Is your child four or five years old and starting school next year?
Transitioning from preschool to ‘big school’ is an exciting time — and a very big step for children, as Kindy requires lots of skills for classroom and playground activities. So now is an important time to ensure they are developing all the skills they will need in Kindergarten.
As you prepare your child for school next year, here are a range of key developmental milestones you can expect your child to reach:
Gross Motor Skills
At this age, your child will be developing their:
- Ball skills: Throwing, catching, bouncing and kicking of a ball with increasing confidence
- Running with speed
- Climbing with ease
- Jumping over objects in the playground with two feet
- Balancing on one foot, standing and walking on tip toe, and hopping — however, they may still be quite wobbly!
- Climbing stairs: Walking up and down stairs using alternate feet
- New activities: Like skipping and jumping backwards
Fine Motor Skills
Independence: You will start to notice your child’s fine motor skills developing, helping them to gain independence and enabling them to engage in self-care tasks, including:
- Getting dressed and undressed
- Fastening and unfastening large buttons
- Eating with a fork correctly
Writing: Your child will now be developing a range of pre-writing skills that are important for an extensive range of school activities. At this age, your child will likely use a static (or modified) tripod grip using their shoulder and elbow for movement. This will transition to a dynamic tripod grip, with movement coming from the fingers and wrist.
Drawing: At this stage, they’ll be able to:
- Copy a range of shapes, including a cross, square, diagonal lines and an X shape
- Draw a face, including eyes, a nose and mouth
- Draw a stick figure with two to four body parts
Cutting and Manipulating Small Objects: Your child can cut big circles with scissors, practising using their two hands together (i.e. one as the ‘doing hand’ and one as the ‘helping hand’). At this age they’re also able to engage in games that involve their fine motor skills, like threading beads and completing puzzles with four to five pieces.
Communication Skills
From the age of four onwards, you may notice that your child loves to talk, becoming a wonderful conversationalist who uses five or more words in a sentence. They are able to speak clearly, however, they may still have some trouble sounding out ‘TH’, ‘S’, ‘R’ or ‘W’.
Your child probably enjoys telling stories and singing nursery rhymes, participating and listen with awe! They may also start talking about what might happen in their day or imagining what they’d like to experience at preschool.
Cognitive Skills
As your child’s brain grows and their knowledge expands, they might develop the desire to ask questions to deepen their understanding of the world around them.
Instructions: At this stage, a child can understand two to three step instructions at once.
For example: “Please get the bowl of grapes, take it to Mummy and then put the bowl back on the table”.
Sequencing and planning: They are developing their task completion skills. For example: Copying building the block tower you make.
Numbers and letters: They know the name of letters and numbers, and can count up to 20.
Sorting: They are able to sort objects by a subject (e.g. colour or size) and match and name four colours.
Social and Emotional Skills
Your child will start to explore and learn how to express their emotions. You will start to see them learning how to use gestures and noises as well as understanding how talking can express their emotions.
They are learning about the feelings of others, understanding how to share with toys and taking turns. They will enjoy playing with other children, organising games together and making friends.
Your child will also likely establish their favourite games, developing their imaginative play, discovering new roles and creating complex imaginative games.
Fun Games to support your Child’s Development
Engaging in a variety of games with your child is a great way to support their development.
- “What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf?” fosters anticipation and listening skills while adding an element of fun to following instructions.
- Board games like Guess Who enhance attention, communication, questioning, and turn-taking, making them excellent tools for social interaction.
- Creating obstacle courses with household items encourages planning, sequencing, and gross motor skills in an active and playful way.
- Activities like finger painting, creating rainbows with chalk, and building with Play-Doh helps develop fine motor and pre-writing skills.
- Using puppets and dress-ups develops imaginative play skills
Extra Help For Your Child’s Development
Every child is unique, and their developmental journey is a reflection of their individuality. If you feel your child would benefit from additional support in any area, contact us on 02 9913 3823 or hello@occupationaltherapy.com.au.
Our team is here to collaborate with you on how Occupational Therapy can empower your child’s growth. OTs focus on building skills in various areas to help children thrive as they prepare for school. Additionally, Occupational Therapy Helping Children offers a variety of engaging holiday groups for preschoolers, including our School Readiness and Social Skills & Self-Regulation programs.
