Creative Arts: Preschool

Dance

Music

Dramatic Play

Visual Arts

Pre 3

Pre 4

Pre 3

Pre 4

Pre 3

Pre 4

Pre 3

Pre 4

Explores moving all body parts in isolation.

Moves one body part in response to a simple rhythm pattern.

Creates high, medium and low shapes. 

Listens to musical cues and teacher instruction. 

Explores one body part in conjunction with other body parts, balances on one foot.  

Dances to music with varying tempos. 

Creates movement based on imagery from pictures, books or other ideas. 

Demonstrates the ability to listen and carry out instruction. 

Repeats sound and rhythm patterns.

Sings familiar, simple songs.

Repeats song patterns and rhythmic movements to music. 

Demonstrates understanding of concepts using vocal and physical movement and instruments, e.g., soft/ loud, high/low, fast/slow.

Participates in more complex songs (songs with numbers, physical movements, musical games, etc.).

Demonstrates movement without prompting (e.g., march, hop, tiptoe, skip).

Creates own songs and movements, including musical instruments.

Retells nursery rhymes and sings simple songs.

Begins to differentiate between real and pretend.

Follows simple instructions to recreate story and dramatic movement.

Takes a role in acting out a story.

Anticipates story plot and structure of story.

Creates a story and assigns roles for self and others.

Begins to use scissors. 

Uses materials to build and create a threedimensional structure to represent another item (blocks become a castle, clay becomes a snake).

Creates work that requires some planning.

Mixes colors to create a new color.

Uses a variety of materials and tools to create art.

Begins to create drawings that are better defined, more detailed and more realistic.

Demonstrates understanding of art vocabulary and concepts.

Discusses own artistic creations and those of others.

Explores cross-lateral movements.

Demonstrates the difference between still and moving. 

Moves over, under and around objects. 

Explores and creates patterns.

Combines axial and locomotor movements together. 

Dances with purpose attentive to music and instruction.

Skips, slides, leaps.

Creates simple rhythm patterns and is able to repeat them.  

Moves through combinations of pathways, straight, zigzag, diagonal and curve. 

Expands movement vocabulary by exploring words (e.g., suspend, swing, point, burst, float, droop, carve, creep, open and close). 

Demonstrates the ability to create movement and discovery and maintain spatial awareness.

Participates in songs, stories, fingerplays, chants with voice and body together.

Begins to change voice, emotion and body in play situations.

Uses costumes to become a character in everyday environment.

Uses props/ objects in creative ways to promote and create a story.

Creates dialogue specific to a type of character.

Participates with others in listening and responding in dramatic role.

Acts out feelings with body and voice in dramatic play situations.

Repeats dialogue and movement to tell a story.

Creates and executes complicated plot with conflict and resolution.

Creates unique characters using imagination.

Creates visual art with various materials; begins to use color, lines and shapes to communicate meaning.

Works independently to create art. 

Identifies shapes in art.