3–4 years · Playing with others
Real cooperative play begins, and with it the first negotiation, the first rules and the first friendships.
Body and movement
- Hops on one foot (about 4)
- Catches a large ball most of the time
- Uses scissors to cut across paper
- Draws a person with two to four parts (about 4)
- Pours and serves without much spilling
- Dresses and undresses with a little help
Communication
- Tells a simple story about their day
- Speech understood by strangers most of the time
- Asks 'why' repeatedly
- Uses plurals and past tense, with charming mistakes: 'goed', 'foots'
- Says first name, last name and age
- Sings songs and recites rhymes from memory
Thinking and looking
- Counts objects to about four or five with one-to-one matching
- Names four or more colours
- Understands 'same' and 'different'
- Plays elaborate make-believe with roles
- Understands the idea of counting and of quantity
- Follows a three-step instruction
Feeling and belonging
- Plays cooperatively with two or three children
- Takes turns in a game, with reminders
- Prefers some children over others — first friendships
- Shows a wide range of emotions and begins to name them
- Recovers from separation quickly
👀 Worth asking a doctor about
- Cannot be understood by adults outside the family
- No interest in playing with other children
- Cannot jump in place
- Does not engage in make-believe play
- Loses toileting skills that were established
- Unusual and persistent distress at ordinary separations
These are reasons to ask, not verdicts. Early help works; waiting rarely does.
🤝 What helps at this age
- Give real jobs with real responsibility
- Play board games with simple rules to build turn-taking
- Talk about other children's feelings as well as their own
- Protect long stretches of free play — this is the most important learning of the year
