Research studies have shown that the most important developments that kids go through will happen before they are 5 years old. Major developments occur for preschool children in five different categories. There is physical, mental, language, social, and emotional development. Preschool children should be exposed to, and engaged in high quality pre school activities for children to help foster their development.
Physical development refers to what children can physically do. Preschool aged kids will develop gross motor skills in areas like running, jumping, climbing, and balancing. They will also develop fine motor skills, like being able to pick up small objects, cutting a straight line. They will probably like to play outside, and will like to build things. Engaging in pre school activities for kids like ball games with simple rules will help the physical development of preschool kids.
Major mental developments occur during preschool years. Preschool age children will become more familiar with shapes, and primary colors. They will be able to recognize numbers and letters, and will become interested in matching, sorting, and puzzles. Kids this age will like to play pretend. Pre school activities focusing on nature, science, animals, and how things work will greatly interest preschool kids.
Alphabet and number recognition is an important development for preschool kids
Preschool kids begin to develop greatly in their use of language and vocabulary. Already by the age of three children will be able to tell simple stories, including past events. They will be able to understand who, what, where, and why questions, and will be able to create long sentences of 5 or more words. Pre school activities that focus on rhyming will also help develop their language skills. By four kids will be able to follow directions. Their stories will become more developed with a beginning, middle, and end. They will also become better at problem solving, and will begin speaking with adult-type grammar.
Social development is a major aspect of development for preschool kids. The ability to play and cooperative with other kids makes very big strides during the preschool years. Pre school activities should not emphasize too much competitive play, since preschool kids do not like to lose, but at this age they will be learning how to share, take turns, and will be learning about fair play. Just as preschool age children like playing pretend individually they will also enjoy playing pretend in a group. Gender role differences in play will also become more apparent for preschool age kids.
Emotional development is the final aspect of childhood development, and children make many changes in this regard. At three years old kids have low emotional impulse control, but this becomes more refined by the time they are four. Preschool children may resort to physical outbursts like hitting, when they are upset so it important to use pre school activities that help demonstrates better way for them to demonstrate their emotions. Eventually they will become much better at expressing their emotions with words rather than with physical outbursts. Empathy become much more apparent with preschool kids, and a sense of humor will likely begin to develop.
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