Developmental milestones: 4 - 5 years

This is the time to ask orientation questions. You should encourage your children to learn their first and last name, where they live, when their birthday is, what day it is, and so on.

For your child to develop stability and continue to develop gross motor skills, you should encourage him or her to play balance games such as standing on one foot, cycling, walking a straight line, and more. You can announce a family tournament, work together to invent balance games and things around the house that will help you challenge your child.

Creativity using a range of materials allows children to learn about their abilities, develop fine motor skills and use their imagination – and to discuss it. You should encourage children to create by painting, drawing, cutting, making dough, copying shapes, and so on. This is also an excellent opportunity to learn numbers; “we have four balls of dough; shall we count together? One, two, three, four”. This is also the time to encourage copying and writing letters and writing the child's name.

At this stage, you should encourage your child to play games with friends, such as hide-and-seek, catch, and ball games. Initially, children may require your help and participation in the game. You should also leave time for free play in the house and in the yard, thinking games, imagination games, and more. You can also create a costume corner.

At this stage, you should begin reading together, even without knowing the letters. You can have your child sit in your lap, create pleasant contact or eye contact during the story. You should trace the words in the book with your finger to create the understanding of the separate words. Story time is an excellent opportunity to speak to each other: you can speak about the characters – what they do, think, feel. You can also expand, ask questions and create a conversation that can even connect events in the story with everyday events.

Conversation skills are key to communication and the development of vocabulary. It makes children feel understood and builds their self-confidence as well as the skills to relay and share how they feel and what they experience. You should encourage your child to speak during walks, while participating in housework, during outdoor activities, and so on. You can direct your child to talk about his or her experiences from the day before, and to incorporate questions in the conversation, speak about emotions, use new words and concepts, and so on. It is important to find opportunities to use prepositions in the conversation: larger than, smaller than, near, far, above, below, next to, behind – are all prepositions that can be practiced.

There is no need to buy special games. You can use objects you have at home such as boxes, markers, dolls, blocks. You often find that out of all the games in the living room, children prefer playing with the drawer of the plastic boxes. You should play with them by matching similar types of objects, same colors in different objects, different sizes and more.

It is important to note your child's preferences and moods, and to adjust the activities and stimuli accordingly so that it will be pleasant. Occasionally, too much stimuli can be overwhelming. If the child looks away or shows signs of irritation and tiredness, try to ‘clean’ the area and reduce stimuli.