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: Recognizes geometric shapes

Age: 18-21 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 18-21 Months.

With prompting and guidance, begins to slide, rotate, and flip objects to make them fit

Situations for Observation of Skill

During playtime provide puzzles or toys that require fitting something in, such as a shape box.

Elicitation Strategy

Observe as the child tries to put pieces in the puzzle or toy.

Behavior Observed

The child manipulates the pieces, changing the orientation when they don’t fit.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Children learn many things from puzzles and similar toys, such as construction materials of different types. Help parents understand that these types of toys teach about size, shape, spatial configuration, and problem solving. Encourage them to play with the child so they can point out various aspects to the child. They should give clues, but not solve it for the child.

 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/.