## 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 use their senses to construct knowledge about the world around them

#### Skill Progression: Constructs knowledge

You may choose a different domain, visit the page for this domain, or click on a skill below for more information.

List of Skills by Age

1-2 Months

Tracks objects and faces

2-4 Months

Uses mouthing, reaching, grasping, and kicking to explore objects

4-6 Months

Uses fingers to explore and grasp

6-8 Months

Examines things from different perspectives to explore size, shape, texture, sound, etc.

8-10 Months

Uses hands and fingers to try to put things together

10-12 Months

Uses both fine and gross motor skills to explore and experiment with dropping, throwing, and other cause-and effect actions

12-15 Months

Puts objects on top of each other

15-18 Months

Uses a variety of objects together in different ways in trial-and-error

18-21 Months

Uses real and pretend objects together functionally

21-24 Months

Uses tools to solve a problem (a fork to stab a bite, a hammer to pound, sifter, funnel)

24-27 Months

Experiments with putting things together and taking them apart

27-30 Months

Investigates how to manipulate things by tearing, stretching, unwrapping, etc.

30-33 Months

Interconnects parts to construct a simple 4-5-piece puzzle, nest objects, etc.

33-36 Months

Uses household objects (pillows, blankets, boxes) to create spaces to explore

36-42 Months

Constructs enclosures of different sizes in dramatic play

42-48 Months

Combines blocks or 8-12 puzzle pieces to make a representation

48-54 Months

Attends to more than one characteristic (shape and color, color and size, texture and color, etc.)

54-60 Months

Understands orientation of objects, letters and pictures as an important characteristic

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/.