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

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

#### Subdomain: Creative Expression

#### Goal: Children demonstrate self-expression and creativity in a variety of forms and contexts, including play, visual arts, music, drama, and dance.

#### Skill Progression: Drama

#### Age: 36-42 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 36-42 Months.

### Develops a theme in dramatic play (doctor, waitress)

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child with whatever dramatic play materials are available. Involve siblings, peers, and adults as players. Typically, materials related to familiar routines like cooking, going to a restaurant, etc. work well.

Elicitation Strategy

Ask the child to take the lead in organizing dramatic play. What does he want to play? What roles does he want others to play? What should the players each do? If needed, an adult can suggest options and the child can choose and then develop that theme.

Behavior Observed

The child at this level develops a theme and acts out a simple sequence.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage early childhood educators and parents to be play partners and assume a role in the child’s dramatic play. Children love to pretend they are the boss, parent, waitress, etc. so they can tell the adult what to do! It is fun to see how the child wields power!

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/.