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: 18-21 Months

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

Tries to kick a ball but may miss or kick a side of the ball

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child in ball play with an adult or sibling. Have a box or other container to aim a medium-sized ball at.

Elicitation Strategy

Slowly kick the ball to the child and say, “Kick it back to me.”

Behavior Observed

He tries kicking a slowly moving ball, but may not be accurate.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Ball play is a good way to practice sharing and taking turns, as well as build upper and lower body coordination. Encourage early childhood educators and parents to play throwing and kicking games with the child and siblings or peers.

 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/.