North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Health and Physical Development (HPD)

Subdomain: Self-Care

Goal: Children develop independence in caring for themselves and their environment.

Skill Progression: Eating/drinking

Age: 42-48 Months

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

Eats well with fork and spoon

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child during snack or lunch.

Elicitation Strategy

Provide forks and spoons for different types of foods.

Behavior Observed

The child selects and uses the right utensil for most foods, though she may try to eat everything with the same tool.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Provide opportunities for children to carry and manipulate heavier objects. For example, they can carry books to the literacy center and put them away, carry snack to the table on trays, clear centers with the early childhood educator, etc. Carrying and manipulating objects of different weights helps children develop skills necessary for eating, serving, passing food, and clearing the table.

 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/.