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: Art

Age: 42-48 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 42-48 Months.

Uses tools with play dough (cookie cutters, rollers, scissors)

Situations for Observation of Skill

This is best observed in the classroom. Provide a variety of art materials and tools with which children can experiment. Paint brushes, cookie cutters, plastic knives, tongs, stamps, etc. In addition have paper, play dough, foil, pipe cleaners, glue, sparkles, sequins, buttons, fasteners and other fun materials that can be combined.

Elicitation Strategy

Tell the children they have been on a hunt for buried treasure, and they found it! Ask them to make the treasure they found using any materials they want to from the art area.

Behavior Observed

The child will combine a variety of materials in unusual ways to create treasure.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage parents to have an easily cleaned art area or place for art materials to be kept. When children are “bored” suggest a special project for them to create (e.g. a gift, a prop for their dramatic play area, a piece of art to be in the “temporary exhibit” in the living room, etc.)

 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/.