North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

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

Subdomain: Scientific Exploration and Knowledge

Goal: Children observe and describe characteristics of living things and the physical world

Skill Progression: Observe and describe characteristics of living things and the physical world

Age: 48-54 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 48-54 Months.

Understands the differences between habitats for people and animals

Situations for Observation of Skill

Go to the park or on a nature walk.

Elicitation Strategy

Talk about habitats and ask how the home of a bird or squirrel is different from a person’s home. How do different animals homes vary?

Behavior Observed

The child provides detailed information about the habitats of common animals, and may generalize to other similar animals.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Early childhood educators and parents need to talk about and describe things they see in nature. Discuss how things are alike or different (alive, not alive, live in a nest, live underground, etc.) Discuss why various animals live in different environments and need different habitats.

 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/.