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Early Learning Guidelines

Across all five domains

Early elementary

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.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Locates an informational text in the classroom to find out about topics they are interested in
  • Asks questions of experts (e.g., during a field trip to the waste treatment plant, child asks questions about how the pipes are connected)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include time in the daily schedule during which children may follow their own ideas to make, build, and compose their own works
  • Allow students access to a variety of materials to pursue their interests:
    • Blocks and ramps
    • Writing and drawing materials
    • Books
    • Legos
    • Clay
    • Math manipulatives
  • Visit the library with children and show them how to look for books related to their topics of interest

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Recognizes that reality is not directly knowable and that people may have different interpretations of the same event
  • Pursues a particular interest by reading multiple books about the topic and writing and drawing about it
  • Observes and records information over time (e.g., observes and records notes about the guinea pig in its cage each day)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create lists of children’s interests as part of learning about one another
  • Encourage children to ask their own questions about books (e.g., “Do you have any questions about the character?”)
  • As the class begins a study, the educator gathers questions from the children, asking them:
    • “What do you want to find out about this?” and recording their ideas
  • Invite children to create a presentation for the class on a topic or experience they know a lot about

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Conducts research based on a topic of interest
  • Uses prior knowledge to develop research questions (e.g., learns about how fish spawn eggs and then decides to find out about the reproductive cycle of amphibians)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk with families and children about the interests they are pursuing at home
  • Provide access to books and computer resources for children to use in researching their own interests and questions
  • Provide graphic organizers to support children in researching their own questions and curiosities and in using information to create their own works
B

Initiative

Child pursues their own goals.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Thinks of ideas for stories they want to write about
  • Volunteers to help with classroom chores
  • Talks to an educator about how to solve a social problem (e.g., talks about homeless people they see on the way to school and asks how we might offer shelter to them)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include a writing area in the learning environment that has multiple and varied tools, materials, and resources (e.g., different types of paper and blank books with a few lines on each page for children to draw and write their own stories)
  • Engage children in conversation about their own goals
  • Discuss problems and plan solutions; ask for the child(ren)’s ideas for plans of action and document these in writing or drawing

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Applies learning in new contexts (e.g., learns about gardening in school and then brings seeds home and plants them in back yard)
  • Attempts to master styles of drawing and creating (e.g., sees manga in a graphic novel and tries drawing in that style)
  • Selects materials to create engineering solutions (e.g., uses wire, tape, and pieces of wood to create a drawbridge)
  • Uses writing to meet their goals (e.g., writes a card to a friend when they are out sick)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage children in conversation about their unique strengths and approaches to learning
  • Allow children to bring functional materials from one area of work to another, for example tape and paper to the block area to hang signs
  • Observe children’s work with them, reflect on what they have done or created and their ideas, and plan next steps together

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Recognizes that trying something new may be difficult at first
  • Independently determines direction for their future learning (e.g., decides that they would like to learn to play the guitar)
  • Considers alternatives before beginning a project
  • Knows what their own talents are and offers to use them to help others
  • Evaluates their progress on their goals
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk with families and children about skills the child is developing outside of school, such as the ability to play soccer
  • Notice when children are taking initiative, and invest time and resources in helping them to achieve ambitious goals
  • Provide models of individuals who noticed a problem and decided to act
  • Engage children in service learning projects
C

Persistence and Attentiveness

Child focuses on tasks and perseveres in accomplishing them.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Sustains interest in a chapter book the educator is reading the class over the course of several weeks
  • Reflects on their work and makes changes based on feedback from peers or educators
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide large, uninterrupted time blocks for work on projects
  • Ask children to share work in progress, reflect on their process, and plan aloud their next steps; other children can offer suggestions for next steps
  • Create areas in the classroom for “works in progress”

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Is able to concentrate for extended periods of time (30 minutes or more), even on non-preferred tasks
  • Makes several attempts to solve a problem, but doesn’t give up until they find a solution
  • Tries multiple strategies for solving a problem
  • Remembers essential facts over a period of days
  • Is conscious of the presentation of their work and makes revisions to improve their work
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Encourage children to choose and read books that they need several days to finish; when you check in with them ask them to summarize and predict
  • Support children in planning and carrying out projects over time; offer structures for them to keep track of steps in their work (i.e., check lists, story maps, and planning pages)
  • Create formats for reflective talking and writing about the child’s work processes, including such prompts as
    • “What was hard in making your project?”
    • “Where did you get stuck?”
    • “How were you able to figure out the problem?”

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Screens out distractions and concentrates on relevant information as they work
  • Makes a decision about how to work so they will be able to focus
  • Decides to step away from a challenge when frustrated and then returns to it
  • Organizes long-term projects (e.g., begins a project by gathering supporting texts)
  • Revises their writing, checking for meaning, spelling, and punctuation
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Notice and provide encouragement when children feel frustrated or impatient (e.g., “I see that this is taking longer than you expected, and sometimes when we have to take many steps to solve a problem, we get tired!”)
  • Acknowledge persistence (e.g., “Wow, you are wrestling with that long text! I bet you are learning so much. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts about it.”)
  • View mistakes as learning opportunities (e.g., “I love seeing your work on this problem; every time I see you find a mistake and use a new strategy, I know your brain is growing!”)
  • Reach out to families to help with establishing a routine for homework time and modeling positive support
D

Creativity and Inventiveness

Child uses their imagination to create and invent.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Uses their knowledge of science or social studies in creating (e.g., finds a beetle and makes a home for it with leaves and sticks)
  • Collaborates with peers to create a project over time (e.g., works together in a small group to paint the backdrop for a play)
  • Uses a familiar story as the basis to tell a new version (e.g., learns several Anansi stories and then makes up their own story about a tricky spider)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include “choice time” in the daily schedule during which the child has access to a variety of materials and may follow their own idea for a project
  • Provide familiar tools such as scissors, rulers, tape, and glue for work
  • Document and facilitate children in recording their work with photographs, drawings, and writing; reflect on the process of creating
  • Introduce the formal vocabularies of music, dance, and visual arts

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Uses standardized tools to assist them in their projects (e.g., uses a yardstick to measure the amount of string they need to hang up a curtain)
  • Thinks flexibly about how to create a project
  • Creates variation of existing games with peers
  • Adds functional details to a project (e.g., sews on a button and makes a rough buttonhole to hold on a cape)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide specific challenges to see how children encounter them, (e.g., ask chi ldren if they can figure out how to use a piece of paper to support a book)
  • Ask the child(ren) to use drawing and writing to plan a longterm project, alone and in groups, and include a materials list and book/computer resource list for project
  • Support child(ren) in collecting materials to create their project (e.g., collect bottle caps for children to use for wheels when building vehicles)

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Presents an idea for a creative project to the group and then waits for the group’s feedback and incorporates their ideas
  • Considers how objects appear from points of view not their own (e.g., tries drawing a picture from a bird’s-eye perspective)
  • Incorporates ideas from cultures they have learned about into their creations
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create opportunities for children to work collaboratively on creative projects over the course of several weeks
  • Facilitate group reflection on projects, exploring what children noticed, what observations they made, and what they learned about working together
  • Provide more specialized tools and materials for use in making projects
    • Scales to compare weights
    • Graphite pencils
    • Chalk pastels
    • Editing software
  • Visit museums and libraries to learn about varieties of art -making and engineering
II

Physical Well-Being, Health and Motor Development

A

Large Motor Skills

Child uses and coordinates their large muscle groups.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Kicks a ball at a target
  • Pumps legs to swing
  • Rides a bicycle without training wheels
  • Jumps rope
  • Dribbles basketball a few times
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Sing songs or chants with some dance steps to practice galloping, skipping, side stepping, walking in rhythm, such as
    • “Skip to My Lou”
    • “Going to Boston”
    • “El Juego Chirimbolo”
    • “Sasha 1-2-3”
    • “Little Johnnie Brown”
    • “Funga Alaffia”
  • Provide structured gross motor breaks throughout the day
  • Provide unstructured, outdoor recess time each day

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Runs up and down stairs with alternating feet
  • Runs to catch moving ball
  • Turns cartwheels
  • Swims
  • Learns a series of dance steps
  • Swings bat and hits ball
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • View recess as a right, not a privilege
  • Teach playground ball games such as kickball, foursquare, and tetherball
  • Create opportunities for children to choreograph sequences of movements
  • Organize competitive games with children and model sportsmanship

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Shows good form in basic movement even when participating in fast-moving games
  • Dribbles ball forward
  • Runs forward while tossing a ball back and forth with a peer
  • Mirrors partner’s movements in a dance
  • Tosses a ball to themselves and hits it with a bat
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to families about the importance of gross motor play during out-of-school time
  • Connect families to local opportunities to participate in sports (e.g., soccer leagues, local playgrounds, public swimming pools)
  • Create opportunities for children to learn and practice dances from their families’ communities and cultures
B

Small Motor Skills

Child controls the small muscles in their hands and wrists.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Cuts out a shape, such as a house, with scissors
  • Uses a pencil to write letters
  • Makes braided chains of yarn or finger-knits
  • Uses a large needle and thread to sew a pouch or a pattern
  • Weaves yarn or strips of paper together
  • Grips and squeezes a paper punch or pliers
  • Ties shoelaces in bow
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include materials in the learning environment that foster fine motor skills
    • Legos
    • Geoboards
    • Clay
    • Yarn
    • Sewing materials
    • Hand looms
    • Scissors
    • Hole punches
    • Hammer and nails
    • Drill
    • Pliers

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Uses saws and hammers to build a construction
  • Peels carrots and potatoes efficiently with a peeler
  • Writes using letters that are the same size; stays on line when writing
  • Knits a scarf
  • Uses appropriate pressure when writing
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide opportunities for children to use their fine motor skills for meaningful work such as
    • Using a knife to spread cream cheese or nut butter on crackers or celery
    • Cutting and coring apples with an apple corer
    • Peeling carrots and potatoes for soup
    • Tying shoelaces
    • Using a screwdriver to fix a desk
    • Knitting a scarf
    • Making their own books and comics

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Folds paper into simple origami shapes
  • Cuts out complex shapes
  • Print has a consistent shape and size
  • Learns cursive
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite a calligrapher to visit the class to demonstrate the beauty of writing
  • Encourage children to pay attention to handwriting in the final revision of their writing projects
  • Continue to provide time for activities designed to strengthen the muscles in children’s hands
  • Provide keyboards for children whose fine motor skills interfere with their ability to express themselves in writing
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.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Eye muscles are adequately developed to allow them to move their eyes efficiently across a series of letters
  • Identifies and describes sensations they find soothing or disagreeable
  • Propels self on swing by pushing off tree or other surface with their feet, and begins to pump their legs
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Support children in developing self-awareness about their sensory preferences
  • Honor children’s requests for quieter environments, movement breaks, or alternative seating
  • Reflect with colleagues on options available to children during recess, and add elements to the outdoor environment as necessary

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Children’s senses are well-integrated
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide activities that challenge children
    • Bike riding
    • Cooking
    • Obstacle courses
    • Hiking

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

The guidelines don’t define behaviours for this area at this age.

D

Self-Care

Child cares for their physical well-being.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Describes the purpose of events at the doctor’s office (e.g., says that a vaccine will keep them from getting sick in the future)
  • Discusses consent with educators and peers; for example, says, “I would prefer to shake your hand, not give you a kiss.”
  • Knows to call 911 in an emergency
  • Knows what bullying is and how to report bullying to a trusted adult
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Offer healthy snacks and ask children to try unfamiliar or non-preferred foods
  • Provide independent access to Band- Aids
  • Provide sufficient time for children to independently put on their own coat, hat, and gloves
  • Make plans about what a child should do if separated from the group during outings
  • When practicing fire, lockdown, and other drills with children
    • Invite children to express their fears and provide reassurance and emotional support
    • Inform families that there was a drill
    • Provide families with information about how to address children’s fears about safety at school

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Differentiates between conflict and bullying
  • In play with peers, establishes and follows own safety rules (e.g., says, “Let’s play tag, but no pushing hard, just tagging.”)
  • Checks in with educator before assuming new levels of risk, for example, says, ‘We are going to go down to play by the woods, ok?
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Visit a farmer’s market or grocery store and notice the things you see at different times of the year
  • Talk about safe and unsafe levels of risk-taking
  • Talk about consent with children. Invite them to role play scenarios in which they can practice saying, “This does not feel good to me” and “I don’t like that.”
  • Engage in group conversations about conflict and bullying
  • Invite police officer or fire fighter to visit the class and speak to the children

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Asks questions about laws and regulations that make the community safe
  • Intervenes when they see a child breaking a safety rule (e.g., attempts to stop a child who is about to ride a bicycle without a helmet)
  • Is aware that different educators and families have different rules, and they should follow the rules of the adults who they are with
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk with families about chores that children are expected to do in their family and community
  • Invite children to help plan a snack menu and to prepare the snacks
  • Invite children to talk about dangers they have on the news or through social media
  • Engage children in thinking about the ways laws keep us safe and how laws could be changed to keep us more safe (e.g., gun control legislation)
  • Begin a conversation about helping one another stay safe
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.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Less interested in exploring sexuality than they were earlier
  • May continue to masturbate and understand that it is a healthy activity that has a specific time and place
  • Begins to understand concepts of the body changing as it grows older
  • Knows that they have agency over and are the experts on their own bodies and gender identity (i.e. they get to decide if they are a boy, girl, both, or something else)
  • Understands that there are lots of different kinds of loving relationships (e.g. parent, sibling, friend, etc.)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Check in with families about children’s curiosity regarding partnerships and sexuality
  • Explore the changing and growing body by comparing photos of when children were younger with what they look like now
  • Be sensitive to the variety of family configurations in the classroom in your words and actions (e.g., avoid saying, “Go home and tell your moms and dads.”)
  • Nurture children’s positive self-image; draw self portraits and talk about what they love and appreciate about their bodies

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Looks to peers, media, and other sources for information about sex and sexuality; knows that not everything they hear from peers or see on T.V. or the internet is true
  • Children have questions about sex, crushes, dating, and relationships
  • May express internalized patriarchy and homophobia through teasing, using sexually explicit language (or slurs), and/or talking about girls’ bodies
  • Expresses their wants and needs with respect to their body (e.g., “Can I have some space?”) and respects the wants and needs of others (e.g., will stop roughhousing with a peer when told to)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to families about their cultural norms and expectations for children’s gender and sexuality development
  • Learn from families about their children’s knowledge of sex and sexuality
  • Communicate with families about conversations related to gender and sexuality that arise in the classroom
  • Use books to support direct conversations about questions related to sex when they arise
    • What Makes a Baby , by Cory Silverberg
    • Sex is a Funny Word: A Book about Bodies, Feelings, and You , by Cory Silverberg

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Some children’s bodies are changing (e.g., they may grow breast buds and/ or pubic hair)
  • Knows that many (but not all) grownups fall in love with (and sometimes marry) people of a different gender; understands that it’s not accurate to assume that all families have a mother and father and begins to explore many different family structures
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Monitor the comments you make about your own and other people’s bodies and appearance
  • Engage children in ongoing critical literacy activities that support them in developing the skills to analyze literature and media for sexism, sizism, and homophobia
III

Social and Emotional Development

A

Trusting Relationships with Adults

Child develops trusting relationships with nurturing adults.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Greets educators or other adults when arriving in the learning environment
  • Engages in informal conversations with adults (e.g., talks with educator every day about what their new kitten is doing)
  • Seeks educator’s assistance when a group of children cannot agree on the rules for a game
  • Seeks educator’s advice on how to deal with a conflict with a friend
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Help children and families identify and develop supportive relationships with family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, community members, and service providers
  • Model language of assistance and support (“How can we work together to figure this out?”)

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Discusses a problem with classroom teacher, resource teacher, or volunteer
  • Talks to educators and staff about what they do at home with their family
  • Seeks assistance from an educator when a task is too difficult to accomplish by themselves
  • Initiates conversation with adult to “be together”
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Establish lines of help with children (“You can come to me or the assistant if you need support.”)
  • Take a request for support as a true need (Respond, for example, “I can help you with that. What have you tried so far?”)
  • Chart or map grownups with whom kids have special relationships, both in the school community and outside

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Respectfully engages adult with a different viewpoint and considers adult’s alternative suggestions in conversation (e.g., listens to adult share views about a movie and offers a different viewpoint)
  • Volunteers to help educator with tasks (e.g., staple or hand out papers)
  • Identifies family, school, and community strengths and supports
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Foster the family’s positive regard for their child by taking a strength-based stance when sharing observations
  • When addressing sensitive issues with a child and/or their family, be sure to do so in privacy. Convey respect and compassion.
  • Thank the child for coming to you when they have a problem, and affirm your desire to be a resource for them
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.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Shows evidence of social messages affecting how they feel about their self and group identity (e.g., evidence of internalized superiority or internalized oppression)
  • Knows that insults related to race, gender, and cultural identity are hurtful
  • May choose to play only with children close to their gender, racial, or cultural identities
  • Explores the similarities and differences in the home cultures of their peers
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Convey to families that you respect them as their child’s best advocate
  • Create opportunities for children to know each other by interviewing each child in a group as part of a name study or family study
  • Incorporate the four goals of Anti-Bias Education (listed below) into the daily curriculum
    • Each child will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities
    • Each child will express comfort and joy with human diversity; accurate language for human differences; and deep, caring human connections
    • Each child will increasingly recognize unfairness, have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts
    • Each child will demonstrate empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Represents themselves as part of racial, cultural, linguistic, or national groups
  • Forms groups of friends who share their gender, racial or cultural identities
  • Describes how they adjust their behavior between home and the learning environment
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Support a strong classroom community by allowing children to learn about one another informally and formally
  • Read stories and books to the class that reflect the diversities represented therein
  • Use maps to allow children to locate their homes in the community and their national origins
  • Connect families to work together on volunteering in the classroom, on fundraising projects, and chaperoning field trips, etc
  • Include community-building games in the daily routine at morning meeting and closing meeting

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Exhibits understanding of larger concepts related to self and belonging (e.g., safety, respect, kindness, and care for objects, self, and others)
  • Identifies gender and racial stereotypes in books and media
  • Knows some historical facts about their family, community, and culture
  • May disengage from learning if they feel like they do not belong at school
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Suggest out-of-school time connections for children; recommend to families of specific children which classmates or afterschool programs may be good matches, and include this suggestion in mid-year reports and meetings
  • Create multiple opportunities each week for children to share personal experience with their classmates (e.g., include sharing about their lives or reading aloud personal narratives at daily morning meeting)
  • Provide class-wide opportunities for children to build their own social context
    • Write get-well notes to classmates who are ill for many days
    • Make “celebrating you” booklets on children’s birthdays in which each child contributes a note or drawing for the birthday child
  • Incorporate social justice into your curriculum, providing opportunities for children to engage in inquiry and action around social issues that they care about in their community
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.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Shows satisfaction and pride in their work (e.g., expresses joy when they are selected to work on a new science project)
  • Compares abilities to those of their peers
  • Seeks approval of abilities from peers and adults
  • Can name some of their group identities and express how they feel about being a member of those groups
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create time for children to share their work, either before or after a working period; allow children to choose the work they want to share
  • Display children’s work with their words of guidance or explanation beside it
  • Create structures for children to show their interests and preferences, such as choice time
  • Make time for reflective conversations (“How are you doing in our classroom routines? How is reading going?”)
  • Avoid asking children to line up or choose partners by gender

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Describes likes, dislikes, needs, wants, strengths, challenges, and personal opinions
  • Asks for help from a educator or peer when a task is too difficult to accomplish alone (e.g., “Can you help me with this math problem? I don’t remember how to do it.”)
  • Identifies goals for individual progress, accomplishment, or success
  • Identifies strategies that help them to be successful as a learner (e.g., “It helps me stay focused if I clear off my desk.”)
  • Internalizes societal messages related to gender and body image (e.g., girls may internalize a belief that they aren’t good at math or may express a desire to be thinner)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage in reflective writing as a routine and at key points, such as after finishing a project or before a conference with families; ask such questions as “What is hard for you in our classroom?” and “How have you been working to improve?”
  • Record children telling stories in their home languages, and share those stories with the community
  • Invite family members to come to school to be interviewed by the children
  • Use books to support direct conversations about questions related to gender stereotypes, and bullying when they arise
    • King & King , by Linda De Haan
    • One of a Kind Like Me , by Laurin Mayeno
    • Allie ’s Basketball Dream, by Barbara E. Barber
    • The Gender Fairy , by Jo Hirst
    • Princess Hair , by Sharee Miller
    • My Princess Boy , by Cheryl Kilodavis
    • A mazing Grace , by Mary Hoffman

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Reflects on and evaluates their own thinking and learning
  • Takes pride in individual accomplishments and respects accomplishment of others (e.g., “Your story was so detailed. I really liked it!”)
  • Plans for learning and physical needs ahead of time (e.g., brings their own stress ball to circle time)
  • Identifies role models who share some of their interests and marginalized group identities
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite students to plan for and participate in a conference with their families
  • Engage in casual conversation with the child about what they like to do outside of school
  • Provide time, space, and materials for chosen work and some choice within assigned work
  • Support and encourage students to participate in identity-based affinity groups
  • Notice and address opinions reflecting societal messages that equate material acquisitions with self-worth
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.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Dislikes being at a relative disadvantage to others (e.g., would rather that nobody got cookies, then that their friend got two and they got one)
  • Does not object to being at a relative advantage to others (e.g., does not advocate for fairness when they get three cookies and their peer gets one)
  • Notices and describes social inequities
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Observe that life seems easier for some people and harder for others, and explore with children the reasons for these inequities; teach that inequities are not a consequence of anything that marginalized people did wrong
  • Teach children to show compassion and support for their peers
  • Assume children’s good intentions
  • When children come to educator with an interpersonal conflict, ask them to start resolving it by first trying to imagine and articulate how the other party feels, and then invite them to articulate to each other how they really feel

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Stands up for others when they encounter unfairness
  • Feels strongly about equality of outcome
  • Understands that people think about what others are thinking or feeling (e.g., says, “He invited her to the party because he didn’t want her to feel left out.”)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Read books about kindness:
    • Each Kindness , by Jacqueline Woodson
    • Under the Lemon Moon , by Edith Hope Fine
    • The Quiltmaker’s Gift , by Jeff Brumbeau
    • Those Shoes , by Maribeth Boelts
    • One Green Apple , by Eve Bunting
    • The Invisible Boy , by Trudy Ludwig
  • Use empathic group problem solving (“Our friend is having a hard time. Can anyone think of a way to help?”)
  • Work on perspective-taking in interpersonal interaction (“If she did to you what you did to her, how would you feel? What would you want her to do?”)

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Uses previous experiences when interpreting another person’s feelings (e.g., notices a child playing alone on the playground and invites them to play)
  • Observes and determines reactions of others when responding (e.g., The child remembers that their friend likes to be alone when they are frustrated and waits for them to calm down before approaching)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Use shared reading to develop perspective-taking, asking, for example, “How would you help this character when they are feeling so worried?”
  • Provide opportunities for children to take meaningful action to address social inequity in their community
  • Offer children structured contexts in which to identify, practice, and receive empathy
    • Play a “jump in” theater game in which two characters act out a conflict and anyone is welcome to “jump in” as a third character to offer empathy to either or both parties if they see a way to help resolve the conflict
E

Cooperation and Negotiation

Child navigates friendships with peers through cooperation and negotiation.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Negotiates with other children by using words to express ideas and feelings
  • Plays games that have clear roles for two players (e.g., card games, board games, and computer games)
  • May change the rules of structured games to ensure that they win
  • Dislikes being corrected or losing at games
  • Identifies actions of others as purposeful or accidental
  • Sense of friendship with the same child may change abruptly within the same day
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Consider shared interest among children as basis for connection; children who like to build, children who like to read about animals, etc
  • Suggest out-of-school time connections for families
  • Offer shared language for respectful conversation, including respectful disagreeing: (“I disagree” rather than “No! You’re wrong!”)
  • Read books about cooperation and negotiation, such as
    • Click , Clack, Moo: Cows That Type , by Doreen Cronin
    • Cat and Rat , by Ed Young
    • The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig , by Eugene Trivizas

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Is concerned about having friends and being liked
  • Engages in competitive games with peers
  • Works cooperatively on a group project (e.g., a mural or group collage)
  • Lets others join a game that is already in progress (e.g., “We just started playing but you can join us and go after Alex.”)
  • Listens to others’ points of views and considers ways to compromise
  • Identifies strategies to successfully resolve conflicts (e.g., “Let’s read the rules so we all agree on how to play.”)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Offer a variety of games
    • Chutes and Ladders
    • Go Fish, Uno, or other card games
    • Jenga
    • Connect Four
    • Checkers
  • Foster friendships; allow children to choose their own work partners at times
  • Support children’s desire to spend time with peers who affirm their developing social, linguistic, and cultural identifies
  • Help children generate nonviolent, assertive language to communicate; be a supportive witness as children practice these skills

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Values group membership and peer acceptance
  • Understands that friendships can remain even when disagreements occur
  • Balances needs and rights of others and their role in group work
  • Contemplates other viewpoints when resolving conflict
  • Independently follows the rules of a game to ensure fair play
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • When guiding children through conflict resolution, be alert to family and cultural differences in how people handle and navigate conflict
  • Foster social connections among family members; ask families about times and kinds of events that would work best for them
  • Notice children who may be left out and give them special jobs to do with a friendly peer; provide time to openly discuss feelings related to peer group inclusion and exclusion
  • Discuss books about conflict and negotiation, asking children to name the point of conflict, feelings of each protagonist, and effective and ineffective behaviors that each character engaged in
  • Offer “counselor,” a role that helps children resolve conflicts, as a classroom job
F

Emotional Self-Regulation

Child expresses and manages their feelings and impulses.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Identifies socially and culturally acceptable behavior (e.g., listening vs. interrupting)
  • Becomes upset when they lose a game but is able to use a strategy to cope
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Read books about self-control, such as:
    • Sophie Gets Angry , Really, Really Angry , by Molly Bang
    • Ahn’s Anger , by Gail Silver
    • Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse , by Kevin Henkes
  • Discuss the books with the children, asking
    • Have you ever felt the same way as ___?
    • What would you do if you were ___?
    • What would you say to___?
  • Create strategy charts for feelings, impulses, and ways to act on them

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Demonstrates flexibility and socially appropriate behavior at school (e.g., “When we are in the hallway we keep our voices down so other classes can work.”)
  • Manages strong emotions using known strategies (e.g., talks to a friend about being reprimanded by the educator)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to families and past teachers about the development of the child’s ability to self-regulate
  • Notice, recognize, and communicate when children take hard steps to achieve control (e.g., “I saw that you left the game when you were getting upset.”)
  • Sing songs like “I Get Up In The Morning,” which contains the refrain, “Everything’s going to be all right,” to remind children that strong feelings pass; try “Here Comes the Sun,” to recall that feelings change

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Demonstrates patience with personal circumstances (e.g., When doing math says, “I need to add slowly when working with big numbers so I don’t make a mistake and get frustrated.”)
  • Identifies their strengths and challenges
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Reflect with families and colleagues about the way strong feelings are expressed in the communities and cultures of the children in your class
  • Encourage the development of children’s self-awareness by suggesting that they write about their personal strengths and challenges
  • Let children know which trusted adults are available to be with them when they have strong feelings
G

Rhythms, Rules, and Routines

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Adheres strongly to rules (e.g., “James isn’t raising his hand to talk, but I am!”)
  • Follows routines with multiple steps independently (e.g., arrives in the morning and knows what to do to begin day: hangs up belongings, takes out their folders, and chooses an activity until group time is announced)
  • Takes turns in group discussion (e.g., raises hands, quietly listens to others, and proposes ideas when it’s their turn to talk)
  • Adapts rules to fit a particular situation or their own desires
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Reflect on your own cultural expectations related to discipline
  • Create some routines together; ask children, for example, how they think an area could best be organized and use their input to create some routine procedures
  • Decide on logical consequences for rules with all staff; reconsider the use of social exclusion as a consequence

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Knows the daily and weekly schedule and routines and follows routines accordingly (e.g., time for art, physical education, recess, lunch, etc.)
  • Adapts to the majority of a group even when the group’s ideas differ from their own (e.g., group plays a game with rules different from the actual rules)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Learn from families about rules and routines they have at home
  • Create illustrated charts of complex routines, like cleaning up paint or packing up at dismissal
  • Sing songs or chants to remind children of steps in a routine

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Understands and follows large concepts or rules regarding safety, kindness, respect, and care within different environments
  • Understands the purpose of laws
  • Follows rules alone or within a group (e.g., quietly enters or exits building, gym, or library alone or in a group)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage children in reflecting on the origins and intentions of social laws
  • Engage children in conversation about social movements to make society more fair
  • Invite children to discuss the difference in rules between various cultures, communities, and families
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.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Speaks clearly so that others understand
  • Tells a joke to a friend
  • Uses most parts of speech or grammar correctly (e.g., uses a contraction)
  • Uses vocabulary specific to science, math, social studies, and the arts
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide opportunities for children to engage in informal talk throughout the day
  • Provide opportunities for children to use new content area vocabulary in conversation and with their family by sending home conversation starters (e.g., “Ask your child about the geodes we opened today in science.”)
  • When children are engaged in a content area like visual arts, repeatedly use vocabulary specific to their processes, such as “perspectives” and “dimensions”

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Speaks clearly, modifying volume so that all listeners can understand
  • Asks and answers “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” and “why” questions about an topic of interest
  • Refines vocabulary so it better expresses the meaning that they want to express
  • Categorizes vocabulary by parts of speech
  • Enjoys puns
  • Artfully combines English with home language(s) to better convey meaning, play with language, and/or strengthen relationships
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Use translanguaging with children, and scaffold their use of academic language by strategic use of home language and English
  • Learn key words in the child’s home language related to the topic of study
  • Draw on cognates in both English and the child’s home language
  • Provide opportunities for children to represent the meaning of words in a variety of ways (e.g. through dance, in song, or in a drawing)

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Expresses an opinion or point of view on a story, referring to relevant examples or details
  • Summarizes a text in a retelling
  • Uses a wide range of vocabulary specific to academic subjects to explain what they learned in school
  • Uses their knowledge of home language to find cognates in English
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Choose a sentence that has a complex structure
    • Engage in word play by altering the vocabulary in the sentence
    • Chart sentence and unpack meaning
    • Use sentence starters to practice making new sentences with a similar structure
  • Research the bases and parts of words with children; look for and point out meaning in the structure of words
B

Listening and Understanding

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Remembers a story that a friend told yesterday
  • Responds and can follow a sequence of twoor three-step directions in a row
  • Listens to a peer’s idea and participates in a conversation with a partner
  • Compares or uses specific traits to describe characters in a story that the educator has told
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Listen and provide feedback to clarify and extend understanding; for instance, restate in another way or use an image or a gesture to clarify
  • Engage peers in a variety of activities in a range of different topics that foster sustained interactions
  • Use translanguaging between English and home languages to encourage participation and keep children in the conversational loop
  • Make comparisons with familiar characters and plots to sustain interactions

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Understands positional and directional words (e.g., here, there, over, next to, in front, under, or between)
  • Becomes logical in their comprehension of vocabulary (e.g., figures out the meaning of words based on their root)
  • Demonstrates knowledge of sequence of events and understands cue words and phrases (e.g., before, yesterday, later that day, after, next year)
  • Uses clues in story they have heard to make inferences
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Reinforce key vocabulary and content words in activities; for example, play games such as Simon Says to strengthen understanding of prepositions or classification games to deepen understandings of meanings
  • Use role plays with partners or small groups to establish understanding of characters and relationships
  • Model body language as an active listener to extend conversation
  • Draw on home languages or actively encourage partners to speak it to reinforce and ensure understanding

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Listens to peers and attends to conversational turns in a small group
  • Attends during a presentation by a guest speaker who shares about a topic for a sustained period
  • Shows refined understanding of social contexts and uses gestures or nonverbal behavior to respond to situations
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Model strategies for self-monitoring, understanding, and using questions to clarify
  • Ask peers to elaborate or role play the ways in which partners can request more information to increase understanding
  • Structure activities that include speaking with partners and using specific words or parts of speech; for example, interviewing about something in the past that requires understanding of verbs in past tense
  • Use think-aloud or sentence starters to model the thinking process and encourage understanding of one’s own or a character’s feelings, changes, motivations, and inner thoughts
C

Social Communication

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Understands the body language or facial expression of a peer and uses it to check in with or to modify language and/or behavior with that child
  • Converses with a partner taking a number of turns and building on and extending the topic
  • Shares knock-knock and other jokes with peers
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to families about children’s use of social language outside of school; Find out if a child who is quiet at school is talkative at home or in their community
  • Observe emergent multilingual children’s use of social language when they are speaking in their home language
  • During read-aloud time, invite predictions about characters’ relationships and interactions (“What might this character say to this one if she has that feeling?”)

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Makes up secret languages
  • Uses language to include or exclude children from peer groups
  • Navigates different ways of using language and flexibly uses different forms and variations to improve communication or affiliation
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Observe and reflect on children’s use of social language in non-academic environments such as the playground
  • Provide time for children to discuss social interactions and how those interactions made them feel
  • Be aware of whose voices are not being heard in group conversations and provide supports for all children to participate
  • Teach children language that they can use to resolve social conflicts

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Takes the perspective of another person in a group into account and modifies their language use or actions as needed
  • Converses on a topic, maintaining attention to what the other person understands and sharing their own understanding
  • Uses language to persuade and argue opinions and to understand and respond to another’s point of view
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Establish norms for social communication in the learning environment
  • Teach children to identify micro-aggressions: brief hostile, negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group
  • Ask children to write from the perspective of someone from a different time or place
  • Invite children to develop and share a point of view on a topic of interest
D

Engaging with Stories and Books

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Listens to a nonfiction book and shares a personal connection (e.g., connects with text about a family from Mexico and the United States by stating, “I am from both places too.”)
  • Understands and responds to a favorite part of a book during buddy reading
  • Retells a story from a picture book (e.g., summarizes a plot about how a neighborhood transforms with mural art)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage in extended conversation and dialogue about what children notice when they read
  • Listen to what children say in response to open-ended questions and clarify, expand, or extend their ideas
  • Ask peers to respond to other children’s questions and comments about their reading
  • Use self-talk to model making connections to a story
  • Ask children if they have ever had an experience similar to the character in the story
  • Ask children to draw a picture in response to a story they heard read aloud

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Reads independently for pleasure
  • Paraphrases a part of a book and explains why it is important
  • Monitors own comprehension and understanding in a variety of ways
  • Reads an informational book to learn about an area of interest, using text features such as the glossary to find information
  • Hears a well-known story told by a friend and compares it to a movie version of the same story, pointing out differences in the main character
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Scaffold thinking about the narrative structure of stories and books in a variety of genres
    • In fictional genres, think aloud about: 1) the beginning and the introduction to the main character, 2) the middle and the main character’s problem, and 3) predict or ask what might happen at the end
    • For an informational text, think aloud about: the main idea, examples, and key details

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Reads all the books in a series
  • Slows down when the text becomes more difficult to read
  • Makes an argument with relevant details during a book discussion (e.g., uses information learned from watching a National Geographic television program to add to a discussion of a book)
  • Reads a letter from a friend and responds to social questions
  • Identifies an author’s purpose (e.g., “I think the author wanted to teach people not to be afraid to try new things. I’m going to go to try to do the monkey bars.”)
  • Consults other books, maps, websites, hyperlinks, and photographs to enhance their reading
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Give children time to respond to texts in a variety of ways
    • Assign parts to act out a book or story
    • Encourage children to collaborate, improvise, and use props to perform the story
  • Establish centers where children can make art or explore science materials in response to books or stories on a theme or topic
E

Phonological Awareness

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Generates a group of rhyming words from one word
  • Segments simple words into their initial, middle, and ending sounds
  • Taps out the number of syllables in a multisyllabic word
  • Changes the middle sound of a short word to make a new word (e.g., changes dog to dig by substituting the “i” sound for the “o” sound”)
  • Uses first, last, and some middle sounds in invented spelling (e.g., writes, I WNT TO THE PRK for “I went to the park.”)
  • Begins to explore and identify blends such as “pl” in play and “br” in brown
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Explore sounds of the alphabet by playing a clapping game (“When I say a word that starts with an “m,” clap your hands!”)
  • Create an activity in which children can listen to beginning and ending sounds, noting the difference between each

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Explores and identifies the concept of silent “e” (e.g., adds “e” to “hid” to change the word to “hide” and understands the vowel sound has changed)
  • Develops awareness of letters that have more than one sound (e.g., notices the “o” in “row” makes a different sound than the “o” in “dog”)
  • Incorporates blends, digraphs, prefixes, and suffixes into their invented spelling
  • Uses segmenting in order to read larger words by breaking word down into initial sounds or syllables (/fac/ /tor/ /y/ for factory)
  • Recognizes the base of a word and common prefixes and suffixes and uses them to make different words (e.g., “trans,” “port,” and “ed” or “ing”)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Play familiar games with rhymes (hand claps, jump rope chants) invite a family member to come in to introduce the game
  • Introduce a book such as Adivinanzas in Mixteco (Riddles in Mixteco) that is written or translated into several different languages and language varieties; ask families about riddles in their home languages
  • Explore vowel sounds by singing songs in a variety of languages (e.g., “Juanito Cuando Baila”)

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Asks about rhymes in languages other than their own (e.g., “What rhymes with Estrella?”)
  • Repeats sophisticated tongue twisters, such as “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,”
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite children to compose a song for a friend by changing the lyrics of a favorite song to personalize it
  • Play a familiar card game, and replace cards with images and words that match; for example, children can play “Go Fish” and ask for a word that rhymes with the card they have
  • Invite students to create their own rhyming poems, songs, or haikus
F

Composing

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Uses drawing and invented spelling to write about an experience, idea, or topic
  • Follows some social rules for composition (e.g.,, begins messages with “Dear” or “To” and concludes with “Love” or “From”)
  • Adds their own ideas to a story their peers are making up
  • References known stories and styles in their own composing (e.g., reads several versions of Jack and the Beanstalk and dictates their own version.)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Brainstorm ideas for compositions with children
  • Make time for children to share a scene or to act out parts of a story for a peer audience with props
  • Celebrate children’s completed compositions with a publishing party

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Varies the types of sentences that they use in their compositions
  • Writes stories with a beginning, middle, and end
  • Collaborates with a peer to plan, write, and illustrate a story
  • Plans and develops a writing composition over the course of several days
  • Uses an editing checklist to try to incorporate features of non-fiction (For example, to revise the non-fiction book All About Birds , the child uses a checklist and adds a Table of Contents)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Discuss contrasting features of a child’s home language with English, such as use of accent marks in Spanish and English
  • Explore the scene or setting of a play by talking about the author’s word choice
  • Model writing the beginning of a story, and revise it to introduce the main character’s personal voice
  • Ask children for explanations of why they made certain choices while authoring
  • Challenge children to use rich vocabulary and complex sentences in their compositions

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Composes a letter to a friend that uses their home language variation
  • Makes a case in a debate by stating an argument, investigates information, and includes reasons with relevant supporting details in writing
  • Writes a version of a fairy tale with a character using a particular voice
  • Seeks to master mature styles of composition (e.g., draws scenes for a comic book or graphic novel)
  • Uses resources to enhance their compositions (e.g., uses a thesaurus to find a word with a particular nuance to express an emotion or idea)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Welcome and celebrate the variety of children’s composing processes
  • Discuss what makes an argument effective and how to find an equally effective counterargument
  • Provide models of approaches to composition; discuss and chart an author’s intent or purpose across various types of texts in an author’s body of work (e.g., discuss the purpose of Patricia Polacco’s Chicken Sunday , Thank You, Mr. Falker , and Pink and Say )
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.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Views a slideshow of documentation from the learning environment and selects an image of an experience for further investigation
  • Responds to the visual work of a peer using observations, comments, and questions
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Identify museums and galleries to visit with children
  • Invite children to use drawing as a way to look closely at sculptures
  • Invite a visual artist or filmmaker to visit the classroom
  • Create a slideshow of documentation from the learning environment and share it with children each Friday

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Uses vocabulary, such as “audience” and “represent,” to discuss the work of a filmmaker
  • Discusses an artist’s decision to use memory, imagination, or observation in their creation
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Find out about free or low-cost opportunities to see art in the community, and share these opportunities with families
  • Support children in making connections between popular culture and their own multimedia work in the classroom
  • Look at a block building from different heights and talk about ways to represent with different points of view (worm’s eye view, bird’s eye view, or child’s eye view)

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Identifies visual communication that is misleading
  • Takes into consideration the aesthetic aspects of images, audio, and video related to their social and cultural meanings for an intended audience
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite a video editor to visit the class and ask them to explain the process of experimenting and editing with different tools to modify size, color, and shape for intended message
  • Provide tools for children to make their own videos
  • Support use of critical media literacy by provocations to discuss credibility and evidence
  • Teach children to identify bias in media
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.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • May be anxious about death
  • Discusses the physical changes that accompany age
  • Can imagine their adult family members growing old
  • Compares the life cycles of different organisms (e.g., says that people live longer than dogs)
  • Becomes conscious of time, but is not yet able to tell time on the clock (“Is it three o’clock? My grandma is coming to get me.”)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include books in the learning environment that help children understand death
    • And So It Goes , by Paloma Valdivia
    • Goodbye Mog , by Judith Kerr
    • The Goodbye Book , by Todd Parr
    • Ida Always , by Caron Levis and Charles Santoso;
    • The Dead Bird , by Margaret Wise Brown
  • Read non-fiction books about the life cycles of familiar animals (such as cats, dogs, and other animals that children see in their communities); explore rituals and routines for having pets and for pet deaths

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Discusses what happens to the body after death
  • Understands the patterns of the days of the week and the months of the year
  • Asks questions about the properties of materials (e.g.,”What is the air made out of?”)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Talk to family members about their beliefs about death and how they would like to explain death to the child
  • Talk to children about the inevitability of the life cycle, and how it applies to everything that is alive
  • Observe food as it turns to compost; discuss how it changes

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Start to understand how ecosystems can change quickly (a storm) or slowly (a pond becoming a meadow)
  • Combines and separates mixtures in sophisticated ways (e.g., uses a series of strainers to separate out the pebbles and silt in river water)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create opportunities for children to explore stability and change in local contexts
    • Visit a local watershed to study water quality
    • Look at photos of the local area in years past in comparison to today
  • Ask about characters in chapter books (“How do they change over the course of the story? Why do they change? What is the same about them throughout?”)
B

Representing

Child uses symbolic thought to represent.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Assigns roles and acts out scenes from the economy (e.g., child dramatizes a farmer’s market and has peers work at different stalls and be customers)
  • Uses art to reflect on their experiences (e.g., uses musical instruments to make a song about an experience they had)
  • Shares stories and symbols from their own families and cultures
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Ask families about cultural or religious prohibitions to representation; create a welcoming and inclusive learning environment
  • Invite children to use collage materials to make dollhouses out of cardboard boxes and make characters to inhabit the dollhouses
  • Sing songs with space for children’s contributions and allow them to write new verses
  • Create visual art while listening to different types of music

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Represents specific details from architecture in their constructions
  • Plans artistic representation with peers (e.g., child writes a story with friends and then makes puppets and scenery to dramatize the story)
  • Experiments with different forms of representation they have learned about through media and trips to cultural institutions (e.g., child attends a field trip to see Balinese shadow puppets and then experiments with creating shadow puppets themselves)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite families to share modes of artistic expression from their family, community, or culture
  • Make paper dolls of historical figures; use cloth and scissors to clothe the dolls in historical costumes
  • Act out stories that the children write
  • Sing songs, such as:
    • “I Had a Rooster”
    • “The Cat Came Back”
    • “The Foolish Frog”

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Uses research to add realistic details to their representations (e.g., researches costumes from the past to create a dramatization of the life of a historical figure)
  • Describes systems for symbolic thinking from the past, such as hieroglyphs
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Notice the particular forms of representation that are motivating for different children
  • Encourage children to use art to represent their feelings
  • Invite families to join children in creating
  • Welcome families to celebrate children’s creations
  • Challenge children to create models of villages, replicating complicated architectural details
C

Memory and History

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Begins to understand that history describes the collective memories of people and events from other times and places
  • Asks questions of elders about how life was different in the past
  • Shares significant events from their own family history with peers
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include books in the learning environment that tell stories from history
    • Histories of the children’s national and cultural groups (e.g., history of Taíno people)
    • Biographies (e.g., Obama, Lincoln)
    • Stories of historical events (e.g., The March on Washington)
    • Descriptions of life at different periods of history (e.g., prehistoric man)
    • Invite elders to the classroom to talk about their memories

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Groups items they have to remember into easy-to-remember categories (e.g., animals, foods, shapes)
  • Begins to identify which events happened long ago and which happened in the more recent past
  • Starts to make connections between how history has shaped our present experience (e.g., “My friends and I can swim at the same pool because of Martin Luther King, Jr.”)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Research the histories of the national and cultural groups of the children in the class, and be prepared to weave examples from these groups into discussions of history
  • Invite each child to contribute to a timeline of a time period that includes now
  • Sing songs that touch on history
    • “If I Had a Hammer”
    • “If You Meet Me at the Back of the Bus”
    • “Fillimiooriay”

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Intentionally selects and uses organizational strategies to remember information
  • Uses language to describe chronology, such as “decade” and “century”
  • Uses resources such as books and websites to organize information into a chronological sequence
  • Connects their family history to broad historical events
  • Identifies changes over time in their community
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Use self-talk to describe strategies for organizing information to make it easier to retrieve
  • Ask children to write from perspectives of figures they have read and learned about (What was it like to be a knight’s horse, for example?)
  • Welcome children to link their family histories to larger discussions of historical events
D

Investigating and Exploring

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Uses non-fiction books to find answers to questions
  • Develops hypotheses (e.g., If a hermit crab prefers a particular shell, the child says, “I think it’s because he has more room to grow in there.”)
  • Describes a strategy for finding out if their hypothesis is true
  • Uses prior knowledge to make generalizations about what might happen (e.g., The child says, “Fruits grow on trees, so I think if I plant this orange seed, a tree will grow.”)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Use photography to gather observations over time; for example, observe a tree through several seasons or watch a pumpkin over the weeks around harvest, and ask children to come up with theories about why changes occur
  • Ask children to do research by looking in books for answers to their questions
  • Question the child’s reasoning to explore their thought process, but without concern for correctness (“What makes you think that? How did you figure that out?”)

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Seeks scientific solutions that are rational and consistent and that work in similar situations
  • Plans simple experiments (e.g., child builds spinning tops and hypothesizes that a wide top will spin for a longer period of time than a flat one)
  • Observes changes in living organisms and the natural environment over time (e.g., independently checks corn plants every morning to see how they are growing)
  • Works with peers to collaboratively plan experiments
  • Compares their observations to those of their peers
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Provide sketchbooks to record natural phenomena, and make predictions; for example, ask children to draw a seed as they plant it, then when it has sprouted, and as a plant growing over time
  • Invite children to document their observations in a variety of ways (charts, notes, or graphs, for example)

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Compares their observations with observations in books and websites
  • Poses specific questions and then seeks to answer them through research, experiments, and observations (e.g., child wonders how to make a brick and then reads about the topic and mixes various combinations of materials to see which make the best bricks)
  • Identifies and interviews experts to find out the answers to their questions
  • Reviews data recorded in tables over several days to draw conclusions
  • Starts to understand observations as components of systems (e.g., solar system, digestive system) and identifies individual parts and how they work together
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite families to share areas of expertise with the class
  • Support children in generating questions for research
  • Provide graphic organizers so that children are able to successfully complete a multiday investigation
  • Create role models for children
    • Visit scientists at work
    • Read about scientists who changed history
    • Ensure representation of women and members of non-dominant racial, linguistic, and cultural groups
E

Understanding Cause and Effect

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Believes their own theory about the cause of an event, regardless of the evidence
  • Discusses how rules impact people and the environment (e.g., recycling)
  • Reflects on how some actions can help others feel better (e.g., cheering up a sad friend by sharing their snack)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Ask children why the water in a clear or open container left on the heater or windowsill diminishes over a few days
  • Plant beans in a plastic bag lined with a wet paper towel; ask why some grow and some do not

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Designs experiments that will prove their previously held beliefs about causes, rather than objective experiments
  • Describes choices people make based on availability of resources (e.g., talks about how lack of food causes migration)
  • Asks questions about how things change over time
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage in group conversation about children’s theories of causation
  • Analyze choices people made in creating the built environment (e.g. ‘Why did engineers choose to build a vertical lift bridge here?”)

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Demonstrates understanding of how humans have affected the environment and how actions and rules are adopted to protect the environment
  • Discussing the purpose of tools (e.g., how windmills produce clean energy)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create opportunities for children to see how changing certain factors causes a predictable change in outcome
  • Teach children about climate change and engage the class in analyzing and reducing the group’s use of carbon
F

Engineering: Problem-solving with Materials

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Investigates the motion and movement of objects when solving problems with materials (e.g., notices and compares how different balls bounce higher than others)
  • Identifies and describes tools made for different purposes
  • Uses sophisticated strategies to make their block buildings more stable
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Include tools in the learning environment that children can access for a variety of purposes
    • scissors
    • staplers
    • hole punches
    • hammers
    • measuring tapes
    • hand drills
  • Invite children to systematically test the stability of their block buildings by rolling balls at them
  • Offer encouragement and guidance (“These problems can be solved! You can figure this out. What if you…?”)

7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Uses a second problem-solving strategy if the first one is unsuccessful
  • Pays attention to the relevant part of solving a problem (e.g., examines the attachment of the axles and wheels when the toy car won’t roll)
  • Uses logic and reasoning to solve problems with materials (e.g., uses their knowledge of how the physical properties of objects affect their behavior and motion)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Observe and reflect on children’s processes as they solve problems with materials
  • Consider which children are most engaged in engineering: Are girls as engaged as boys? Why or why not?
  • Invite children to make complex marble runs, taking into account both the angle and length of the ramps
  • Offer objects in the environment as models for children’s problem-solving; for example, show them a hinge on a door, or point out how bricks are stacked in a building

8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary

What educators might observe
  • Takes more than one variable into account when solving problems with materials (e.g., considers both weight and distance when setting up a balance)
  • Plans their actions when encountering a difficult problem with materials
  • Systematically builds things and reverses their actions to take things apart
  • Identifies tools and simple machines made to solve problems by people long ago or in a different place, and compares those tools and machines to the ones we use today
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite families to visit the classroom and share a tool from their culture, nation of origin, or childhood
  • Provide opportunities for children to learn problem-solving strategies from one another
  • Challenge children to invent objects to solve common classroom or household problems (e.g., a magnetic paper-clip picker-upper)
  • Look for texts that show different ways a problem has been solved throughout history (e.g., irrigation)
G

Math

1. Comparing and Categorizing

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Compares several aspects of something (e.g., compares animals, identifying similarities and differences between the ways they move, eat, and defend themselves)
  • Notices and compares changes over time (e.g., compares the length of the day at different times of the year, saying, “It used to be dark when I was picked up.”)
  • U ses a repeating unit to measure length (e.g., uses a line of small blocks to measure a book)
  • Identifies similarities and differences among the lives of people in different families and communities
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Offer objects for comparison and categorization
    • Photos of animals
    • Collections of rocks or leaves
    • Keys
    • Buttons
  • Engage children in using categorization for social good; for example, categorize recycling materials
  • Provide unit blocks and rulers for measurement
  • Create activities to measure distance (e.g., hold a paper airplane contest, then chart the results in a graph)
7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Reverses mental actions (e.g., knows that a ball of clay rolled into a long snake contains the same amount of clay as the ball)
  • Chooses a strategy for comparison (e.g., uses graphs to compare their observations of the natural world)
  • Understands the need for a standard unit when measuring length
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Offer formats distinctly for comparison and categorization, such as Venn diagrams and three-column charts
  • Offer vocabulary such as “traits,” “similar,” and “category”
  • Use “greater than” and “less than” to compare quantity
  • Compare standard and non-standard units of measure, some of which can be parts of the body; use inches, feet and meters, but also fingers, hands, and items like paper clips
8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Creates hierarchical categorizations (e.g., child categorizes plants based on the ecosystems in which they live, then divides the plants that live in the desert into cacti and succulents)
  • Compares their home life to that of children who live in different places and to the lives of children who lived a long time ago
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite families to visit the classroom to talk about their childhoods; use Venn diagrams to compare and contrast
  • Read books aloud about children who live in different kinds of families; ask the children questions about how the character’s lives are similar to and different from their own
  • Visit a natural history museum or botanical garden and talk about the categories the curators use

2. Number Sense and Quantity

Child understands and explores numbers and quantity.

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Understands that 10 is always 10, whether it is made by adding 6+4 or 7+3
  • Starts counting with numbers other than one (e.g., asked to count from four to seven, counts four, five, six, seven)
  • Answers questions about quantity such as, “How many more?” “How many fewer?” by counting up or down (e.g., when asked how many is three more than six? The child responds, “Six, seven [puts up a finger], eight [puts up another finger], nine [puts up a third finger])
  • Understands place value; understands value of a digit according to the place of the digit within a number
  • Makes whole objects from parts when counting (Given three whole plastic eggs and four plastic egg halves, knows they have five whole eggs)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create a number line adding one number each day for the whole year, and use it to practice counting by ones, twos, fives, and tens
  • Offer structures like a 100’s chart or number line sections for organizing number systems
  • Play games in which children roll a dice or spin a spinner and move a piece along a path
  • Provide strong context for solving problems with numbers (With 23 children in the class, does everyone have a snack if you have 18 snacks? How many more we need or how many extra do we have?)
7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Realizes that the number is unchanged, even when the arrangement looks different (e.g., when counters are spread out, says that there are the same number of counters as when they were together)
  • Understands the reversibility of operations (e.g., subtraction is the reverse of addition)
  • Uses groups, skip counting, and place value to quickly identify sets shown quickly (“I saw three sets of ten and three sets of two, so the answer is 36.”)
  • Uses a mental number line to compare numbers
  • Counts forward and backward by ones and using skip counting
  • Solves all types of single digit addition and subtraction problems, with flexible strategies and known combinations
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Play more games on a number line (If you start at 12, how many to get to 15? How do you get to 100 from 64?)
  • Keep locating math in the body; ask questions like how many fingers in the class?
  • Provide base 10 materials to model numbers
  • Play “I’m Thinking of a Number” in which children seek clues of what numbers are smaller or larger than the one in mind
8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Uses groups, multiplication, and place value to visually recognize sets shown briefly (“I saw groups of 10s and twos, so I thought six tens is 60 and four twos is eight, so 68.”)
  • Rounds numbers to the nearest 10 or
  • Builds skills to multiply and divide up to 10 × 10 accurately
  • Solves word (story) problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Engage children in a cooking activity that calls for ingredients in ½, ¼, ¾, or ¹∕₃ measures
  • Ask children to write word problems that fit number sentences for their classmates to solve
  • Practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills using Jeopardy-type games

3. Patterning

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Identifies the smallest unit of a pattern
  • Skip counts by tens, fives, and twos
  • Explains the rule for a number pattern. For example, 5, 10, 15, 20 is the “plus five” number pattern
  • Looks for and explains patterns in a number chart
  • Understands the commutative principle of addition (2+3 = 5, 3+2 = 5)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Continue to notice patterns in the world on numbered streets and avenues or windows on buildings
  • Model addition with materials to ground math ideas in concrete experience; use two colors of tiles to show the commutative property of addition (two green and three red is five tiles; three green and two red is still five tiles)
  • Invite children to make patterns while stringing with small beads or weaving
7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Skip counts by hundreds, tens, fives, twos
  • Identifies the rule needed to extend a pattern or identify a missing number in a pattern (2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17)
  • Tells time to the nearest five minutes on different types of clocks
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Use materials such as pattern blocks to build growth patterns and describe them (“One hexagon has six sides. How many sides on two hexagons? On three hexagons?”)
  • Invite children to observe, copy, and create patterns that grow; for example, make a square out of four cubes, make the square grow to nine cubes, then 16, and describe the pattern with numbers
8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Skip counts by hundreds, tens, sixes, fives, fours, and twos
  • Is able to detect an error in a number pattern
  • Explains mathematical patterns using the properties of operations
  • Generalizes the properties of multiplication: (a X 1 = a) (a X b = bXa)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create AABBA patterns for classmates to complete and/or find the errors
  • Practice looking at an analog clock, describing the number correspondences
  • Give children a sense of time (Time sitting in silence for a minute, then do something repetitive such as snapping fingers or drawing stars for a minute, two minutes, or five minutes.)

4. Spatial Sense and Geometry

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

6-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Uses maps with picture clues to determine paths and find objects
  • Discriminates and names most common shapes, including rhombuses, without making mistakes such as calling ovals circles
  • Moves one shape on top of another to check if it fits exactly
  • Divides circles and rectangles into halves or fourths to develop understanding of part/whole
  • Uses blocks to make complex towers or other structures involving multiple levels with ceilings
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Look at maps with children and encourages them to describe
    • Direction—which way?
    • Distance—how far?
    • Location—where?
    • Identification—what objects?
    • Coordinates—what are they?
  • Encourage children to make representations out of pattern blocks (for example, a ship with a smoke stack and rhombus-shaped smoke); they may trace their pattern block images to create pattern block puzzles for one another
  • Read books by Rebecca Emberly and others that show how to represent objects with different shapes
7-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Pays attention to the spatial relationships of all the parts of complex figures
  • Folds paper squares to make two triangles, folds them again to make more triangles, and describes the process
  • Uses simple coordinates to locate a place on a map or a move on a chessboard
  • Systematically checks that two shapes are the same by comparing all attributes
  • Recognizes and describes situations in which angle knowledge is relevant (e.g., “I need to change the angle to make the car go faster down this ramp.”)
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Invite children to use materials such as clay, straw, and pipe cleaners to construct shapes
  • Encourage children to describe why a figure belongs or does not belong to a shape category
  • Show children how to “test” right angles on rectangles with a “right-angle checker,” (thumb and index finger held apart at 90°, or the corner of a piece of paper)
  • Solve construction problems with blocks
    • Build a bridge from point A to point B
    • Construct the tallest tower
    • Attempt to build buildings observed in the neighborhood
8-year-olds – See this age across all domains Early elementary
What educators might observe
  • Uses maps to follow routes, even when they don’t have pictures or the distances are not accurate
  • Mentally moves shapes and says what they need to do to make them fit into a puzzle
  • Names the class of shapes explicitly based on properties, including angle measure
  • Sorts shapes hierarchically, based on properties
Ways educators might support the child's development
  • Create realistic and abstract art using shapes, lines, and understanding of orientation of those things on paper
  • Observe the use of shapes in artwork from different cultures, drawing attention to the cultures of the children in the class
  • Describe the properties of a shape and invite the children to name that shape
  • Place shapes in a category, and ask children to name the reason for the classification

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