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: Drawing

Age: 30-33 Months

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Reports drawings represent familiar things

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child with markers and paper next to an adult with paper and a marker.

Elicitation Strategy

The adult models drawing a circle and says, “I’m drawing a round sun. Can you draw something round?” “What else can you draw on your picture?”

Behavior Observed

The child imitates the adult’s circle. The child copies a circle and makes connected straight lines and loops. The child reports that some of his marks represent real things.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

The child’s movements are becoming more precise, and scribbling can be writing or drawing. Encourage parents to provide time and opportunities for children to draw every day. They can use paintbrushes and watercolors, sidewalk chalk, or magic writing boards, as well as crayons and markers.

 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/.