PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Explore cause-and-effect relationships (rolling two different cars down a ramp and observing the different distances traveled).
• Recognize and labels aspects of an event (long, fun).
• Compare experiences, with adult assistance (recalls and compares play times with different children).
• Use comparative words (“Now the music is faster.” “The soup is hotter than the juice.”).
• Solve simple problems without trying every possibility (putting big blocks at the base of a tower and smaller blocks on top to make a tower that doesn’t topple).
• Use previous experiences to make plans
  before attempting to solve some problems (using a wagon to gather toys into one spot rather than trying to carry them all by hand).
• Explain reasoning behind a strategy or choice and why it did or didn’t work.
• Try out different solutions to problems (trying to staple pieces of paper after unsuccessfully trying to tape them together).
• Remember past experiences in the correct order and includes relevant details. (“How did the peddler feel when the monkeys didn’t give him back his caps?”).

YOU CAN

• Offer activities that demonstrate cause and effect (cooking projects, planting seeds to watch them grow).
• Talk to child about local issues such as littering in a way that explores cause and effect.
• Engage child in activities and interactions that notice similarities and differences in the environment.
• Engage child in role-playing activities that assume others’ perspectives.
• Read or tells stories to child and then talks about the characters’ similarities and differences.
• Use open-ended questions with child (“What if ...”, “What do you think ...?”, “How do you think that ...?”).
• Engage child in “remember when ...” games and discussions.
• Talk to child about activities that recall past events and relates what he/she learned from it (“It’s cold today. Remember how you wanted a hat yesterday?”).
• Engage child in generalizing by asking open-ended questions (“Where else would this work?” “What if ...?”).
• Engage child in cause-and-effect activities (freezing water with objects in it and then timing the melting).
• Provide child with a variety of materials that affect each other differently (different colors of paint, water and flour).
• Describe steps for an outcome (explore together the steps needed to cook a meal).
• Discuss pros and cons for making decisions.
• Pose simple challenges with open-ended solutions (“Let’s build a play house using only the objects we can see in this room.”).
• Explore questions and guides child toward solutions (do you remember where we put that puzzle yesterday when we cleaned up?”).
• Invite child to expand on what he/she meant by a certain response (“Tell me more about why you said that.”).
• Engage child in discussing what he/she thinks another child meant by a given response (“Why do you think Josie did that?”).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Find their own solution or agree to try someone else’s idea for a problem (accepting a suggestion to secure a tower’s greater stability by building it on a wood floor rather than on a thick rug).
• Successfully follow three-step directions. Retells a familiar story in the proper sequence, including such details as characters, phrases, and events.
• Follow detailed, multi-step directions.

YOU CAN

• Assist child with challenges, questions, and tasks to solve (“I have too much mail to carry. How should we get this to the car?”).
• Apply problem solving to social problems. (“Enrique and you both want to paint at the easel. What can we do so that YOU CAN share the easel and paint together?”).
• Give children solvable problems (“You and Annabelle both want spaghetti for lunch, but Henry wants a sandwich. What should we do?”).
• Present the pros and cons of different solutions, encouraging children to help identify the best solution.

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Provide more complex description of a person or object that is not present (the dog is black, soft, and runs around; child gestures to show how big).
• Use symbols or pictures as representation for talking.
• Use objects to represent real items in make-believe play (card becomes camera).
• Recognize objects, places, and ideas by symbols (recognizes which is the men’s or women’s restroom by looking at the doors).
• Use physical objects to demonstrate vocabulary (creates two piles of blocks, one with “more” blocks, one with “less”).
• Represent simple objects through drawings, movement, mime, three-dimensional constructions.

YOU CAN

• Engage child in symbolic play (uses a block as a phone).
• Encourage child to draw pictures of feelings, people, animals, and objects.
• Tell stories without pictures and encourages child to visualize and express what he/she sees.
• Identify and point out symbols during daily activities, demonstrating and explaining what symbols refer to; including the teaching of letters, numerals, and signs (stop signs, school bus letters).
• Help child create symbols for familiar objects (“What would a symbol for your bed look like?”).
• Engage child in culturally specific activities (storytelling, oral history, dance, song).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Take on pretend roles and situations, using the appropriate language, tone, and movements (pretends to be a baby, crawling on the floor and making baby sounds).
• Engage in complex make-believe play, theme-oriented play that involves multiple characters and settings).
• Make connections between characters in books, stories, or movies, with people in real life.
• Question the reality of characters in books, family and traditional oral stories. Explain if a story is real or make-believe when prompted.
• Understand and express when fantasy is influencing actions (“I was just pretending to do that.”).
• Recognize that some characters, places, and objects in stories, movies, television shows are not real.

YOU CAN

• Help child develop fantasy characters while helping them differentiate between make-believe and reality (“It’s fun to pretend to be a school bus driver, but when it’s lunch time, you have to be Janelle again.”).
• Help child distinguish among cartoons, puppets, characters in books and movies and real people.
• Use make believe with child (tell a story and ask child to help make up the ending).
• Help the child identify real characters, places, and objects in books, movies, and television shows, as well as family and traditional oral stories.

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Quickly count objects up to four.
• Use toys and other objects as tools to solve simple addition and subtraction problems when the total is smaller than five.
• Verbally count to 20 (or in some way indicate knowledge of the words for the numbers from 1 to 20 in sequence) with occasional errors.
• Count to 10 from memory.
• Understand that the last number counted represents the number of objects in a set.
• Recognize and write some numerals up to 10.
• Solve simple word problems with totals of five or fewer items (know they will have a total of four pencils if they already have three and are given one more).
• Continue to count when another item is added to a set. Quickly name the number in a group of objects, up to 10.
• Use counting to compare two sets of objects and to determine which set has more, less, or the same as the other.
• Understand that adding one or taking away one changes the number in a group of
  objects by exactly one.
• Use toys and other objects as tools to solve simple addition and subtraction problems with totals smaller than 10.
• Verbally count beyond 20, demonstrating an understanding of the number pattern.
• Use strategies to count large sets of objects (more than 10).
• Know the number that comes before or after a specified number (up to 20).
• Recognize and order each written numeral up to 10.
• Solve simple word problems with totals of 10 or fewer items (know they will have nine grapes if they have seven and are given two more).

YOU CAN

• Provide different objects for children to manipulate (e.g. buttons, stones, pine cones).
• Have children divide objects equally among a group of people by assigning one for each person in turn and checking that quantities are the same (each person gets five different color crayons).
• Pose math questions that apply to daily life (“How many days until we have school again?”).
• Play simple games with dice.
• Estimate how many objects you have or will see and then count out loud.
• Pose math questions that apply to daily life (“How many days until we have school again, or the next steam-bath or sauna.”).
• Ask simple math equations that are relevant to daily life (“How many jars of jam are left?”).
• Use numbers and counting day-to-day (plays grocery store, engages child in recording inventories of canned goods or fish).
• Have child divide objects equally among a group of people (each person gets three strips of dry fish or five different color crayons).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Compare two small sets of objects (five or fewer).
• Make small series of objects (putting three or four objects in order by length).
• Recognize differences in measuring (when trying to pour the same amount of juice into three cups, looks to see if one cup has more than the others).
• Use multiple copies of the same unit to measure (seeing how many pillows make up pillow fort wall).
• Use comparative language (“shortest,” “heavier,” “biggest”).
• Build block buildings and include such structural features as arches and ramps.
• Order four or more items by decreasing or increasing (arranging a rock collection from the largest to the smallest).
• Use correct tools to measure different items (choosing a scale for weight and a cup for volume).
• Use measurement language (“This is three blocks long.”).
• Correctly add an object to an existing series (put longest block at end of row of increasing lengths).

YOU CAN

• Show use of measuring tools and methods (“How many cups of milk do we need for everyone?”).
• Show children how to use non-standard measurements (handfuls to measure rice, footsteps to measure distance).
• Show children how to use measuring every day (measuring for cooking, laundry).
• Play measuring games with child (“Which is heavier?” “Which is longer?”).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Sort objects and then counts and compares them.
• Sort objects by one attribute into two or more groups (big, medium, and small).
• Classify everyday objects that go together (mittens, hats, coats).
• Copy, complete, and extend repeating patterns.
• Build block buildings and include such structural features as arches and ramps.
• Count only those objects in a group that have a specific attribute (all of the red cars in a picture).
• Place four or more objects or groups in order (number, length, etc.).
• Sort sets of objects by one characteristic, then sort by a different characteristic and explains the sorting rules (“These are all of the red ones, but these are all of the big ones.”).
• Replicate and extend simple patterns (adds yellow to patterns of different colored blocks).
• Combine shapes into patterns that make new shapes or complete puzzles (rearranging a collection of circles and variously sized rectangles to make the image of a person).
• Build complex block buildings, intentionally maintain such features as symmetry.
• Help child create his or her own patterns (“What would it look like if we sorted blocks by color?”).
• Suggest different rules for sorting (put a different color spoon with each plate).
• Offer art projects that use shapes (“You can draw a house by putting a triangle on top of a square.”, “You can draw a rectangle for the door.”).

YOU CAN

• Provide different objects to manipulate (buttons, stones, pine cones).
• Ask children to look for and describe patterns around them (different birds, different sizes of post office boxes).
• Allow children to arrange collections into groupings using different rules (color, size).
• Play classification games with child (gather a group of items to match, such as shoe/sock, flower/vase).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Identify and distinguish among senses (tastes, sounds, textures).
• Use non-standard tools (blocks, paper tubes) to explore the environment.
• Try new experiences provided by adults and describe observations (mixing soil and water to make mud).
• Seek information through observation, exploration, and conversations.
• Identify, describe, and compare objects.

YOU CAN

• Provide opportunities for child to share observations through pictures and words.
• Help child represent his/her observations using charts and graphs.
• Help child develop records of observations (drawings, objects, photos) from walks in the neighborhood.
• Encourage child to draw pictures of observations.

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Ask questions and finds answers through active exploration.
• Make predictions and develops generalizations based on past experiences.
• Use vocabulary that show recognition of changes (such as sink, float, melt, freeze).
• Communicate information learned from exploration of the natural world (“We picked lots of berries.” “The snow was cold and wet.”)
• Make reasonable explanations, without assistance.
• Describe and discuss predictions, explanations, and generalizations based on past experiences.

YOU CAN

• Help child find answers to “why” questions through conversation.
• Encourage children to predict natural events (growing seeds, caring for animals, charting weather).
• Invent and conducts simple experiments with child (which object will sink and which will float).
• Cook with child, demonstrating simple scientific principles (freeze, melt, liquid, solid).
• Help child experiment using everyday items (water and flour).
• Engage child in “if/then” questions (“If I keep pouring water into this cup, what will happen?”).
• Engage child in thinking about scientific processes (“How can we find out what kind of insects live in this dirt?”).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Identify things as living or non-living based on their characteristics (breathes, moves, grows).
• Describe characteristics of plants, animals, and people (“That tree grew really tall!”).
• Show understanding of changes in living things (plants, spider webs).
• Ask questions about growth and change in plants and animals.
• Investigate properties of rocks, dirt and water. Recognize and provide simple descriptions of the state of matter (“Water is wet.”).
• Make simple observations of the characteristics and movements of the sun, moon, stars, and clouds.
• Discuss changes in the weather and seasons, using common weather-related vocabulary (rainy, sunny, windy).

YOU CAN

• Discuss the environment with child.
• Help child develop a nature collection (leaves, shells).
• Go to museums or community events that focus on the natural world (traditional cultural festivals such as the Blanket Toss Festival, Bladder Festival, Dog Salmon Festival, Celebration, Stick Dance, Native Youth Olympics, visit a planetarium or aquarium, participate in an Earth Day event).
• Read stories to child about growth and change of living things.
• Have child tell a story or draw a picture about an animal or insect that changes (The Very Hungry Caterpillar).
• Plant seeds with child, nurture them together, and monitor the changes.

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• With support, retell or reenact familiar stories, including such details as characters, phrases, and events.
• Demonstrate an awareness of important activities that are “coming up” or “in the near future” (keeping track of the days until a birthday or vacation trip) as a strategy to control excitement.

YOU CAN

• Play with child with time-keeping materials (clocks, watches, timers, calendars).
• Talk to the child about what will happen in the future and what happened in the past (“What did you have for lunch today?”).
• Engage child and family members in activities and interactions about family and community history.
• Talk with child about a memory of a past activity from a family, community, or cultural event.
• Readsbooks with child from a variety of cultures that have historical content.
• Examine evidence of change over time in ways meaningful to the child (photographs of him/herself; marks on the wall that show growth height).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Make shapes from parts (using a set of circle, rectangle, and line shapes to create an image of a snowman).
• Combine and separate shapes to make designs or pictures (complete shape puzzles).
• Build simple examples of buildings, structures, or areas with three-dimensional shapes, such as building blocks.
• Name shapes (circle, triangle, square, rectangle), regardless of their size or orientation.
• Use basic language to describe location (“I am under the bed.).
• Correctly follow directions involving their own positions in space (“move forward,” “sit behind,” etc.).
• Link or sorts familiar shapes (circle, square, triangle) that have different sizes and orientation.

YOU CAN

• Play games with child that use position words (left, right, first, last, big, little, top, bottom).
• Use directional terms when traveling (“We will turn left at the next street.”).
• Take walking trips around the neighborhood and talk about geographic features and landmarks.
• Incorporate pictures or murals of mountains or other landmarks in child’s life (use laminating paper to secure pictures onto blocks for block play).
• Ask child to direct you when driving home from a familiar location.
• Help child create maps of routes in the home, playground for other familiar location.

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Match objects to their usual locations (stove in the kitchen, bed in the bedroom, tree in the park).
• Be aware of characteristics of own geographic region (“It rains/snow here a lot.”)
• Recognize where he/she is while traveling in familiar areas, most of the time.
• Begin to express and understand concepts and language of geography in the contexts of the classroom, home, and community.
• Describe some physical characteristics (bodies of water, mountains, weather) and some of the social characteristics of the corresponding communities (types of shelter, clothing, food, jobs).
• Help to navigate on journeys (“After you pass the blue house, our house is next.” “I live by the bus stop.”).

YOU CAN

• Explain and provide activities about where child has been on trips or other places he/she has lived or visited.
• Explain and show the use of maps and globes.
• Point out rivers and glaciers that shape the environment.
• Help child draw, build with blocks, and create models of real places.
• Help child make drawings or models of his/her village or neighborhood, house or school.
• Show child other places people live (books, magazines, documentary films).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Understand that money is needed to purchase goods and services.
• Play store or restaurant with play or real money, receipts, credit cards, telephones.
• Talk about what wants to be when he/she grows up.
• Realize that making one choice means that you may not be able to do something else.
• Recognize that people rely on others for goods and services
• Understand the concept of saving resources for use in the future.
• Accurately name some coins and paper cash (penny, nickel, dollar).
• Recognize some things are owned by people and other things are collective goods.

YOU CAN

• Play with child, “buying” things in dramatic play (grocery store, bank, post office, shoe store).
• Involve child when using real currency and coins in everyday situations.
• Describe how to use substitutes for money (checks, coupons, credit/debit cards, subsistence goods).
• Help child cooperate and share with others, to demonstrate the value of interdependence.
• Encourage trades (exchanges two crayons for a marker during art time).
• Discuss why people save items and resources for the future (child’s button blanket, piggy bank, dry fish, jam).
• Demonstrate and explais when appropriate that there are some things that no one owns and some things that everyone owns (sunshine, air, ocean, public property such as parks).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Show awareness of environment by noticing features of own home and other familiar places (recounts how water was flowing over the road on the way to store).
• Recognize things that do not belong in the environment (litter).
• Help protect equipment and materials from weather (helps cover outdoor furniture, sweeps leaves).
• Recognize, with adult support and guidance, how people can take care of the earth’s resources.
• Exhibit simple concepts of conservation (uses paper judiciously, does not waste water).
• Show interest in understanding how animals gather and store food, sleep, and live.

YOU CAN

• Have child help keep a room or space clean and tidy.
• Show child that using recycled material helps the environment.
• Discuss what it would be like if everyone threw their garbage on the ground instead of putting it in the trash.
• Read or tell ecology-related stories set in various cultural communities.
• Recycle with child; sort cans, bottles, and paper into the proper recycling containers where available.
• Take child to an outdoor recreation area (local pond or park) and talks about what is found, what belongs there, what has been left by people, and what to do about that behavior.
• Let child choose a regular chore to help clean up.
• Demonstrate and explain the use of a resource and its proper care (not wasting animals taken for subsistence, storage of heating fuel or gasoline).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Uses a telephone to talk to familiar people, with assistance.
• Identify some materials as natural or as human-made and explains how he/she knows the difference.
• Describe stories, images, or sounds experienced with technology (music on speaker, program on television, story heard on speaker).
• Use accurate vocabulary to identify technology (camera, computer, printer, television, phone).
• Identify ways in which technology helps people (“The wheelchair helps Alfonso get from one place to another. “ “Email or texting lets you communicate with your friend Opal, who lives far away.”).
• Identify alternate ways of doing things with and without technology (can use hands or dishwasher to clean dishes, can travel by foot or by car).
• Consider, with adult guidance, what it must have been like to live without technology in an earlier time.
• Use computer for simple ‘point and click’ operations on child-appropriate websites or software.

YOU CAN

• Provide child with a variety of natural materials (wood, cotton, fur, wool, stone, leather) and human-made materials (plastic, Styrofoam, paper) to learn their characteristics.
• Invent and construct simple objects or structures that can be used to assist in a task, (a stick with playdough on the tip used to pick up pieces of paper without stooping over).
• Actively participate with child when watching television or other screen.
• Show how to use technology responsibly (use the phone or computer to check the weather forecast).
• Talk about the values of Native technology as well as western technology (skin boats are lighter than boats made of aluminum or wood, dried fish does not have to be refrigerated).

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Create new songs and dances or adds their own words to songs.
• Express preferences for some different types of art, music, and drama.
• Explore musical instruments and uses them to produce rhythms and tones.
• Mold and build with dough and clay and then identifies and sometimes names their creation (“I make a dog and his name is Spot.”).
• Act out plots and characters found in familiar stories.
• Participate in pretend play with other children.
• Apply vocal skills to instruments to produce more complex rhythms, tones, melodies, and songs.
• Intentionally create content in a work of art (picture, a playdough sculpture, etc.).
• Write and act out stories based upon familiar topics or characters.

YOU CAN

• Point out various types of art and materials found in books, photographs, and on the computer or other technology.
• Engage child in daily creative art activities using a variety of materials (watercolors, collage materials, paints, paper, scissors, glue, crayons, etc.).
• Involve child in diverse musical activities (song, dance, rhythm, playing musical instruments) from his/her own and other cultural backgrounds.
• Encourage child to draw, paint, sing, or move the way he/she feels. Introduces child to more complex musical instruments (guitar, piano) and instruments from diverse cultures.
• Take child on trips to museums and community centers to view what
• other people have created, and to share ideas and feelings about art.

PRESCHOOLERS MAY

• Enjoy and engage with displays of art, music, and drama.
• Express clear preferences for types of artwork or art activities.
• Plan art and shows with increasing care and persistence in completing it.
• Choose own art for display in the classroom or for inclusion in a portfolio or book and explains their choices and preferences in some detail.
• Communicate about elements appearing in art, music and drama.

YOU CAN

• Attend live musical performances with child.
• Offer child puppetry, storytelling, dance, plays, pantomime, theater.
• Involve child in musical experiences that reflect diverse cultures (singing, dancing, listening, acting).
• Arrange for long-term art projects (mural, beading, music, dance, weaving, tile, carving, mask-making) with guest artists from child’s own and other cultural backgrounds.
• Display art projects completed by child as well as copies of classic art, if possible.
• Take child to music, dance, and theatre performances.
• Talk about feelings and opinions after seeing a performance or looking at art.
• Provide child with experiences of art forms and performing groups from their own and other cultural backgrounds.
• Take child on field trips to dance, musical and theatre events and performances (community programs, school performances, traditional cultural presentations).