Your Child’s Development 36-48 Months

Milestones: By 48 Months, Most Children Can:

• Catch a large ball.
• Serve themselves food or pour water with a grown-up watching them.
• Unbutton some buttons.
• Hold the crayon between your fingers and thumb (not a fist).

Physical Development: Your child will naturally learn new skills and likely move from one skill to the next without being “taught” how to do the next thing. By the time they are 48 months of age, your child has learned to do many physical tasks, including running, climbing, jumping, throwing, kicking, turning, carrying, and pedaling. Your child also has more control of their body, being able to climb stairs and walk in a straight line.

Body Awareness and Control:

• Your child can use one sense to predict what they would perceive with another, such as touching a soft teddy bear with their eyes closed and knowing it is a stuffed animal.

Muscle Development and Coordination:

• Your child can balance while standing on one foot as well as standing firmly when they come to a stop after running.
• With supervision, your child can balance while walking on the sandbox’s edge.
• They can walk up the stairs, one foot per step, without holding on to the railing or your hand for support.
• Your child will be able to gallop, a form of running that starts with the same foot every time, like a horse.
• They enjoy jumping up to touch things out of their reach.
• They can hop using both feet.
• They can jump like a frog from a squatting position.
• They can jump off a curb or a low climbing structure with both feet.
• Your child can hop forward on one foot.
• Your child will love to build, stack things and knock them down, and create houses, roads, buildings, bridges, and other structures they can use for pretend play. They will do this with almost anything they can find—cans and boxes from the cupboard, sticks and leaves from outside, small scraps of wood from the lumber store, several large cardboard boxes or sets of building blocks, or snap-together blocks.
• Your child will enjoy playing with other kids’ games like Duck, Duck Goose or Red Light, and Green Light.

Nutrition: 

• Your child will try new foods and may take a few tries before deciding if they like a new food.

Safety: 

• Your child will enjoy climbing on things. You will need to decide what is safe for your child to climb on and remind them to climb on those things when they start climbing on other things. You can also use mattresses, cushions, and low platforms for children to climb on and use in building forts. When your child begins to climb, it is important that you look around the area to see if it is a safe environment.
• Your child can identify safety signs in the community, such as a red cross for a hospital or a blue police light.

Self-care: 

• Your child may be able to identify the need to use the bathroom and let you know.

Milestones: By 18 Months, Most Children Can:

• Say sentences with four or more words.
• Say some words from a song, story, or nursery rhyme.
• Talk about at least one thing that happened during their day, such as “I played soccer.”
• Answer simple questions like “What is a coat for?” or “What is a crayon for?”

Communication: Your child can communicate their needs using sentences. They understand that there are different rules for communication in various settings, such as whispering in a library. They can retell parts of their day to you. They can ask and answer questions. They have conversations with their friends and with people outside of their family.

Expressive Communication/ Expressive Language:

• Your child can tell a story about their day, such as, “I went out on the playground, and it was so icy, and I fell, and I cried and cried, and my teacher helped me.”
• Your child will see other children’s body language and try to understand what they mean, such as understanding that a friend who has hands on their hips and is shaking their head does not want them to stop what they are doing.
• Your child will keep building their vocabulary, including more descriptive words.
• They can participate in conversations with others by giving responses that make sense for the topic being discussed.

Receptive Communication/Receptive Language:

• Your child will be aware when other people discuss things that have to do with them, such as shouting, “Don’t want to go to the doctor!” after overhearing you talk to a family member about how they are sick.
• Your child can understand most of what you say to them.
• Your child will like to learn big words like the names of particular trucks or dinosaurs.

Emergent Reading

• Your child may describe what’s happening in the pictures while turning the pages in a familiar book.
• Your child can ask and answer simple questions about a book when they are being read to.
• Your child can say what they like about a favorite book.
• Your child is learning that letters make words and that when different people read words, the words stay the same.
• Your child will pretend to read books, turn the pages, and “tell the story” either from their memory of the story or by talking about the pictures.
• Children are fascinated with anything written, such as signs, labels, notes, texts, and emails.
• Provide a variety of children’s books on a shelf or in a basket your child can reach.
• You can make regular trips to the library or bookstore to get books for your child.
• Your child may love to read the same book many times.
• Before turning the page, ask your child what he thinks will happen next.
• Before reading one of your child’s favorite books to him, ask if she wants to tell you the story first.
• Sometimes, when reading to your child, you can point to the words as you read them.
• Explain to your child what the words on the book’s cover are. “This is the title of the book. It gives you an idea of what the book is about.” “This is the author’s name. The author is the person who wrote the book. This is the illustrator’s name. He is the person who made the pictures for the book.”
• Talk to your child about letters and sounds. Point out the letters in particular words, like your child’s name. “Your name starts with an ‘”S,'” Sergio. Can you think of any other words that have that ‘”ssss'” sound? We can also look around for words that start with ‘”S.” We could make a list of all the words we hear, the ‘”ssss'” sound in.”
• Play with sounds and rhyming. You can help children hear and compare the sounds of the words using songs, poems, or other rhyming words.
• You can play rhyming games in the car. “The bear has black hair. Can you think of a word that sounds like ‘bear’ and ‘hair’?”
• Use your phone to record yourself reading books to children; they can listen when you are busy or waiting in the doctor’s office.

Writing: 

• Your child may begin to recognize their name and notice words that start with the same letter as their name.
• Your child may pretend to write letters and words before they know how to write actual letters.
• Your child is beginning to understand that people can use writing to give messages to other people.
• When your child draws something, they may also want to write letters on the paper. Their “letters” may not yet look fully like letters, but often, they are beginning to look more like writing than drawing.
• A child may make several wiggly lines across a page and say, “This is the story of the scary wolf.” Then, she might draw some circles at the bottom of the page and say, “And here is a picture of the wolf.” Writing and drawing together is a step towards learning to write words.
• Having ready access to various drawing and writing tools and paper encourages children to use these tools to express themselves and communicate.

Your child uses math reasoning to solve everyday problems. They use concepts like numbers, counting, shapes, and sizes to make decisions, like choosing the right size plate for their quesadilla, figuring out how many cars they need so each friend has one, or finding a blanket big enough to cover two babies. Younger children might start with ideas that don’t work, while older children try different strategies until they find one that does. The important part is that they practice, test, and adjust their ideas. These skills help them solve problems and develop other math abilities. Your child is a naturally curious observer and notices small things that many adults miss like the ants coming out of the crack in the sidewalk.

• When the car gets stuck on the ramp, a child might turn the car upside down and notice a broken wheel.
• A child might give his friend two flowers and keep two for himself so they both have the same number of flowers.
• After dropping different balls onto the floor, a child might listen to and compare the different sounds they make and indicate which ball makes a loud sound and which makes a soft sound.

Tips to promote cognitive skills:

• Children compare objects and events, noting similarities and differences. For example, they might sort rocks by size or describe the difference between the inside and outside of a watermelon.
• After dropping different balls onto the floor, a child might listen to and compare the sounds they make and indicate which ball makes a loud sound and which makes a soft sound.
• After dropping different balls onto the floor, a child might listen to and compare the sounds they make and indicate which ball makes a loud sound and which makes a soft sound.
• Suggest simple measuring tasks for your child. For example: “If we line up the cars, how many do you think we can fit on the edge of this table?”
• Try suggesting simple measuring tasks for your child. For example: “If we line up the cars, how many do you think we can fit on the edge of this table?”
• When you are outside or at the park, stop to look carefully at what is around you. Observe what your child is interested in and ask questions to encourage observation and reasoning. It might sound like this:
  • “Oh, you found a leaf. Where is another one that is the same as this one? Are there any leaves that are different?”
  • “See all the earthworms? We didn’t see them yesterday. Why do you think they came out today?”
• When you are grocery shopping, asking for your child’s help might sound like this:
  • “How many potatoes do you think will fit in this bag? Shall we count them?”
  • “We have five people in our family. Would you get an apple for each person?”
  • “We need 2 pounds of peaches. Watch the scale to see when the needle points to 2.”

Cognitive Numbers

Your child’s math skills continue to develop and become more sophisticated. Your child can count objects up to 10 or even higher and recognize written numbers at this age. For example, they might count the number of blocks they are playing with or identify numbers on a clock or in a book. They can also identify and name basic shapes like circles, squares, and triangles and start recognizing patterns, such as alternating colors or shapes in a sequence of beads or tiles.

Your child can compare sizes and understand concepts like “bigger,” “smaller,” “more,” and “less.” For instance, they might say, “This apple is bigger than that one,” or “I have more crayons than you.” They can also sort objects by different attributes such as color, size, or type, like sorting their toys into groups of cars, dolls, and blocks. They begin to understand the concept of quantity and can match numbers to quantities, such as accurately putting three apples in a basket when asked.

Additionally, your child might start to grasp basic addition and subtraction concepts through everyday activities. For example, if they have two cookies and you give them one more, they can tell you they now have three cookies. They may also begin to understand basic time concepts, such as “morning,” “afternoon,” and “night,” and the order of daily routines. Recognizing the days of the week and terms like “yesterday,” “today,” and “tomorrow” also start to make sense to them. By incorporating these concepts into everyday interactions and play, you can help reinforce your child’s growing math skills in a fun and engaging way.

Skills to promote cognitive number development:

• Involve your child in cooking by letting them count ingredients. For example, “Can you help me count three eggs?”
• Point to things as you count them so children can see how each number you say represents one object.
• Count out loud so your children can hear the sequence of numbers and notice how often you use counting in your day.

Asking questions helps with counting and basic math skills and encourages children to think about the reasons behind their actions and observations, promoting deeper critical thinking.

• “If we read two bedtime stories tonight and one more tomorrow, how many stories will we have read? What if we read two each night for a week?”
• “Can you count how many stuffed animals are on your bed? If we add two more, how many will there be?”
• “Let’s count how many toys we need to put away. One, two, three…”
• “Can you put all the blue blocks and red blocks in that bin?”
• While walking, ask, “How many dogs do you think we’ll see? Let’s count them together.”
• When cleaning up together, ask, “Let’s put all the red blocks in one pile and the blue blocks in another. Which pile has more blocks? Which has less?”