Development Milestones Ages 4-5 Years
Children change from clumsy toddlers into lively explorers of their world.
Development Milestones
Ages 4-5 Years
- Speaks fairly complex sentences
- Enjoys singing simple songs, rhymes, and nonsense words
- Adapts language to listener’s level of understanding
- Learns name, address, and phone number if taught
- Asks and answers who, what, when, why, where questions
- Able to memorize address and phone number
- Understands that stories have a beginning, middle, and end
- Enjoys telling his or her own stories
- Jumps over objects 5-6 inches high
- Runs, jumps, hops, skips around obstacles with ease
- Stacks 10 or more blocks
- Forms shapes and objects out of clay or play dough
- Threads small beads on a string
- Catches, bounces, and throws a ball easily
- Throws ball overhead
- Rides a tricycle skillfully, may show interest in riding a bicycle with training wheels
- Enjoys showing off and bragging about possessions
- Fearful of the dark and monsters
- Begins to understand danger—at times can become quite fearful
- Has difficulty separating make-believe from reality
- Lies sometimes to protect self and friends, but doesn’t truly understand the concept of lying – imagination often gets in the way
- Likes to shock others by using “forbidden” words
- Still throws tantrums over minor frustrations
- Expresses anger verbally rather than physically (most of the time)
- Invents games with simple rules
- Organizes other children and toys for pretend play