Babies’ early awareness of shape, space and measure grows from their sensory awareness and opportunities to observe objects and their movements, and to play and explore.
Recognises big things and small things in meaningful contexts.
Gets to know and enjoy daily routines, such as getting-up time, mealtimes, nappy time, and bedtime.
Attempts, sometimes successfully, to fit shapes into spaces on inset boards or jigsaw puzzles.
Uses blocks to create their own simple structures and arrangements.
Enjoys filling and emptying containers.
Associates a sequence of actions with daily routines.
Beginning to understand that things might happen ‘now’.
Notices simple shapes and patterns in pictures.
Beginning to categorise objects according to properties, such as shape or size.
Begins to use the language of size.
Understands some talk about immediate past and future, e.g. ‘before’, ‘later’ or ‘soon’.
Anticipates specific time-based events, such as mealtimes or home time.
Shows an interest in shape and space by playing with shapes or making arrangements with objects.
Shows awareness of similarities of shapes in the environment.
Uses positional language.
Shows interest in shape by sustained construction activity or by talking about shapes or arrangements.
Shows interest in shapes in the environment.
Uses shapes appropriately for tasks.
Beginning to talk about the shapes of everyday objects, e.g. ‘round’ and ‘tall’.