Your Child’s Development 48-60 Months

Milestones: By 60 Months, Most Children Can:

• Button some buttons.
• Hop on one foot.

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 60 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, climbing up and down stairs without holding onto your hand. They can combine activities in social settings by playing games like Duck, Duck, Goose, and Freeze Tag.

Body Awareness and Control:

• Your child shows a developed sense of balance.
• Your child can balance while standing on one foot for several seconds.
• Your child can balance when they come to a stop after running.
• Your child can balance a bean bag on top of their head.
• Your child can walk forward and backward, “balancing” on a wide line pattern on the rug.
• Your child can walk along a zigzag pattern on the carpet.
• Your child can walk down steps using alternating feet without holding the railing.
• Your child can balance while walking on the edge of the sandbox.

Muscle Development and Coordination:

• Your child can play games using their new skills, including hopscotch.
• Your child can run and stop with control at a desired spot.
• Your child will move from running hard on their flat feet to lightly running on their toes.
• They can run, sometimes moving around obstacles without falling.
• They can jump over a block using both feet.
• They can jump forward 3 feet, using both feet together.
• Your child can gallop (running, leading with one foot) in a rhythmic way.
• Your child can hop on one foot for several feet and change direction to land on different spots.
• Your child can easily use tools like eating utensils, crayons, keyboards, paint brushes, and scissors.
• They enjoy carrying heavy things and building with blocks and other natural materials.

Nutrition: 

• Your child knows the name of the food and will eat various healthy foods.

Safety: 

• Your child will take action to keep themselves safe by reaching for your hand when they are in a parking lot or looking before crossing a street.

Self-care: 

• Your child can do basic skills like blowing their nose or washing their hands.

Milestones: By 60 Months, Most Children Can:

• Tell a story they heard or make up a story with at least two events, such as “A cat was stuck in a tree, and the firefighter saved it.”
• Answer simple questions about a book after you read it to them.
• Keep a conversation going with more than three back-and-forth exchanges that follow the topic of discussion.
• Rhyme words like bat-cat or ball-tall.

Communication:  At five years old, children can communicate their ideas and feelings, ask and answer questions, and understand what is said to them. They can talk in some detail about things that happened in the past and will happen in the future. They can communicate information, ask questions, and converse with friends and people outside their family.

Expressive Communication/ Expressive Language:

• Your child can speak enough to be understood by people, not in their family.
• Your child will ask questions about what others are saying.
• Your child will respond in conversations with others about the topic being discussed.
• They will tell you stories with multiple characters and events.
• Your child will use words and phrases learned through conversations and being read to, such as saying “The end” when they finish a snack or “Once upon a time…” when they start telling a story.
• They can participate in extended conversations with others, responding appropriately and staying on topic most of the time.
• Your child may experiment with “potty” language and say words they know they cannot.

Receptive Communication/Receptive Language:

• Your child will understand gestures, facial expressions, and body language during conversations.
• Your child can listen and understand stories, directions, and conversations.
• Follow instructions that include a two or three-step sequence of actions, such as setting up a game or following a recipe.

Emergent Reading: Participation in literacy activities

• Your child will ask for a story to be read to them.
• They will respond to your questions about a book after reading it.
• They will ask questions about a book or story that is read to them.
• They will connect a book or story to personal experiences, such as pointing to a dog’s picture and saying, “I have a dog like this, only bigger, and my dog never chews shoes.”
• They will guess what will happen next in a story using pictures as a guide.
• They may have favorite books, authors, or illustrators.
• They may request or respond to informational books on favorite topics
• They can usually distinguish between imaginary and actual events in their stories.
• They may recognize specific words, including their name.
• Identify parts of books such as the cover, first page, and title
• Understand that print carries a message

Comprehension

• Your child will recreate stories read to them by acting them out with toys, drawing pictures, or retelling the story to you.
• They can use their own words to retell a simple, familiar story while looking at a book.

Phonological awareness

• Your child will listen to and recognize different sounds in rhymes, songs, and familiar words.
• They can distinguish the beginning sounds of some words.

Writing: 

• Your child can recognize some letters in the alphabet, especially those in their name.
• Your child can understand that specific symbols are used to communicate in writing.
  • Your child may recognize letters and be able to copy or write them.
  • They may be able to write their name
  • They can copy words if you write them first.
• They can understand that writing is a way of communicating
• They can use scribbles, shapes, and drawings to represent thoughts or ideas
• They may draw letter-like symbols to make letters or words
• Your child may start writing some letters. They might be big and take up the whole page; they might be backward and upside down, but these are the beginning stages of actually writing words.

Young children between 48-60 months acquire various skills that aid learning and problem-solving. Your child is also ready to learn to apply math concepts such as numbers, shapes, and sizes when tackling problems. They use all their senses to gather information, notice differences and similarities, and often make comparisons. By closely observing people and objects, they form hypotheses and make predictions based on their observations. They might also conduct simple experiments and assess the results.

• Your child might notice that there are only four cookies left for five people and suggest
• Your child might guess how many blocks are in a container and then count them with you to see if the guess was correct.
• Your child building a tower might run out of large blocks and decide to stack two smaller blocks to make up for the missing large one.
• Your child might notice the steam rising from hot soup and ask, “Why does the soup have smoke coming out?”
• During a bath, your child might observe how bubbles form and pop, saying, “Look, the bubbles are shiny and round. They disappear when I touch them!”
• When playing with leaves, your child might describe them: “This leaf is big and green, with tiny lines all over it. This other leaf is small and brown.”

Tips to promote cognitive skills:

• Using open-ended materials like blocks, cars, shells, stones, toy animals, and cardboard boxes allows your child to use their imagination and creativity during play. These materials don’t have a set purpose, so your child can explore and invent new ways to use them, which helps develop problem-solving skills and cognitive abilities.
• Involving your child in household tasks like cooking, setting the table, sorting laundry, and gardening offers practical learning experiences. These activities teach responsibility, fine motor skills, and basic life skills. Additionally, asking your child to solve problems during these tasks encourages critical thinking and decision-making, essential for their development.
  • “How does the soup smell? What does it feel like when you taste it?”
  • “Can you find any other crunchy foods like this broccoli?”
  • “We are having company tonight: Grandma, Poppy, and Uncle Stu. How many plates, forks, glasses, and napkins do we need on the table to have a place for each of us?”
  • “Where do you think the water goes after it goes down the drain?”
  • “We are having company tonight: Grandma, Poppy, and Uncle Stu. How many plates, forks, glasses, and napkins do we need on the table to have a place for each of us?”
  • “What do you notice about the sand when you dig deeper?”

Cognitive Numbers

Your child starts learning math skills long before they enter elementary school. From a young age, they begin to count, recognize shapes and patterns, compare sizes and amounts, and see similarities and differences. They develop these skills through play and everyday interactions with you. For example, when you count their fingers and toes, give them two pieces of banana, or sort socks into different piles, your child is learning math concepts.

As they grow, your child learns to count a few numbers and understand quantities through activities like setting the table with plates and cups. They notice how you use counting in daily life and learn by imitating you. Most children are naturally interested in numbers, and fun activities involving numbers can strengthen this interest and help them learn more about math.

• Your child learns counting skills through everyday interactions such as putting spoons in the drawer, counting their toes to tell you how many they have, and counting the carrots needed so each person at the table can have one.
• They recognize some written numbers: “Look, the numbers are on the clock. That is a 3. That is a 9.”
• Your child can look at a group of things—up to 4—and tell you the number without counting. They can look at a pile when playing with blocks and say, “There are four blocks.”
• A child can look at her bowl during breakfast and announce, “I have four strawberries in my bowl.”
• At this age, when counting, your child may be able to tell you how many things they have because they understand that the last number they use in counting is the total number they have. “One, two, three, four, five, six. I have six leaves!” They can also count the number of chairs needed for everyone at the table and the number of cups so each person can have one.
• They can think about two small groups and make a larger one together. “I have two cars, and you have four cars. If we put them all in the garage, there will be six cars.” They can also imagine that a bigger group will be smaller if separated into two groups. “There are six candies. That means 3 for you and 3 for me.”
• Children at this age can also understand the concept of taking away. For instance, if they have five marbles and they lose one, they might say, “Now I have four marbles. If I lose another one, I’ll only have three left!”
• Your five-year-old can do simple addition and subtraction. If they have eight grapes, they can ask for two more and tell you they have 10. If they have four cookies and they eat one, they might announce, “Now I have three. If I eat one more, I’ll only have two left!” Sometimes, they may need to re-count the new group to confirm how many are there.