2 - 4 Years SEL

Your three-year-old will always be your baby, but they’re learning and growing by leaps and bounds, and there’s so much you can do to help nurture their natural development! While children develop at their rate and mastering things a bit earlier or later than others is common, below is a list of social-emotional, language, cognitive, and physical milestones many kids achieve by the time they turn four (and, hence, the things they’re working on when they’re three).

Social-Emotional Skills

Your little love bug is starting to become less self-centered and more aware of the people around them, showing affection, concern, empathy, and a range of other emotions. As their sense of self and self-confidence grows, they may be becoming more independent. By the time they turn four, they may also be able to:

• Mimic you, other family members, and friends
• Take turns when playing games or using toys
• Make eye contact when communicating
• Play on their own for 10+ minutes
• Begin to separate more easily from parents or caregivers
• Recognize and name different feelings, such as happiness, silliness, sadness, and fear

Language Skills

Being able to communicate verbally with your child is an exciting milestone! With a vocabulary hovering between 250-500 words and blossoming grammatical skills, you (and those around you) should be able to understand about 75% of what your three-year-old is telling you. By the time they turn four, your child may also be able to:

• Follow instructions with two or three steps, such as “Please get your shoes and meet me at the front door.”
• Name several colors and basic shapes, including circles, squares, and rectangles.
• Recognize several letters
• Use pronouns (such as it, me, my, you, your, she, he, and we), the past tense, and plural words
• Speak in full sentences of 4-6 words and carry on a conversation using 2-3 sentences at a time
• Tell stories (they may be silly!)

Cognitive Skills

It’s tough to say who feels prouder when a child masters a new skill – the child or the parent! Three-year-old minds are working overtime, observing, practicing, and conquering all kinds of amazing feats. By the time they turn four, many three-year-olds can:

• Engage in imaginative pretend play
• Complete a 3-to-4 piece puzzle
• Build a tower of 6 blocks or more
• Draw a line and circle and begin to draw people (they will probably look more like tadpoles)
• Count to three and begin to recognize quantities, such as one cookie, two cookies, or three cookies
• Sort and match items that are the same or different and compare items by size or color

Physical Skills

If only we could bottle the energy of a three-year-old – it seems they’re always ready to hit the park or playground, race to the corner, or jump off a step. By the time they turn four, many three-year-olds are also able to:

• Pedal a tricycle
• Kick, throw, and catch a ball
• Hop on one foot
• Balance on one foot for 5+ seconds
• Hold a pencil using a tripod (3 fingers) or quadrupod (4 fingers) grip

As we said above, children develop at their own pace, mastering some skills quickly and requiring more practice with others. The more practice they get – and the more support they feel from you – the more confident they will feel as they learn and grow. If you’d like to track your child’s milestones by age, consider downloading the CDC’s mobile milestone app!

Four-year-olds are so much fun! Becoming more independent by the minute, fours are generally super social and extra energetic. They’ll probably begin to push the boundaries a bit this year, though, and will likely give up on napping (sorry, Mom). They’ll also benefit from time away from parents and caregivers as they prepare to enter Kindergarten next year. Below is a list of other social-emotional, language, cognitive, and physical skills you may see emerge this year (but remember, kids progress at their speeds and may pick up these skills earlier or later!):

Social-Emotional Skills

Your baby is officially a preschooler now, learning to identify and express their emotions appropriately, with words rather than emotions. Other exciting social, emotional skills your four-year-old will likely learn this year include:

• Approaching new experiences with excitement
• Preferring playing with friends than alone (and can take turns and cooperate most of the time)
• Sharing information about things they’re interested in
• Role-playing mom or dad during pretend playtime
• Clearly expressing a thought or idea

Language Skills

Look out! With an average vocabulary of up to 1,600 words, your four-year-old has plenty to say! Fours are becoming much more communicative, using longer, clearer sentences, singing songs, playing word games, even reciting short poems! Here are some other language skills your four-year-old may acquire this year:

• Speaking fluently and enough to be understood by strangers
• Telling a story about something that happened to them
• Singing a simple song from memory… Oh, the wheels on the bus go…
• Answering questions beginning with who, what, where, when, why, how many…
• Playing simply rhyming games (cluck says the duck!)

Cognitive Skills

Fours are building the foundation for future learning, practicing shapes, letters, numbers, counting, and attempting to write and draw. By the time most kids start Kindergarten (usually around age five), they’ll:

• Know their full name and maybe their phone number
• Recognize letters, numbers, and signs
• Count 10 or more objects
• Draw a person with 4-6 body parts (head with mouth and eyes, body with arms and legs)
• Understand comparative terms like big/small, short/tall, same/different, empty/full, etc.

Physical Skills

It may feel like your four-year-old is in constant motion, running, jumping, climbing, hopping, and hiding all day long. In addition to honing their gross motor skills, this year, they’ll also be refining key fine motor movements that allow them to dress and feed themselves (hooray). Other physical skills your little one will be working on this year include:

• Buttoning and unbuttoning their clothing
• Using childsafe scissors
• Running faster and climbing higher than they did at three
• Balancing on one foot for 3 seconds
• Walking a “tightrope”
• Climbing stairs with no support

Remember that kids develop at different speeds, so don’t worry if it’s taking your little one a little longer to master any of the skills above. You can support their development by practicing these things at home, in a fun way – and you can track your child’s milestones by age with the CDC’s mobile milestone app!

Play your way to school-ready toddler skills with these fun, quick activities! This set's hands-on activities help kids learn and retain lessons in counting, color recognition, and early letter skills through fun, active play. Plus, the built-in carrying case lets you take the learning on the go! Learn more about Skill Builders! Toddler Skills. 

Grab your Big Feelings Pineapple and color your very own winter wonderland! 

Print the Activity!

Learning Resources® has a new pretend food playset, and it sure is a good one! My kids have always enjoyed the imaginative food-based play, and one of their favorite weekend treats is a trip to the diner. Therefore, it was no surprise that the Rise & Shine Diner Set was a huge hit and led to over an hour of role-playing the first time we used it.

What's Included?

I have several of the Learning Resources pretend play food products, and they always get a lot of use both at home and in my preschool classroom. The quality is awesome, with each piece being well-designed and durable. The food pieces are also always pretty realistic, which my kids appreciate. In this particular set, you get an excellent range of food pieces and beverages, as well as some fun accessories. You get plates, bowls, cutlery, a frying pan, a spatula, and a menu. There is also a dry-erase activity placemat and order ticket, which helps to extend the play and learning. The ultimate surprise came when my little one flipped over the activity pad to discover that it doubled up as a pretend stovetop!

Exploring the Materials

It's always exciting when you first open up the box and tip out all of the contents. My four-year-old was listing off all of the food items she could see, as well as getting very excited about the frying pan and maple syrup bottle. Of course, she needed to give that maple syrup bottle a good squirt into her mouth straight away to get an energy boost! She explored all of the items, sorted them on the plates, and set up her little diner space, ready to open for business.

Placemat Activity Fun

Before the diner could open, though, she needed a little time because she loved that the placemat had activities on it, and she couldn't wait to do them. This was just like the placemat she gets given at our local diner, so she was super excited! She used a dry-erase marker to complete the maze, play a tic-tac-toe game, and do the dot-to-dot fruit drawings. I love that she was engaged in a mark-making activity even though the product is more of a pretend play toy. So great for helping her fine motor skills!

Open for Business

It was finally time for the Rise and Shine Diner to open up for business officially. My preschooler had all of the produce ready, as well as the menu easily accessible. She was the perfect hostess and even put on a funny, deep voice as she showed me to my seat and gave me the menu. She used the order ticket to write down what I wanted (I helped her with the writing while telling me some of the numbers on the prices). I love that she was being exposed to so much numeracy and literacy without even realizing it!

It made me laugh that she took on her role as a waitress with such seriousness and maturity. She would tell me what was 'in season' and what she wouldn't recommend because it had gone moldy! I think secretly; she didn't want me having any of the 'good stuff' (i.e., the pancakes, waffles, and cinnamon bun were all out of service!).

Once she had the full order, she got to work serving up my yogurt and fruit. She then cooked my hot items using the frying pan and the stovetop. She had a whole explanation for why she had to cook my bagel in a frying pan. The toaster broke at her diner, and she hadn't made enough money to replace it with a new one… I think she was angling for a big tip! I was, however, in luck because she let me have a small drizzle of maple syrup on my eggs. She told me that it was the special of the day.

I love how this Learning Resources pretend play set brought out so many different play and learning elements. There was so much more happening than just making a pretend diner. There was numeracy, literacy, fine motor development, role play, problem-solving, imagination, collaboration, and even a healthy dose of fun! This set will most definitely be a feature in our playroom over the coming months. 

Writer's Bio

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind, and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind