Content Area IIB: Promoting Physical Development

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Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5

Level 1

• Actively participates in children’s activities.
• Interacts appropriately with children during physical activities.
• Spends time with children in “floor time” activities.

Level 2

• Acknowledges and supports children’s need to move and be active.
• Introduces sensory experiences to children (explorations of texture, color, sound, size, shape, smell, taste, weight, etc.).
• Uses a variety of equipment, activities, and opportunities to promote the physical development of children.

Level 3

• Provides space and equipment for formal and informal large motor activities that are fun and challenging.
• Provides safe structures and experiences for infants and toddlers to move and explore the environment, with special attention to their current developmental challenges, such as crawling, standing, walking, climbing, pushing, and pulling.
• Provides safe structures and experiences for young children to move and explore the environment, with special attention to their current developmental challenges, such as running, jumping, hopping, throwing, and catching.
• Provides adequate time and appropriate materials for small motor development (e.g., drawing, assembling puzzles, stringing beads, writing, etc.).
• Uses music, dance, and movement with children informally and frequently.
• Understands and implements frequent opportunities for movement and physical exercise as a way to reduce or prevent many of children’s health and behavioral issues.

Level 4

• Includes movement as a teaching strategy for a variety of skills (e.g., jump four times to teach the quantity of four).
• Plans activities that integrate physical development with the arts and all curriculum areas.
• Plans indoor and outdoor activities for both large and small motor skills.
• Adapts activities for children with special needs.
• Works with families to encourage and reinforce parent-child activities that involve physical activity and movement, both inside and outdoors, and in natural settings and parks when possible.

Level 5

• Explains how physical development and other areas of development interrelate.
• Understands and articulates concepts of sensory integration.
• Uses knowledge of kinesthetic learning styles when teaching others.