North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

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

Subdomain: Motor Development

Goal: Children develop the large muscle control and abilities needed to move through and explore their environment.

Skill Progression: Ball skills

Age: 48-54 Months

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

Uses forward weight shift to throw ball further; throws with some directional accuracy

Situations for Observation of Skill

During play outdoors observe the children during ball play with a small basketball and hoop.

Elicitation Strategy

If children do not spontaneously play catch, encourage them to “pass” to their friends and take turns shooting.

Behavior Observed

Child sets dominant foot forward to shift weight as the ball is thrown, giving the ball more forward movement.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Have many balls available for children to share. Line up pairs of children 6 feet apart and give them balls to pass back and forth using different methods: two hands overhand and underhand, one hand overhand and underhand, bounce pass, and roll. Play group games involving passing a ball.

 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/.