## North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

#### Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Cognitive Development (CD)

#### Subdomain: Mathematical Thinking and Expression

#### Goal: Children compare, sort, group, organize and measure objects and create patterns in their everyday environment.

#### Skill Progression: Classifying

#### Age: 27-30 Months

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### Thinks many things are alive that are not, but beginning to understand alive and not alive

Situations for Observation of Skill

The adult can elicit vocabulary by being a player. In dramatic play outdoors, say, “I am making a museum of nature for people to come and see.”

Elicitation Strategy

Discuss the colors of things the child finds, and point out other colors in nature. Ask, “Are rocks alive? How do you know?” “Oh, look at that ant! Is he alive?”

Behavior Observed

The child has some understanding of life, but it may be connected to movement. “It’s dead. It’s not moving.”

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

When the early childhood educators and parents participate in this outdoor dramatic play they will have an opportunity to see how the outdoors and nature can be a great learning place for the child. Encourage them to help the child notice the various characteristics of the different things in nature.

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.