4-6 Years Old Cognitive Development
|
- Memory
- Concentration
- Attention and perception
- Imagination and creativity
- Stages of learning 4 years
- Stages of learning 5 years
- Stages of learning 6 years
- Activities and equipment to help promote cognitive/intellectual development
- Your role to help develop your child's cognitive/intellectual development
Stages of Learning... 4 Years
Your 4 year old child...
- Enjoys counting up to twenty, and understands the concept of numbers up to three.
- Talks about things in the past and future.
- Can sort objects into groups.
- Has increased memory skills for e.g. he can remember a particular event, such as when his aunties and uncles visited several months previously.
- Can give reasons and solve problems.
- Often confuses fact with fiction.
Stages of Learning... 5 Years
Your 5 year old child...
- Produces drawings with good detail for e.g. a house with windows, a door, a roof and a chimney.
- Asks about abstract words... for instance... ’What does “beyond” mean?’.
- Can give his full name, age and address and often his birthday.
- Talks about the past, present and future, with a good sense of time.
Stages of Learning... 6 Years
Your 6 year old child...
- Begins to think in a more co-ordinated way, and can hold more than one point of view at a time.
- Begins to develop concepts of quantity... distance, area, time, weight, length etc.
- Is able to distinguish the difference between reality and fantasy.
- Is interested in basic scientific principles and is beginning to understand concepts like what happens to materials if it’s heated.
- Is increasingly influenced by cultural conventions in drawing and writing often combining his own personal symbols with letters from the alphabet.
- Is able to count accurately up to 20 times.
- Names days of the week in order.
- Can arrange objects in order of size.
- Is able to print own name.
- Tells month and day of birthday.
- Counts up to a hundred by repetition.
- Can predict what happens next.
Activities and Equipment To Help Promote His Cognitive Development
| Toys/Equipment | What he learns | Intellectual Skills Developed |
|
Puzzles...
Shape sorters Tray puzzles 3 piecs puzzles 12 piece puzzles |
Learns about shapes and space. He also learns to sort and match. As he grows older, trial and error learning will decrease as he starts to use reasoning skills to work out the position of pieces. |
Classifying
Attention and concentration |
|
Sorting objects...
Buttons Plastic shapes |
Develops his ability to sort, order and classify objects according to colour, shape or size. |
Classifying
Attention and concentration |
|
Sewing cards...
Threading beads |
Helps him learn about patterns and colours. |
Classifying
Attention and concentration |
| Kim’s game | Objects are put on a tray and then one is removed. He has to work out which one is missing. |
Memory
Attention and concentration |
|
Construction toys...
Duplo Lego Wooden bricks Popoids |
He learns about space, shape and structures. He can also experience matching and sorting as well as being encouraged to think about size. |
Classifying
Attention and concentration |
|
Matching games...
Lotto
Pairs Pelmanism Snap |
These type of games help him child sort and match. Pelmanism can help his memory as he works out where he's seen a matching card. Cards are put face down; he chooses a card and work out where the matching pair is. |
Classifying
Memory Attention and concentration |
| Feely bags | These encourage him to use his senses to work out what object is in a bag. |
Classifying
Attention and concentration Memory |





