When You’re 3, 4, 5!

For all children there are certain methods and facts about development that are important to keep in mind when we do any activities focused on learning and increasing school readiness. In this post we discuss some developmental changes that occur around the ages of 4 and 5. It is important to note that these posts are by no means comprehensive or applicable to every child. All children develop at different rates and have different talents and ability levels and it is perfectly okay if your child can or cannot do the things described below.

For children ages 4-5 it is important to keep paper and pencil and other kinds of formal tasks to a minimum. Children this age learn best through play, movement, and exploration of new ideas and experiences. This is why it is important to give them objects to manipulate and use to explore concepts.

At this age some concepts to start introducing and exploring with children are rote counting to 20 or higher, ideas of more v. less, more than, less than, same and different, smaller larger, bigger, smaller, big v. little and number recognition up to 20. One growth concept to explore with this age group would be skip counting by 10’s, 5’s or 2’s.