Motor Skills: Age 3 

i. Large Motor skills - 3 year olds use all of their senses to increase physical capabilities.  They can  jump in place, throw a ball underhand, complete a summersault, walk up stairs with alternating feet, and move creatively to music.  Most 3 year olds can hop on one foot.  They can walk in a straight line without catching their feet.

ii.  Fine Motor Skills - Fine motor control for 3 year olds concentrates on increasing hand-eye coordination. They work on using scissors to cut paper, building towers out of small blocks, pouring drinks from a pitcher and using a knife to spread foods.  

They like to draw straight lines, create circles, rectangles, ovals, and squiggles.  They like to invent shapes. This is a time of gluing, pasting, and making things out of scraps of paper, cloth, and every other material available.

b. Motor Skills: Age 4

i. Large Motor Skills - 4 year olds continue the work of large muscle development.  They can walk up and down stairs one foot per step.  They can ride a tricycle skillfully, ready for their Indy 500. 

This is the time for learning to pump on a swing, allowing the wind to blow past their faces. A time to skip, run obstacle courses, and play games involving complex motor skills.  They like to jump rope and climb on jungle gyms.

ii.  Fine Motor Skills - The fine motor development of 4 year olds concentrates on the expansion of skills they have just learned.  They work on buttoning and unbuttoning.  Putting on articles of clothing including shirts, pants, socks, and coats.  

They are more precise when it comes to cutting, now being able to follow an outline carefully.  They can successfully work small puzzle pieces, are capable of creating extravagant Lego castles and sorting small manipulatives into specific categories.

Play is the work of the child, during which they will experiment, practice, imitate, negotiate, prepare and rehearse real life situations.  They will develop confidence, independence, self-esteem and many, many skills.

There are six (6) types of play that we will be discussing in this class for preschool children ages 3 and 4:

1. Physical
2. Manipulative
3. Creative

1. Discovery
2. Imaginative
3. Social

a.  Physical Play

Preschoolers continue physical growth and need all the movement they can get.  A preschool child will become more confident and adventurous.  Although he/she may still be a bit clumsy, that does not stop the desire to get going and keep going.  Encourage them to test their boundaries by trying out new activities.  Let's look at ages 3 and 4 years individually.

 i. Age 3 - 3 year old children are learning to pedal and steer a tricycle.  They need to practice balancing and controlling the different parts of their bodies needed to make the tricycle go where they want it to go.

3 year old children require a lot of praise for their efforts.  Any accomplishment is a reason for celebration. This gives them the needed confidence to go on and try something else.  They are working on hopping, skipping, rolling, spinning, standing on their tiptoes, and other muscle control actions.

ii. Age 4 - 4 year olds enjoy games like “Simon Says” or “Follow the Leader".  They like to be the leader and be in charge of a group.  They love music and love to play with moving their bodies to the music.

It is important to plan several active movement times into your daily schedule. When you find a group of preschoolers getting too squirrelly, get them up and get them moving.

b.  Manipulative Play

Manipulative play develops fine muscle control, concentration and hand-eye coordination.  Each child will develop at his own pace.  Experimenting through trial and error is part of this development. There is not a right or wrong way to do things.  It is important that each child builds on their own confidence and self-esteem skills by practicing manipulative play.

 i. Age 3 - 3-year-old children will be experimenting more with shape sorters and construction blocks.  They like to work with stringing beads and pasta.  Play dough is a favorite activity.  They are entranced by magnetic toys and the chance to move them any way they like.

They are excited about cards and the opportunity to "be big" and play card games.  This is an opportunity to introduce the concept of small, medium and large through manipulative materials.

ii. Age 4 - 4 year olds like to use leftover household materials to create their own "masterpieces".  They like to plan the activity and explain how they will build it and then finally get to the construction.  Their creations are more elaborate and contain many different stages of completion.  They like to manipulate sewing cards and threading opportunities.

c.  Creative Play

Creative play can help a child express their own ideas and feelings by making something original. Creative play can be things such as drawing, painting, making play-dough models, sticking and gluing, cooking, or writing stories and poems.

It is important to display creative projects in a prominent place in the room.  Children can be proud of their achievements and share them with the rest of the class.

i. Age 3 - There is a great deal of emphasis on concentration, recognition, fine finger movement and muscle control for 3 year olds.  It is important to supply children with a variety of materials and enough of each material to go around for each student.

Food is a great object for creativity.  Not only can it stretch their imagination, but it provides them with a snack.  Creative play works very closely with language development.  Encourage your children to explain their creations and provide new vocabulary for describing the details.

 ii. Age 4 - This is a great time to introduce different textures into paints and other art materials for 4 year old children. Add sand, oats, or whatever else you might have to create a new substance.  Help them make their own books and create stories.  

This is a good time to introduce skits and story telling actions.  Let them act out the stories they are familiar with, and then expand to stories they make up themselves.  Creative play is limited by your boundaries. Try to erase your limitations and let the children go as far as they can into the fantasy realms they can imagine.

d. Discovery Play

Discovery play enables a child to find out about different things.  Children discover what things are like: the size, shape, color, smell, and texture.

They find out how things are made, what can be done with them, how some things can be changed by adding something else.  For example when water is added to dry sand, what can you do with it? Younger children have been working on cause and effect. Now the 3 and 4 year old child can take that concept and experiment further.

i. Age 3 - Be sure not to take over and direct a child during this type of play.  The object is for them to discover for themselves.  Three year olds love sensory experiences.  Encourage them to further develop their sensory skills.  Place items in  bags and let them feel it to identify the item.  

Set up simple experiments and ask the child to guess what will happen, then let him find out.  This is a great opportunity to develop the senses of smell, feel, and taste.  Cover their eyes and ask them to guess items by their different qualities.

 ii. Age 4 - Four year old children enjoy experimenting to find out why and how things work and what will happen IF.  This is a good time to start planting seeds, to use tubes, sieves and funnels, and to discover what happens when you mix several things together.  This is also an excellent opportunity to develop vocabulary.

. Imaginative Play

Imaginative play is "pretend" or "fantasy" play.  The child can imagine that he is something or someone else.  Children love dressing up and playing "let's pretend".  It can sometimes be a form of escapism.  For instance the normally quiet introvert child may completely change once they have donned a costume and can pretend to be someone else.

Children imitate the adults they come into contact with when they are playing these games.  It can provide an interesting and sometimes eye-opening insight into how the child perceives these adults.

i. Age 3 - 3 year old children do not really need any guidance when playing pretend games.  They are able to establish who or what they want to be.  They will be happy playing on their own or with other children.  The best thing to do for this type of play is to offer the materials needed to do a great job of pretending.  

Large cardboard boxes are a necessity for pretend play.  They become houses, cars, boats, anything your child needs it to be for the moment.  Pretend play can be used to help prepare your child for an event that will be happening, for example, a visit to the dentist or a new baby arriving in the family.

ii. Age 4 - Four year old children will very seldom need the interaction of adults unless it is to suggest a theme of play. They can pick up on any suggestion and run with it.  Dress up clothes need not be extravagant.  Simple is much better.  A bright piece of material is all they need to create an elaborate costume.  Ask your children what they need.  They will let you know.

f. Social Play

Social play takes place when there is more than one child or person involved in the play activity.  It  teaches them to cooperate, share and take turns.

Try to ensure that children do not always play in the same group.  Children learn by example and from watching others.  They will learn that anti-social behavior like bullying and cheating leads to isolation and loss of friendship.  They learn from each other's reactions, such as, when quarreling or fighting happens. Adults are the main role model for social behavior.  Children will copy examples set by you.

i. Age 3 - Three year olds are becoming socially aware.  They are able to mix with other children in a way that adults will recognize as sociable.  You need to have realistic expectations.  They are still 3 years old and just learning social skills.

Organize games in which the children can take turns or make choices or decisions involving other children.  In this way the child will learn how to make decisions and respect other children's feelings and wishes.

ii. Age 4 - It is quite common for four year old children to split into their own "social" groups.  Try to organize games where they can join in with other children in the classroom.  It will become noticeable who are the leaders or more dominant personalities.

Encourage (but never force) the more reserved children to take the lead or make choices.  Try introducing "Role Play" where one child is being unfair or hurting the other child's feelings.  Get the rest of the children to point out why this is not "nice".  Discuss the situation with the children.  This will help them to relate to others.

Nutrition

Important Nutrients

There are five important nutrients that may be missing from children’s diets. 

1. Calcium- strengthening bones/teeth: milk, Oj, cheese, yogurt, cabbage, spinach, beans, rhubarb and fortified cereals
2. Iron- Prevent anemia/ helps red blood cells deliver oxygen to the body. Food: hamburger, cream of wheat, eggs, potatoes, rice, pumpkin seeds, and whole wheat toasts
3. Zinc- Promotes cell reproduction and helps wounds heal. Baked beans, yogurt, milk, turkey, chicken, beef or red meat
4. Vitamin A- Promotes healthy eyes, skin, hair, nails, teeth, and gums.: Raw broccoli, ground beef, spinach, pumpkin, carrots, sweet potatoes, and chicken
5. Vitamin C- Heal cuts and scrapes and help shorten colds. Strawberries, tomatoes, cauliflower, oj, and peaches

Grain: 6 servings per day.  Each serving should be equal to 2/3 slice of bread, 1/3 cup cooked pasta, rice, cereal, or 1/2 cup of dry cereal.

Protein:  2 servings per day.  Each serving should be equal to 2 oz of cooked lean meat, poultry, or fish, 1 egg, or 1/3 cup cooked beans.

Dairy: 2 servings a day.  Each serving should be equal to  1 cup milk, 2/3 cup yogurt, or 1 oz of cheese. 

Fruit:  2 servings a day.  Each serving should be equal to 1/3 cup fruit, or 1/2 cup fruit juice.

Vegetables:  3 servings a day.  Each serving should equal to 1/3 cup vegetables.The evidence is clear, kids and adults need a diverse diet.  A diet full of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and protein to keep immunity high.

Children between the ages of 4 and 6 years of age need to have a second MMR (mumps, measles, rubella) and Varicella, the last in the IPV (inactivated polio) series, a final DPT (diphtheria, tetanus,pertussis) injection and a yearly influenza.   The next set of immunizations are not due until age 11 or 12.

Children should have a physical examination once a year.  Be sure to have your health care provider check vision, hearing, and children's general health.  Children should also see the dentist regularly.

Children start to form a conscience around 4 years old

Children who have trouble learning and/or enacting these types of coping skills often exhibit acting out types of behavior, or conversely, can become withdrawn when confronted with fear or anxiety-provoking situations.

Psychologists call these skills emotion "display rules".  These are culture-specific rules regarding the appropriateness of expressing emotions in certain situations.  External emotional expression need not match one's internal emotional state.

The ability to use “display rules” is complex.  It requires that children:

• understand the need to alter emotional displays
• take the perspective of another
• understand that external feeling displays need not match how you feel inside
• have the muscular control to produce emotional expressions
• be sensitive to social contextual cues that alert them to alter their expressions
• have motivation to display the "correct" expression 

Two types of emotional display rules have been identified:

Pro-Social: Displays rules involve altering emotional displays in order to protect another's feelings.  For example, a child might not like the sweater she received from her aunt, but would appear happy because she did not want to make her aunt feel badly. 

Self-Protective: Displays rules involve making emotion in order to save face or to protect oneself from negative consequences.  For instance, a child may feign toughness when he trips in front of his peers and scrapes his knee in order to avoid teasing and further embarrassment.

The important thing to teach children is that communication, specifically verbal communication, is a valuable tool for getting along in the world.  Teach them the skills and abilities, let them explore the language and sit back and enjoy.

A preschooler is beginning to show an interest in science and nature.  Pets are a good project for children of this age. They learn responsibility by taking care of an animal.  They like to experiment and ask the "what will happen if...?" questions and they like to learn things that surprise them. They are developing better memories and can be told more than one thing to do at a time.  This is a time for improved attention spans.  They can stay focused on a single activity 20 to 30 minutes.

Role modeling is the strongest, most effective teaching method there is.

1. Development proceeds at varying rates from child to child and within each child.

2. Development occurs in a fairly orderly sequence with more complex skills and knowledge building on those already completed.

3. Development goes from simple to more complex, and to more organized and internalized learning. This process is predictable.

4. Children learn in many ways using different parts of their brain and body.

5. Learning and development happen when children have an opportunity to practice new skills and when they are challenged to reach beyond theirpresent ability level.

6. Development and learning occur in and are greatly influenced by multiple social and cultural contexts.

7. Early experiences and the child's cultural setting will influence development and these experiences may have cumulative and/or delayed effects on children.

8. Children are active learners who use their physical and social experiences to guide them and use theirculturally transmitted knowledge to build their own understandings of their world.

9. Children learn best when they feel safe, secure, and valued.