North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

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

Subdomain: Construction of Knowledge: Thinking and Reasoning

Goal: Children use their senses to construct knowledge about the world around them

Skill Progression: Constructs knowledge

Age: 4-6 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 4-6 Months.

Uses fingers to explore and grasp

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child with small (but safe) objects, such as rattles, caregiver’s fingers, or other toys.

Elicitation Strategy

Place the object close to the palm side of the child’s hand.

Behavior Observed

Watch the child grasp the object and observe the movement of the child’s fingers. The child will explore the object visually, tactually, and aurally.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Explain to early childhood educators and parents that it is important for children to learn about their world through discovery. At this stage their eyes, ears and hands are their main ways of exploring. Encourage them to help children explore by letting them hold lightweight objects that fit into their hands.

 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/.