North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

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

Subdomain: Mathematical Thinking and Expression

Goal: Children identify and use common shapes and concepts about position during play and other activities.

Skill Progression: Composes geometric shapes

Age: 15-18 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 15-18 Months.

Puts together a simple inset puzzle when pieces show whole objects beneath the piece (banana, orange, etc.)

Situations for Observation of Skill

Present a simple puzzle of foods, or similar simple shapes.

Elicitation Strategy

If facilitation is needed, pick up a piece and add it to the puzzle. Then pick up another piece and hand it to the child.

Behavior Observed

The child will be able to place pieces in the puzzle that match the pictures below. The child is seeing how various parts match by looking at the shapes.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Children learn first to match various shapes before they learn to compose shapes. Puzzles are great for matching shapes, color, sizes, etc. Encourage parents to buy puzzles of varying levels.

 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/.