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

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

#### Subdomain: Construction of Knowledge: Thinking and Reasoning

#### Goal: Children demonstrate the ability to think about their own thinking: reasoning, taking perspectives, and making decisions

#### Skill Progression: Making decisions

#### Age: 24-27 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 24-27 Months.

### Decides which role to play and what actions to perform

Situations for Observation of Skill

Set up props for a familiar routine for dramatic play, as described above. Let the child take charge of the dramatic play scenario as much as possible.

Elicitation Strategy

As a play partner, ask the child, “Who should I be?” or give the child an option, “Should I be the baby or the mommy?” “What should I do now?” Let the child lead. Add dialogue to stimulate additional ideas (“Mommy, I’m all wet and cold!”)

Behavior Observed

Because the dramatic play involves a familiar set of actions, the child will be able to lead the play with directions and gestures.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Let parents know that they don’t need to buy lots of fancy toys for dramatic play. At this age real or realistic props are best. Their role is to value dramatic play, provide the materials from home, and be a play partner when needed. Sometimes, they just need to stimulate the idea and their child will run with it. Children love to tell their parents what to do, so let them do it in play!

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/.