North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

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

Subdomain: Creative Expression

Goal: Children demonstrate appreciation for different forms of artistic expressions.

Skill Progression: Art

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List of Skills by Age

1-2 Months

Attends to contours and contrasts

2-4 Months

Sees color

4-6 Months

Attends to internal aspects, not just contours

6-8 Months

Inspects objects for a long time

8-10 Months

Watches others draw

10-12 Months

Looks at pictures for up to 1 minute

12-15 Months

Sustains interest in pictures for 2 to 5 minutes

15-18 Months

Pays attention to details of objects and people

18-21 Months

Moves, shifts, and combines objects in different ways

21-24 Months

Prefers using a tool with materials like play dough

24-27 Months

Experiments with materials, objects, and instruments

27-30 Months

Attends to more than one characteristic of objects at a time (visual and sensory)

30-33 Months

Tells adults what to draw

33-36 Months

Remembers and looks for specific photos or illustrations in books (i.e. favorite pictures)

36-42 Months

Recognizes emotions in pictures

42-48 Months

Examines non-realistic art and envisions what it could represent

48-54 Months

Examines different types of art and explains why she likes or dislikes it

54-60 Months

Examines art and sees similarities and differences across artists

 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/.