Family and Community Guide for Preschool

Working Together: To support families, communities, and teachers in realizing the goals of the Colorado Academic Standards (CAS), this guide provides an overview of the learning expectations for preschool. This guide offers some learning experiences students may engage in at school that may also be supported at home.

Why Standards? Created by Coloradans for Colorado students, the Colorado Academic Standards provide a grade-by-grade road map to help ensure students are successful in college, careers, and life. The standards aim to improve what students learn and how they learn in 12 content areas while emphasizing critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, and communication as essential skills for life in the 21st century.

See all of the Family and Community Guides here.

• Comprehensive Health
• Computer Science
• Dance
• Drama and Theatre Arts

• Mathematics
• Music
• Physical Education
• Reading, Writing, and Communicating

• Science
• Social Studies
• Visual Art
• World Languages

Comprehensive Health (adopted 2018)

The comprehensive health standards in the elementary years focus on developing individual skills to enhance physical, emotional, and social wellness and using those individual skills in family, school, and community environments. In each grade, the standards ask students to investigate healthy eating and living habits, explore positive communication strategies, examine effective decision-making, and identify ways to ensure personal and community safety. 

Expectations for Preschool Students:

• Physical and Personal Wellness: Distinguish between healthy and unhealthy foods; develop self-management skills for personal hygiene.
• Social and Emotional Wellness: Develop healthy relationships and interactions with adults; develop self-concept, self-efficacy, and regulation skills; develop healthy expression of emotions.
• Prevention and Risk Management: Identify ways to be sage while at play; respect personal space and boundaries.

Throughout Preschool You May Find Students:

• Distinguishing foods on a continuum from most healthy to least healthy.
• Demonstrating the ability to identify and choose healthy food.
• Completing personal care tasks such as using clean tissues, washing hands, handling food hygienically, brushing teeth, and choosing appropriate clothing for the weather.
• Demonstrating socially appropriate behavior with peers and adults, such as helping, sharing, and taking turns.
• Resolving conflict with peers alone and/or with adult intervention as appropriate.
• Demonstrating age-appropriate independence in decision making regarding activities and materials.
• Expressing a range of emotions appropriately.
• Following basic safety rules in the classroom.
• Seeking help from a parent or trusted adult for help and support.

Computer Science (adopted 2018)

Computer science may be taught at all levels preschool through high school, but the State of Colorado only has standards for computer science in high school.

Read the high school computer science family and community guide.

Dance (adopted 2022)

The dance standards in the preschool or elementary years focus on general dance knowledge and skills. In each grade, students learn and perform dances, discuss and create dances, describe and critique dances, and give feedback about dances. 

Drama and Theatre Arts (adopted 2022)

The Drama and Theatre Arts standards in the preschool and elementary years focus on general theatrical knowledge and skills. Students learn acting techniques, create and perform scenes and plays, read plays, and discuss what they like about theatre. 

Mathematics (adopted 2018)

The mathematics standards in the elementary years focus on number and operations. Ideas from measurement and geometry help students learn about numbers and quantities. In each grade, students make sense of problems, explain their thinking, and describe their world with mathematics.  

Expectations for Preschool Students:

• Number and Quantity: Count verbally up to at least 20; answer "How many?" questions for 10 objects; associate a quantity with written numerals up to 5.
• Algebra and Functions: Understand addition as adding more to a group and subtraction as taking away from a group.
• Data, Statistics, and Probability: Use language like shortest, heavier, biggest, or later to compare quantities, sizes, and times; put up to five objects in order of their size.
• Geometry: Name circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles and describe them in terms of their number of sides, angles, or their relative size ("the square is bigger than the circle").

Throughout Preschool You May Find Students:

• Practicing counting out loud or answering questions like, "What comes after three?"
• Playing games that require counting the number of spaces to move on a game board.
• Comparing groups of objects by the relative number of pieces ("more" or "fewer") or comparing objects by their size ("bigger," "taller," "heavier," etc.).
• Answering simple word problems given verbally, like, "If you have three crackers and you eat one, how many crackers will you have left?"
• Sorting blocks, tiles, or other objects by their sizes and shapes.

Music (adopted 2022)

The music standards in the preschool and elementary years focus on general music knowledge and skills. In each grade, students perform a variety of music styles, identify and write music notation, practice musical creativity, and describe their own musical preferences. 

Physical Education (adopted 2018)

The physical education standards in the elementary years focus on enhancing movement concepts and skills, understanding basic health-related components and skill-related components of fitness and how it relates to personal fitness, demonstrating respect, and the ability to follow directions. In each grade, students demonstrate various movement concepts; assess personal behaviors; connect fitness development to body systems; demonstrate respect for self, others, and various physical activity environments; and utilize safety procedures during physical activities.  

Expectations for Preschool Students:

• Movement Competence and Understanding: Travel in a variety of directions using basic locomotor skills and demonstrate an understanding of personal and general space.
• Physical and Personal Wellness: Recognize the positive feelings experienced during an after physical activity.
• Social and Emotional Wellness: Demonstrate an understanding of positive social interaction with teachers and peers.
• Prevention and Risk Management: Understand basic safety rules and principles.

Throughout Preschool You May Find Students:

• Moving safely in a large group without bumping into others.
• Performing movements to the rhythm of music.
• Demonstrating the relationship of under, over, behind, next to, through, right, left, up, down, forward, backward, and in front of by using the body and an object.
• Participating in activities that increase the heart rate.
• Participating in activities that require stretching the muscles.
• Demonstrating listening to the teacher during group activities.
• Recognizing basic class rules and protocols.
• Following teacher directions for safe participation in physical activity.

Reading, Writing, and Communicating (adopted 2018)

The reading, writing, and communicating standards in preschool are aligned to the expectations within Colorado’s Early Learning and Development Guidelines and the latest revision of the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework. They outline development expectations and indicators of progress for preschool age students in receptive and expressive language; understanding and obtaining meaning from stories and information from books and other texts; phonological awareness; concepts of early decoding; names and sounds associated with alphabetic knowledge; emerging skills to communicate through written representations, symbols, and letters; and asking a question to identify and define a problem and its possible solution.  

Expectations for Preschool Students:

• Oral Expression and Listening: Attend to language during conversations, songs, stories or other learning experiences; comprehend complex and varied vocabulary; follow two- to three-step directions; participate in conversations of more than three exchanges with peers and adults; use language to express ideas and needs; understand the difference between a question and a statement; practice asking questions and making statements; and, speak in sentences of five or six words.
• Reading for All Purposes: Show interest in shared reading experiences and looking at books independently; recognize how books are read, such as front-to-back and one page at a time, and recognize basic characteristics such as title, author, and illustrator; identify and discriminate between words in language, separate syllables in words, and sounds and phonemes in language, such as attention to beginning and ending sounds of words and recognition that different words begin or end with the same sound; and, recognize patterns of sounds in songs, storytelling, and poetry through interactions and meaningful experiences.
• Writing and Composition: Experiment with writing tools and materials; recognize that writing is a way of communicating for a variety of purposes, such as giving information, sharing stories, or giving an opinion; use scribbles, shapes, pictures, and letters to represent objects, stories, experiences, or ideas; and, copy, trace, or independently write letters or words.
• Research Inquiry and Design: Differentiate between questions and statements; and, Identify problems and search for solutions by asking questions during collaborative explorations of the topic; begin to state facts about the topic.

Throughout Preschool You May Find Students:

• Demonstrating interest in different kinds of literature, such as fiction and nonfiction books and poetry, on a range of topics;
• Making predictions based on illustrations and beginning to identify key features of reality versus fantasy in stories, pictures, and events
• Retelling stories or information from books through conversation, artistic work, creative movement, or drama.
• Asking and answering questions and make comments about print materials.

Science (adopted 2018)

At an early age, all children have the capacity and the natural desire to observe, explore, and discover the world around them (NRC, 2012). The three-dimensional Colorado science standards lay a strong foundation for Colorado students to work and think like scientists and engineers. Across all grades, students explore the disciplinary core ideas in Physical, Life, and Earth and Space sciences by engaging with phenomena in the world around us. Learners in preschool start developing and asking testable questions, collect and analyze different types of evidence, and write and communicate their understanding. We also see strong connections to skills students will use to be successful with literacy and mathematics. Mastery of these standards will result in young learners who have a deep understanding of how scientific knowledge can provide solutions to practical problems we see in our world.  

Expectations for Preschool Students:

• Physical Science: Make observations and describe properties of materials. Recognize the cause and effect relationships between matter and energy.
• Life Science: Recognize that all living things have unique characteristics and basic needs and that living things develop in predictable patterns.
• Earth Science: Learn about the world around them by observing patterns related to changes in weather, seasons, and day and night. Explore natural objects, like rocks, soil, and sand and their different uses.

Throughout Preschool You May Find Students:

• Investigating different types of energy by exploring shadows and light, observing the sounds different musical instruments make.
• Discovering what makes an object move faster or slower.
• Looking at patterns in the weather, and keeping track of how the weather changes from day to day.
• Observing and engaging with live animals and plants and toys/stuffed animals and discuss the difference between living and nonliving things.
• Making observations about animals and plants they might see in their local environment.
• Using their senses and simple tools to explore natural materials.
• Making observations about daily weather conditions.

Social Studies (adopted 2022)

The social studies standards in the elementary years begin with individuals and families and move from there to explorations of neighborhoods, communities, the state of Colorado, and the United States. In each grade, students investigate historical events, examine geographic features and resources, consider economic decision-making processes, and define civic roles and responsibilities.  

Visual Arts (adopted 2022)

The visual arts standards in preschool focus on exploration in art making and with art materials to develop a foundation for visual art. In preschool, students identify art in their daily surroundings, experience that art can be used to represent things and ideas, explore art making processes, and begin to see art and the work of artists as a part of their community. 

World Languages (adopted 2018)

The world language standards are organized in language proficiency range levels. Language proficiency refers to the degree of skill with which a person can use a language to understand, speak, read, write, and listen in real-life situations. Colorado’s standards provide guidance for the introduction of a new language (novice-low) through the minimum proficiency range deemed postsecondary and workforce ready (advanced-low). Progression through levels of proficiency is influenced by program design such as grade levels, competency-based programs, time for language instruction and immersion programs. Language programs in many schools districts have multiple entry points. Both the length and the type of program design impact both language acquisition and proficiency level for students.  

Expectations for Preschool Students:

• Understand and answer a few simple questions on very familiar topics using practiced or memorized words in the Interpersonal Mode.
• Understand the general topic in a very familiar context by recognizing practiced or memorized words in texts that are spoken, written, and supported by visuals in the Interpretive Mode.
• Name very familiar people, places, and objects using practiced or memorized words, phrases, and with the help of visuals in the Presentational Mode.

Throughout Preschool You May Find Students:

• Recognizing greeting, farewells, and other expressions of courtesy.
• Following routine oral instructions and direction by responding appropriately.
• Listening attentively and responding with words or appropriate gestures to songs, poems, and short stories. 
• Responding nonverbally to oral directions and routine requests in the classroom and public places.
• Reproducing short memorized responses for classroom activities and beyond.