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 small muscle control and hand-eye coordination to manipulate objects and work with tools.

Skill Progression: Manipulation/Tool use

Age: 2-4 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 2-4 Months.

Opens and closes hand to “scratch” material or objects

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the infant lying on her back.

Elicitation Strategy

No elicitation needed.

Behavior Observed

The infant begins to open and close her hands as she explores the fabric under her palms.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Early childhood educators and parents can help infants begin to differentiate texture by letting them feel smooth, rough, bumpy etc. textures. Many toys and materials now purposefully incorporate different textures for infants to explore.

 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/.