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: Spatial understanding

Age: 8-10 Months

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Aware of vertical space, drops things

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child in the high chair with the tray on and off.

Elicitation Strategy

While the infant is seated in a high chair, give the child a spoon or other object and watch what she does with it.

Behavior Observed

The child will bang the object for a while then drop it over the side and look to see where it went.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Tell early childhood educators and parents that playing games like peek-a-boo, hiding crackers in a fist or under a cup for the child to find are fun games that encourage children to be persistent toward a goal. Remind parents that although drop-and-pick-up can become tiresome for adults, it is a game that teaches children about distance and how the object changes appearance up close and far away.

 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/.