasks as watering plants, putting materials away, or stacking objects
  • Notice children’s accomplishments, patience, and persistence and describe why their efforts are important
  • Provide opportunities for children to revisit experiences and materials again and again so they are able to deepen their understanding
  • Encourage the child in their work, rather than solving the problem for them. Ask:
    • “How can you figure that out?”
    • “How can you fix that?”

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Choose a book to read aloud to the class over several days; each day ask children to recall details from the previous readings and predict what will happen next
  • Offer children a variety of materials for open-ended work, encouraging them to stay with work they do not finish in one working period
  • Take time to reflect on the process together, asking:
    • “How did you do that?”
    • “Where did your idea come from?”
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Allow children to save artwork and return to it. Have a place to keep projects if the child needs to transition to another activity and wants to continue to work on the project at another time.
  • Display children’s art, at child’s level, around the room and in the hallway. Document and share the process in which the art is being created with children, through written descriptions and photographs.
  • Provide child with access to artists and artwork from own and other cultures (e.g., pictures of famous artworks, sculptures, and artifacts)
  • Include time in the day for children to experiment with musical instruments, song, and dance

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include books in the learning environment about inventive and creative characters
    • Frederick by Leo Lioni
    • Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
    • Iggy Peck Architect by Andrea Beatty
    • Rosie Revere Engineer by Andrea Beatty
    • The Dot by Peter Reynolds
    • B eautiful Oops by Barnie Saltzberg
  • Teach vocabulary related to art-making (“One color of paper could overlap, or go on top of another color, in your collage”)
  • Provide opportunities for learning in which there is no right or wrong way to accomplish the goal, and encourage children to try different strategies or solutions
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Play games with children that facilitate the development of gross motor skills, such as
    • Simon Says
    • Freeze tag
    • Hokey Pokey
    • Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
    • Red Light, Green Light
    • Songs with dance steps that include galloping, skipping, and walking in rhythm
  • Provide times in the daily schedule for both structured and unstructured gross motor activity

5-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
    • Hula Hoops
    • Basketballs
    • Soccer balls
    • Large wooden blocks
    • Jump ropes
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include materials in the learning environment that provide a variety of opportunities for practicing writing and drawing
    • Markers
    • Colored pencils
    • Dry erase boards
    • Slates with chalk
    • Bingo markers
    • Oil pastels
    • Magnetic writing boards
    • Playground chalk
    • Watercolor painting supplies
  • Practice writing letters in materials that provide sensory input, such as trays of shaving cream or sand

5-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
    • Geoboards
    • Legos
    • Bottles of glue
    • Tape
    • Wire
    • Plasticine
    • Small beads for stringing
    • T ops
  • Show sensitivity to children’s flexible directionality, and demonstrate left to right directionality with writing and counting, as on a number line
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage families in conversation about their values around rough-and-tumble play
  • Identify and evaluate which local playgrounds have equipment for climbing, swinging, and balancing that meets safety guidelines
  • Provide access to experiences that develop the child’s sense of balance
    • Balance boards
    • Low balance beams
    • Tire swings
    • Bucket swings
    • Slides
    • Climbers
  • Take the children on listening walks and then talk about what you heard

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Have meetings before rough-and-tumble play to establish safe limits
  • Provide activities that engage children’s senses
    • Rolling down a hill
    • Wheelbarrow walks
    • Monkey bars
    • Rolling and carrying gallon jugs full of water
    • Cartwheels
    • Jumping jacks
  • Include soft and cozy elements in the learning environment
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

4-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 the development of self-help skills
    • Accessible sinks
    • Child-size toilets
    • Sponges, washcloths, and napkins at a low level
    • Snack table where they can independently serve themselves food
    • Pitcher and cups for pouring their own milk or water
    • Quiet cozy area where they can go when tired
    • Individual cubbies for personal items
    • Items in the dramatic play area that allow children to practice self-help skills such as clothes with buttons, snaps and zippers
  • Provide opportunities for children to learn about pedestrian, bicycle, and water safety

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Gently introduce the routines of the learning environment, taking special time with children who did not go to preschool
  • For children who eat in school cafeterias, arrange lunch procedures that allow time, space, and appropriate noise levels for children to eat and enjoy their food
  • Review rules and protocols for safety procedures such as evacuation drills, crossing streets, and lock down drills before they occur; reflect on children’s practice together afterwards
  • Observe children closely as they take calculated risks in active play
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide straightforward, honest answers to children’s questions, and be mindful to provide answers in ways that are inclusive of all genders, all bodies, and all of the different ways that people make families (For example, instead of saying, “Girls have vaginas and boys have penises,” you could say, “Many or most girls have vaginas, and many or most boys have penises.”)
  • Communicate with families early and often about your policies and practices regarding gender and sexuality
  • Avoid overreacting to common (or typical) child sexual behavior like masturbation; set limits without shaming children
  • Teach children to ask permission before touching or embracing a playmate, using language such as, “Jasmine, let’s ask Joe if he would like to hug bye-bye.” If Joe says “no” to this request, cheerfully tell the child, “That’s okay, Jasmine! Let’s wave bye-bye to Joe and blow him a kiss instead.”

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Allow children to explore the idea of partnerships with each other, regardless of their gender identity
  • Reflect on your own biases and examine your habits, curriculum, and classroom environment for subtle or overt messages children may be receiving about gender, bodies, and relationships
  • Actively learn about the families of the children you serve and ensure that your curriculum reflects and honors their diversity and their strengths
  • Include books in the learning environment that celebrate all kinds of families
    • Dear Child , by John Farrell
    • The Different Dragon , by Jennifer Bryan
    • The Family Book , by Todd Parr
    • Stella Brings the Family, by Miriam B. Schiffer
    • A Family is a Family is a Family , by Sara O’Leary
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to the family about their hopes and dreams for the child, and hold that image in your mind
  • Notice when the child may need comfort and reassurance and provide support, even when they do not ask for it
  • Promote the idea that everyone shares the responsibility for the well-being of children
  • Use observation, recording, and reflection to notice the areas in which children are struggling and plan to offer them extra support in those areas
  • Ask open-ended questions to sustain conversations with children

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Assist children in sustaining interactions in play by modeling, cooperating, helping, and suggesting new ideas for play
  • Help the child identify community members they can trust and ask for assistance (e.g., home visitors, mentors, older extended family members, or caring individuals within the community at large)
  • Show interest in the child’s other interpersonal relationships (e.g., “What do you and Gus the bus driver talk about when he takes you home?”)
  • Take time to do something that you know is special for the child (e.g., ask them to teach you some words in their home language)
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Welcome children’s questions about difference (“You are noticing your skin color is different than mine. What words would you use to say what color my skin is?”)
  • Include books and materials within the learning environment that respect and honor differences and those by authors of different backgrounds (e.g., culture, gender, ethnicity, language, and abilities)
  • Ask families to send in photos of things that are meaningful to each child, such as foods, celebrations, and family activities; use pictures to make personalized posters, displays, and class books
  • Ask families to bring familiar objects from their home, such as music, instruments, household items, clothing, and toys, and encourage children to talk about and use them in the classroom
  • In non-parochial schools, refrain from celebrating religious holidays, such as Christmas; instead invite families to visit the class and share their cultural traditions

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite family members into the classroom and talk to them as part of a study of families, careers, or interests
  • Engage families in conversations about their national and family origins to affirm positive social identities
  • Record families telling stories in their home language and include them as part of your listening center/library
  • Intentionally plan activities to counter potential overgeneralizations or existing stereotypes
  • Engage children in conversation about unfair social differences, including wealth and power
  • Model and explain accurate and appropriate vocabulary for different social groups. For example, name your own racial identity.
  • Teach children about what causes differences in skin color using books like All the Colors We Are: The Story of how We Get Our Skin Color , by Katie Kissinger
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to the child’s family to learn about their strengths, knowledge, and experiences
    • Home languages
    • Traditions
    • Friends and family members
    • Caregivers and caregiving practices
    • Educational activities
    • Chores
    • Family outings and trips
    • Occupations
    • Scientific knowledge
  • Make the families’ strengths, knowledge, and experiences present in the classroom through materials, curriculum, field trips, and conversation
  • Provide paint, markers, crayons, construction paper, and other materials in a range of skin tones that children can utilize in their artwork
  • Teach children about some of the different words people use to describe their identities
  • Gently intervene when you notice children enforcing rigid gender roles. For example, if you overhear a child saying, “You can’t play with us! Only boys can be firefighters,” you can ask, “Is that true? I don’t think it’s accurate to say that only boys can be firefighters. There are many women firefighters.”

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Allow children to hold responsibilities within the classroom
  • Provide opportunities for child to attempt new tasks without prompting or reinforcement
  • Showcase children’s cultures, interests, and capabilities
    • Create an art gallery of children’s work
    • Use study examples and displays created by children
    • Verbally reinforce children’s thinking process, capabilities, and accomplishments
    • Enc ourage children to demonstrate and share their own uniqueness
  • When doing introductions, invite all members of the community to share their gender pronouns along with their names “What words would you like us to use when we talk about you? When people talk about me, I like them to say ‘she/her.’
  • Actively celebrate children’s marginalized social identities and validate their observations of injustice; acknowledge and talk about their healthy feelings of confusion, sadness, fear, and anger in individual, small group, and whole group conversation
  • Explore feelings, confidence in one’s abilities, and identity using books like
    • Katy and the Big Snow , by Virginia Lee Burton
    • Be Boy Buzz , by bell hooks
    • I Love My Hair! by Natasha Ana Tarpley
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Assist children in acknowledging and understanding how a peer is feeling by pointing out facial expressions, voice, tone, body language, or words the child is using
  • Use “I” statements to teach children self-awareness (“I don’t like it when you ignore me. It makes me feel sad.”)
  • Using an anti-bias approach, introduce critical thinking (true/not true, fair/not fair) about pervasive stereotypes
  • Put a seed in a jar every time a child practices an act of kindness and plant a kindness garden when the jar is full

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Acknowledge children’s ability to practice empathy (“I saw how you let Diego have the markers when he was upset. I bet you wanted the markers too, but you chose to help a friend.”)
  • Throughout the year, talk to children about past and present injustices and social justice movements
  • When children notice injustice in their classroom or community, engage them in group action to try to make things fairer
  • Read books about kindness
    • The Last Stop on Market Street , by Matt de la Peña,
    • The Lion and the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney
    • The Big Umbrella , by Amy June Bates
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)

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include books about friendship in the learning environment, such as
    • Making Friends , by Fred Rogers
    • Amos and Boris , by William Steig
    • Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse , by Leo Lionni
  • If possible, create opportunities for emergent multilingual children who share the same home language to sit and play together
  • Use conflict-resolution strategies such as a problem-solving script 1. “I don’t like it when…” 2. “What can I do to make you feel better?” 3. “ You can …”
  • Use visual aids to illustrate strategies for problem-solving; for example, allow children to select a picture that depicts how they feel and what will make them feel better
  • Provide opportunities for the child to experience the reactions of their peers by not rushing in too quickly to resolve conflicts

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Reflect with families about how they feel children should act toward their friends and siblings
  • Consider peer placement during classroom activities; notice children who have been connecting with one another and place them together
  • Read books about cooperation and negotiation
    • Swimmy , by Leo Lionni
    • Seven Blind Mice , by Ed Young
    • Anansi the Spider , by Gerald McDermott
  • Encourage peer partnerships, such as play partners or clean-up buddies
  • Tell the folk story of stone soup and make stone soup together as a class; discuss the value of working together
  • Include child-directed activities in the daily schedule in order to give children the opportunity to learn to cooperate and negotiate
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Reflect with colleagues to determine what message children’s feelings, behaviors, and impulses are conveying
  • Wait until you are calm before talking to a child about a moment in which they had strong feelings
  • When you and the child are both calm, talk to the child about what happened (e.g., “Earlier you cried when Ellen took the toy from you. How do you think you were feeling? What could you have said to tell Ellen how you felt?”)
  • Teach children coping strategies for self-regulating/or self-monitoring behaviors
  • Avoid stereotyping children’s expression of emotion (e.g., validate boys when they cry, and girls when they get angry)

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to families and colleagues about their expectations for children’s behavior; acknowledge contrasting or conflicting beliefs
  • Try multiple strategies consistently to prevent child(ren)’s adverse feelings and impulses
  • Verbally reinforce children’s attempts at self-control (e.g., “I see that you are mad. I am happy to see you take some deep breaths.”)
  • Avoid removing the child from an activity or from the classroom as a consequence
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Implement the schedule consistently
  • Teach children about the schedule and encourage them to verbally express what comes next
  • Teach children the expectations for transition times
  • Provide clear verbal and visual warnings prior to transitions
  • Follow through with positive acknowledgement of children’s behavior and following of rules
  • Provide gentle reminders about rules of different areas, such as the playground and the classroom
  • Establish, e xplain, and model simple rules in ways children can understand (e.g., nap time might involve going to the bathroom, seeing the lights go off, getting into bed, and hearing calming music)

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create rules that are manageable (3–5 classroom rules around safety, for example), ask for children’s input about the rules, and discuss what makes a strong rule
  • Review the rules and classroom expectations regularly, at a time when things are calm
  • Post rules in words and pictures
  • Enforce rules and consequences consistently and fairly for all children
  • Reflect about which children are most commonly disciplined in the learning environment; do these children belong to marginalized groups?
  • Reflect with families and colleagues about how children may perceive the educator’s attempts to provide direction (e.g., Educator says, “Would you return to your seat?” and child perceives it as a question rather than a request)
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Learn and use key phrases in the home language of the children
  • Sing songs, chants, rhymes, and finger plays in English and the home language to help children learn common phrases and words through music
  • Repeat new and interesting vocabulary in different settings and times throughout the day
  • Allow children to use translanguaging, which involves using their home language and English interchangeably; children should be encouraged to access all languages available to them
  • Sit with children during snack and lunch time to model language and encourage conversation

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Set up your library with books in multiple languages
  • Value and make time for extended conversations, and engage in one-to-one exchanges around children’s interests and questions
  • Ask open ended questions:
    • Why do you think…?
    • What happened when…?
    • What would happen if…?
    • What is the story in this picture?
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage in back-and-forth informal conversations about topics that are relevant and important to children’s own lives
  • Encourage children to engage in dramatic play in their home language
  • Create opportunities for informal extended exchanges between peers throughout the day
  • Use wait-time; after asking children a question, pause for at least 3 extra seconds to allow children time to think and respond

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Take dictation of a story, and then have children act the story out as the educator reads it, turning text into action
  • Invite children to discuss a topic of study in whole group, small groups and pairs
  • Offer children instructions with sequential words (“First do this and then this.”); observe how they follow through
  • Encourage emergent multilingual learners to translate vocabulary into their home language and to make connections between topics of study and their own lives
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.”

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Encourage children to speak to classmates who share their home language
  • Provide visual supports for turn-taking during group conversations
    • Write a list of who will be speaking next, and check it off
    • Use a “talking-stick” that the speaker holds and passes when they are done talking
  • Provide scripts for children to initiate social interactions (“I see you watching your classmate play in the sandbox. if you want to play with them, let’s think about what you could say.”)

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Establish norms for structured group conversations, ensuring that all children have the opportunity to be heard (e.g., an expectation that there will be only one voice at a time)
  • Provide children with time to interact socially throughout the day
  • Discuss social dynamics with children (“Some kids have been asking to sit together at lunch every day. How does it seem if they sit together every day?”)
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Before reading a book, look at the cover with the children; ask, “What do you think will happen in this story?”
  • Use self-talk to describe comprehension strategies (e.g., “I see that the illustrator used bright yellow, orange, and red, and those colors make me feel happy.”)
  • Read some story books from start to finish so that children may enjoy the plot
  • When reading non-fiction books, pause on a page to ask and answer questions about the pictures
  • Select and create texts related to children’s interests and unit of study to reread multiple times; create connections from these texts to learning centers
  • Include books in all areas of the learning environment

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Read a variety of books aloud daily
    • Picture books with shorter and longer text
    • Chapter books
    • Non-fiction texts
    • Poetry
  • When reading, pause to define new, unfamiliar, and interesting words, and invite students to use them
  • Summarize and retell stories
  • Give children the opportunity to return to familiar books and stories, in order to play with storylines and characters (e.g., after reading several versions of Stone Soup , child writes “Stone Soup Recipes”)
  • Activate children’s background knowledge and encourage them to connect texts to their own lives
  • Build children’s background knowledge by helping them understand texts through field trips and experiential learning
  • Create book time for children to look at and “read” self-selected books on their own and with friends
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include rhyming books and songs in the environment to encourage phonological awareness
    • The Very Hungry Caterpillar , by Eric Carle
    • Chicka Chicka Boom Boom , by Bill Martin Jr
    • I Ain’t Gonna Paint No Mor e, by Karen Beaumont
    • Mama Llama Red P ajama , by Anna Dewdney
    • There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly , by Pam Adams
    • “Juanito Cuando Baila”
  • Include alphabet books in the learning environment
    • Alphabet City , by Stephen T Johnson
    • Chicka Chicka Boom Boom , by Bill Martin Jr
    • I Spy An Alphabet in Art , by Lucy Micklethwait
    • Eating the Alphabet , by Lois Ehlert
    • Alligators All Around , by Maurice Sendak
    • On Market Street , by Arnold Lobel

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Sing songs and recite poems and rhymes, such as “BINGO,” and “I Like to Eat Apples and Bananas”
  • During read-aloud and other small and large group discussions examine words for sounds and letters that represent them; do this for words that are meaningful to children, such as letters/sounds of their names
  • Introduce longer songs that rhyme, which allow children to make up their own rhymes (e.g., sing “Down By The Bay” and incorporate lines like: “ Have you ever seen a fish making a wish? ”)
  • Point out sound-letter correspondences, especially in high-interest words and/or children’s names
  • Encourage children to label objects in their drawings with initial letters
  • T each word-learning strategies such as making connections to home languages
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?

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include text in the children’s home languages in the learning environment
    • Welcome sign on door
    • Labels for where learning materials go
    • Hand-washing directions
  • Take dictation of children’s narration of their drawing, showing the children that the words they say become text with writing; reread their words with them
  • Notice and acknowledge children’s various composing processes
  • Set up a letter-writing station for writing to their peers, parents, siblings, and other family members; have envelopes, pieces of paper that children can make into stamps, and other letter-making materials

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create shared texts for the class by writing familiar songs, rhymes, and poems on posters
  • Provide writing paper with space for drawing and some lines for writing
  • Allow children to collaborate in groups with peers who share their home language
  • Assume that children are making sense with their early writing; when a child writes on their own a string of letters that do not make sense to the educator, the educator asks, “What story did you write?” or “What story do your words tell?”
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include children in documenting learning; provide them with paper, pencils, journals, and cameras
  • Provide opportunities for children to reflect on the documentation of their learning individually and in small and large groups
  • Use documentation as the basis for storytelling and curriculum planning

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage children in planning how to record experiences that are meaningful to them
  • Support children in creating displays to share their learning with educators, families and peers
  • Engage children in conversation about the accuracy of visual documentation
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide concrete examples of changes that occur
    • Document the growth of a caterpillar into a butterfly
    • Collect different colored leaves (green, red, and brown)
    • Watch a pumpkin decompose
    • Trace their shadows at different times of the day
    • Observe patterns of change in weather conditions, daily and seasonally
  • Allow the children to have a ceremony when a classroom pet has died; answer their questions about death factually

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include non-fiction books about life cycles in the learning environment
  • Include simple biological information in discussion of death (“Their heart has stopped beating. They are not coming back.”)
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?

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite families to visit the class to share a folktale or family story
  • Encourage the child to add details; for example, build a fort to represent an animal’s home, and then discuss what would be needed in the fort to make it more cozy
  • Support the development of children’s understanding of gender roles in representation (“What does it mean to look like a girl? Does a girl have to look like that?”)

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Observe and reflect on children’s dramatic play; consider what background knowledge they are drawing on
  • Offer large pieces of materials to be used in different ways, as well as costumes that suggest a role: worker’s hats (hard hat, bus drivers’ hat), vest and suit jackets, dresses, a doctor’s kit
  • Ask the child, “What story are you telling?” in their drawing or construction
  • Write or help children write a story based on what they drew, acted out, or built
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Observe and reflect on children’s dramatic play; what personal histories are they are re-enacting?
  • Invite children to use drawing and dictation to tell about recent experiences
  • Create a schedule of the day and support discussion about what comes first and what comes next during the day, as well as what usually happens on what days of the week

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Support the child in making a timeline of their life
  • Write a book, About my Life , with pages of stories about what happened when they were a baby, a toddler, and more recently
  • Draw a picture of what life was like at a different time, such as before a sibling was born or before they moved
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • When a child asks a question, encourage the group to hypothesize what the answer may be; chart their responses and invite them to explain their thinking
  • Show children how to look for the answer to a question in a book or online
  • Provide opportunities for children to use polls (“Do you think it will rain today?’ “Which item will weigh more-a book, a leaf or a pencil?”)
  • Make big graphs to capture this “data” so that children can see and interpret it
  • Provide tools to explore the environment (magnets, magnifying glasses, light table)

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Model the use of scientific vocabulary
  • Ask children to record observations of particular objects and outside scenes such as a cityscape, a tree, a garden
  • View wrong answers or explanations as theories in development
  • Ask for predictions about observable phenomena (“How do the apples get soft when we make apple sauce?”)
  • Provide unique pictures, such as X-rays or close ups of butterfly wings and snowflakes
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage children in extended back-andforth conversations about the reasons for things
  • Use phrases such as
    • What do you think will happen when…?
    • What happened last time?
    • What made that happen?
    • Why do you think that?
  • Observe and record children’s hypotheses about causes, and revisit predictions with children to reflect on how their thinking has changed over time

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide materials and opportunities to observe cause and effect
    • Blocks
    • Marble runs
    • Gears
    • Paints
    • Planting
    • Powders for mixing
  • Ask children “what if” questions
    • What if we took the bottom block out first?
    • What if we add more water to the corn starch mixture?
    • What if we add more red to the purple color paint you mixed?
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

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Support children in thinking of themselves as engineers by asking questions such as
    • “How can you use these materials to make..?”
    • “What do you think would happen if…?”
    • “Why do you think that happened?”
  • Help children see that mistakes teach us important things

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

Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Use fairytales to encourage building; for instance, read The Three Little Pigs , and ask groups of children to create houses that would withstand a wolf’s huffing and puffing
  • Challenge children with prompts such as
    • Make something with a window in it
    • Make something that floats
  • Ask the child about work they have done
    • “Tell me about your construction.”
    • “How do these parts work?”
    • “What is their function?”
    • “What’s another strategy that you could use?”
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
4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Make a simple Bingo game with 9 squares of colors, shapes, or animals; the cards from this game can also be used for a simple matching game
  • If children are comparing objects, offer them a standard or non-standard tool for measurement
  • Play “duck, duck, goose” using different categories, such as “train, train, car”
5-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Compare characters in a story or subjects in a non-fiction text
  • Create class charts and surveys with student information such as siblings, caretakers, or ways of getting to school; use these to compare aspects of the class
  • Compare classroom materials, sorting different sizes or shapes of blocks, for example, and discussing how to use them

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”)
4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Observe children’s use of counting, oneto-one correspondence, estimating, and simple arithmetic in their play; connect to and extend this learning
  • Offer games that ask children to match a numeral to a number of things
    • String six beads on a pipe cleaner
    • P ick a card and fill the basket with that number of objects
    • Roll a dice and do a movement that many times
    • Jump, clap, or stomp one to five times and ask the children to hold up the number of fingers that matches the number of movements
  • Include books related to number and quantity in the learning environment
    • The Doorbell Rang , by Pat Hutchins
    • Anno’s Counting Book , by Mitsumasa Ann
    • Ten Black Dots , by Donald Crews
    • City by Numbers , by Stephen Johnson
    • Fish Eyes , by Lois Ehlert
5-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide bags of objects to count (10 acorns, 14 keys, 19 cubes) and ask children to count and draw the objects in them
  • Allow children to freely play with math manipulatives before using them to solve problems
  • S et up the dramatic play area as a store, and invite children to use number cards to “purchase” objects
  • Analyze the mathematical thinking in children’s errors
  • Provide games with dice and dominoes so that children can practice recognizing the number of items in a small set without counting
  • Find math in the body, and play finger math; for example, hold up three fingers on one hand and ask children how many fingers are folded down

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-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite children to join you in creating a pattern of music using simple instruments such as a tambourine and a triangle
  • Ask children to notice patterns in the world, such as in seasons or daily schedules
  • Provide materials such as pattern blocks and color tiles that suggest creating AB patterns
  • Use songs and games to teach patterns:
    • Red Light, Green Light
    • Duck, Duck, Goose
    • Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
5-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide materials such as wooden cubes to build a staircase to model a “plus one” pattern
  • Create ABC patterns together using clapping, tapping, and patting on the body; ask children to follow your pattern and then allow them to lead, with you following their pattern
  • Sing songs with patterns, such as “Everyone Comes from a Different Place”

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
4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include materials in the classroom environment that develop geometric concepts
    • Blocks
    • Jigsaw puzzles
    • Magnetic shapes
    • Shape puzzles
    • Pattern blocks
    • Unit blocks
    • Legos
  • Go on community walks along different routes and discuss which route was longer or shorter and why
  • Describe the location of objects the child is trying to find, rather than pointing to them (e.g., “The tape is beside the construction paper.”)
  • Present many examples of squares and rectangles, varying orientation and size; include squares as examples of rectangles (If children say, “That’s a square,” reply, “It is a square, which is a special type of rectangle.”
5-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite children to draw maps of routes, illustrating what landmarks will be passed or seen on different routes
  • Draw maps of the playground and use them to go on a scavenger hunt
  • Challenge the child to cover hexagon pattern blocks with other pattern blocks and see what works
  • Introduce vocabulary such as “sides,” “angles,” and “parallel lines”
  • Identify and describe the symmetry children spontaneously create in their art work
  • Hunt for shapes outside and around the school; take photographs of them and print them out as shape books for the classroom

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