Creative Arts

By 9 months, most children:

• Show curiosity and explore sensory materials; enjoy feeling various pleasing sensations and textures
• Gaze at pictures, photographs, and mirror images
• Attend to bright and/or contrasting colors
• Respond to music and being sung to by listening and moving their heads, arms, and legs
• Imitate by babbling during or after an adult sings or chants
• Make eye contact with singers
• Move their bodies with some intent and control
• Engage in social play with adults
• Use objects as tools to make sounds, for example, banging blocks together with adult help

By 18 months, most children:

• Recognize and associate a certain song or sound with a particular meaning (e.g., hearing a nap-time song and thinking that it’s safe, secure, and time to nap)
• Use facial expressions, sound (e.g., vocalizations, clapping), and movement to encourage singers or music to continue
• Use sounds and their voice as they play or look at books with adults
• Make loud noises just for fun, such as screaming or yelling
• Make movements and sounds in response to cues in songs and finger plays
• Stand with feet wide apart and sways to the sound of music
• Use a variety of materials in exploring and creating visual art
• Create marks with crayons, paints, and chalk
• Enjoy producing music and other sounds with simple instruments (e.g., triangles, tambourines, etc.)
• Engage in more complex play sequences based on an understanding of everyday events and routines (e.g., pretending to drink from a cup and then saying “Ah!” when finished)

By 24 months, most children:

• Talk or sing to themselves for comfort or enjoyment
• Stop, turn their head to listen, and watch when music or other rhythmic sounds play on a TV
• Squeeze soft clay and dough into abstract shapes
• Repeat the same song over and over
• Dance alone or with others
• “Play” musical instruments (e.g., attempting to blow into a whistle or harmonica)
• Seek out imaginative play opportunities with trusted adults
• Explore roles through imaginative play, such as saying “boo” to an adult and acting scared when the adult says “boo” to them

By 36 months, most children:

• Demonstrate preferences for favorite colors
• Move their bodies with increasing skill to express emotions and rhythms
• Create representations of real objects in art work
• Create new songs and dances or add their own words to songs with support from adults
• Dance to music in a group with support from adults
• March with musical instruments with support from adults
• Imitate simple songs and finger-play movements
• Watch and copy other children’s play activities
• Use imaginative play as a vehicle to express their own life experiences and familiar stories
• Tell about their artistic creations

By 48 months, most children:

• Express preferences for some different types of art, music, and drama
• Enjoy and engage with displays of visual art and experiences with music and drama, inside or outside the classroom
• Notice and communicate about art, music, and drama
• Explore musical instruments and use them to produce rhythms and tones
• Mold and build with dough and clay and then identify and sometimes name their creation (e.g., “I made a dog and his name is Spot.”)
• Act out the plots and characters found in familiar stories
• Participate in pretend play with other children
• Choose their own art for display in the classroom or for inclusion in a portfolio or book and briefly explain their choice

By 60 months, most children:

• Apply vocal skills to instruments to produce more complex rhythms, tones, melodies, and songs
• Intentionally create content in a work of art (e.g., a picture, a play-dough sculpture, etc.)
• Write and act out stories based upon familiar topics or characters
• Enjoy and engage with displays of visual art, music, and drama and may express clear preferences for types of artwork or art activities.
• Plan art and show increasing care and persistence in completing it
• Choose own art for display in the classroom or for inclusion in a portfolio or book and explain their choices and preferences in some detail
• Communicate about elements appearing in art, music, and drama