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

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

#### Subdomain: Scientific Exploration and Knowledge

#### Goal: Children observe and describe characteristics of living things and the physical world

#### Skill Progression: Observe and describe characteristics of living things and the physical world

#### Age: 12-15 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 12-15 Months.

### Shows categorization of function (object use)

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child indoors and in the back yard or a park. Take toy trucks, cars, tractors and farm or zoo animals. Observe the child with toy food, animals, and nature items like leaves, sticks, and rocks. See how he groups the items, uses the toys, and combines the natural and toy items.

Elicitation Strategy

The adult can place rocks, grass, leaves and sticks in with the vehicles and animals. If needed the adult can suggest things like, “The animals are hungry for grass.”

Behavior Observed

The child will play in the grass or sand with the items, putting the vehicles together and the animals together.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Not all families can afford to buy sets of toys for their child, but nature offers many options. Just a few simple toys or found objects can enable children to experiment with how things work and can be combined.

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/.