BENCHMARKS

Social/Emotional Development

Sense of Self
  • Accepts change in daily schedule and routines
  • Regards parents and teachers as resources and positive role models
  • Identifies and labels own feelings
  • Physically or verbally asserts needs and desires
  • Completes a task of own choosing with adult assistance
  • Uses self-help skills with occasional reminders
  • Uses materials in appropriate ways
  • Participates in classroom activities with occasional reminders
  • Understands and follows classroom rules with occasional reminders
  • Follows classroom routines: sitting at snack time, cleaning up, lining up, sitting at circle time for 5 minutes or more
Responsibility for Self and Others 
  • Demonstrates self-direction and independence.
  • Takes responsibility for own well-being.
  • Respects and cares for classroom environment and materials.
  • Follows classroom routines.
  • Follows classroom rules.
Prosocial Behavior
  • Works/plays cooperatively with one other child
  • Begins to recognize that people may have different feelings about the same situation
  • Shares toys or allows another child to take a turn when asked
  • Accepts compromise when suggested by a peer or teacher

Language Development

Listening and Speaking
  • Plays with words, sounds and rhymes
  • Uses longer sentences (5-6 words) to communicate
  • Follows two-step directions
  • Begins to answer questions with a complete thought
  • Asks questions to further understanding
  • Responds to comments and questions from others
  • Can recite the ABC song
Reading and Writing
  • Begins to participate in story time interactively
  • Knows that print carries the message
  • Recognizes and names several letters
  • Comprehends and interprets meaning from books and other texts
  • Compares and predicts story events; acts out main events of a familiar story
  • Understands there is a way to write that conveys meaning
  • Writes some recognizable letters, especially those in his/her name
  • Recognizes their name and can name the first letter of it

Cognitive Development

Learning and Problem Solving
  • Notices and/or asks questions about similarities and differences
  • Begins to experiment with materials in new ways when the first way doesn't work
  • Sees simple tasks through to completion
  • Notices examples of cause and effect
  • Occasionally draws on everyday experiences and applies this knowledge to similar situations
Logical Thinking
  • Sorts objects by one property such as size, shape, color or purpose
  • Notices similarities and differences
  • Notices and recreates simple patterns with objects
  • Demonstrates understanding of the present and may refer to the past and future
  • Begins to understand and use positional words correctly
  • Places objects in one-to-one correspondence with another set up to 5
  • Recognize and name circle, square and triangle
  • Rote count to 10
Representation and Symbolic Thinking
  • Offers a play theme and scenario
  • Sometimes uses substitute objects or gestures to represent real objects
  • Draws or builds a construction that represents something specific

Physical Development

Gross Motor
  • Moves with direction and increasing coordination
  • Walks along wide beams such as the edge of the sandbox, stepping off occasionally
  • Climbs up and down stairs and ladders and around obstacles with minimal adult assistance
  • Throws, catches, and kicks with increasing control
Fine Motor
  • Manipulates smaller objects with increasing control
  • Performs simple manipulations with increasing control
  • Makes several basic strokes or figures; draws several recognizable objects
  • Stack 5 or more blocks
  • Uses scissors appropriately

Spiritual Development

  • Understands that God loves him/her
  • Knows that Jesus is an important person in the Bible
  • Is sorry and forgiving, even if unable to verbalize his/her feelings
  • Shows love towards family and close friends
  • Begins to sing parts of songs learned in chapel