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Activities for Ages and Stages of Child Development

2-year-olds

 

Gross Motor Skills

  • Throw, kick a ball without direction

  • Climb up, jump down, bounce 

  • Learn spatial awareness through obstacle courses experiencing over, under, through

  • Go down a slide

  • Beginning to use a scooter and be able to use a ride on toy

 

Fine Motor Skills

  • Stack, build towers 

  • Claps and opens a door

  • Developing pincer grip when playing with playdough, puzzles, can hold a pen or crayon when marking or painting

  • Turn pages

  • Use a spoon

  • Wash hands

  • Enjoy tactile play

  • Take out and put back in singular puzzle pieces

 

Speech and Language

  • Beginning to speak in short sentences saying the whole word

  • Can ask for help

  • Sing a song or nursery rhyme with an adult

  • Strangers can understand most of the child’s words

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Social and Emotional Skills

  • Watches, play alongside others

  • Enjoys acting out imaginary, family play, imitates adult behaviours in play

  • Building relationships with teachers

 

Comprehension Skills

  • Can match objects

  • Knows different animals

  • Parents read books to child, ask questions and helps them deciphering what is happening in the story.

  • Beginning to follow simple instructions

 

Self Help Skills

  • Beginning to learn how to blow nose

  • Put away toys

 

*We look forward to partnering with you as your child moves through these ages and stages. These are milestones. Spending time with your children at home you can play, model and encourage, give praise and affection at home to help build these skills and knowledge. Teachers can also add specific milestones into your child’s individual plans here at KidzWay.

3-year-olds

 

Gross Motor Skills

  • Dig, build, sort

  • Hop, ride a runner bike

  • Learning how to swing independently, putting legs up/down

  • Throw a ball with direction

  • Beginning to catch a ball

  • Learn directional language, e.g. can you put the ball in front, behind, under, above etc. of you

 

Fine Motor Skills

  • Begin to learn how to hold a pen correctly

  • Begin to draw shapes and correspond them to real life buildings, vehicles, etc.

  • Begin to cut, glue and position things on paper

  • Do puzzles that have 3-5 pieces

  • Be able to thread big beads

 

Speech and Language Skills

  • Talk in 4 or more worded sentences using clear sentence structure and joining words such as and, I, went

  • Be able to recall an event and talk about it

  • Learn about rhyming words

  • Beginning to hold reciprocal conversations

  • Uses pronouns e.g.: I, you, me, we, they

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Social and Emotional Skills

  • Beginning to make friendships

  • Ask and wait for a turn

  • Beginning to make friendships

  • Growing attention span. Can sit still at one activity for 5-10 mins or more

  • Can sit still and listen

  • Understand and follow simple rules and routines


Comprehension

  • Follow a set or 3 instructions

  • Play memory games

  • Spot the differences


Self Help Skills

  • Blow their own nose

  • Ask for help

  • Learning how to dress themselves

  • How to put shoes on

  • Look after belongings at day-care

  • Learning how to wipe their own bottom

4-year-olds

 

Gross Motor Skills

  • Swing independently

  • Walk on a line

  • Balance on one foot

  • Pushes, pulls, steers

  • Ride a bike

  • Can eye track eg follow a ball rolling along the ground

 

Fine Motor Skills

  • Draw objects using shape and size

  • Draw a person with most correct parts 

  • Be able to do puzzles with 10 or more pieces

  • Can hold a pen correctly

  • Cut and glue independently

  • Colour in staying mostly within the lines


Speech and Language Skills

  • Ask questions, reply to others questions

  • Be able to be understood by strangers

 

Social and Emotional Skills

  • Can ask, wait for a turn and think of others

  • Is helpful, kind and caring to others

  • Can concentrate on and finish an activity

  • Has good self-control. Can sit still and listen

  • Stays calm when things don’t go their way

 

Comprehension

  • Knows shapes and colours

  • Can count out loud from 1-10

  • Can retell a story

  • Can sort objects and categorise them into group eg all the cars go together, what animals live on a farm, what animals live in a zoo

  • Say alphabet out loud

  • Recognise name

 

Self Help Skills

  • Can independently toilet themselves

  • Can dress themselves

  • Can find and put their own shoes on

  • Can independently blow their nose

  • Looks after their belonging

  • Ask for help

  • Pack and unpack their own bag

 

Referencing: Poumahaka Kāhui Ako, Critical Capabilities and Gill Connell, Teacher Experience

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