Because Kate will primarily be working with 3-4 year olds, here is a summary of what is happening in child development at this age.
Feelings At 3-4 children really start to understand that their body, mind and emotions are their own. They know the difference between feeling happy, sad, afraid or angry.
They become more confident and get better at handling their emotions. They like to show affection with people they know at this age too.
Playing and learning Play is super important and at this age, most children attend kinder. They are interested in making friends now and start to learn how to play better in small groups with other children. Sharing gets easier at this age.
Children become more imaginative during play. For example, they play pretend games with imaginary friends or toys, like having a tea party with toys or pretending to be a doctor. They might even have an imaginary friend.
Talking Children's talking develops a lot between 3 and 4 years old. They will learn lots of new words by listening to adults and also by listening to stories.
Thinking At 3-4 years of age, children ask "why?" a lot. When it comes to understanding, your child knows about opposites like big/small and more/less and concepts like ‘on’, ‘in’ and ‘under’. Children's memories start getting better at this age too and they might remember all the words to a song or a whole story and want to repeat it back to you.
Other development
At 3-4, children become more independent. For example, they can feed themselves, put on shoes that don’t have laces, undo buttons.
Children are probably toilet trained, and they might be able to do some daily hygiene tasks by themselves, like going to the toilet, wiping poo from their bottom and washing her hands and face. They might still need help and supervision with some tasks but it should be done respectfully.
Moving At this age, children love moving and being active. They are better at walking up steps, riding a tricycle, throwing, catching and kicking a ball, running, climbing, jumping, hopping and balancing on one foot.
At this age, a child might also:
unscrew a lid from a jar
know his own gender and age
know the names of some shapes and colours
hold a pencil and copy some letters by four years
dress and undress himself.
TASK: Click on this link to watch a video about how children develop at 3 - 4 years of age.
Answer these questions in your notebook or on the whiteboard. You might have to watch the video a few times:
Can you name 5 different kinds of play the children are doing in the video? eg: playing doctors
Why is it important to teach children to dress themselves? Can you write down two reasons.
What does cooking with a child help them learn?
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