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"As preschoolers misbehave or step beyond their limits, guide them to take responsibility for their behavior."
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God Made Threes and Fours (Including Pre-Kindergartners)
Threes and fours are
enjoying an active time of life. They are physically and mentally developed
enough to spend most of their waking hours exploring, investigating, and imagining
all kinds of situations. God is readily at work in their lives.
These can be happy and fun years
when parents and teachers tap into what God is doing in the lives of three's
and four's. God gives each child a timetable for developing physically, mentally,
socially, emotionally, and spiritually. The following characteristics and skills
can help parents and teachers have realistic expectations of boys and girls.
Physical Growth
Threes and fours continue to be active. Their
desire to explore, investigate, and pretend prompts physical activity. They
need active play to mature and exercise their growing muscles.
Most three- and four-year-olds can do the following
physical skills:
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Capabilities
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Implications for Teaching at Home and Church |
Three-Year-Olds
- Use large muscles.
- Dress self fairly easily.
- Display some fine motor skills.
- Notice the difference in boys and girls.
- Dislike nap time and often cannot sleep during this time.
Four-Year-Olds
- Show good large muscle coordination.
- Develop a longer, leaner body.
- Develop fine motor control for cutting with scissors, painting, and
drawing.
- Walk backward.
- Need a high level of physical activity.
- Show good eye-hand coordination.
- Dress themselves.
- Exhibit right-and-left-handedness.
- Control large muscles.
- Enjoy building material with parts to assemble.
- Are learning to print and copy words.
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- Provide opportunities to use both large and small muscles indoors
and outdoors.
- Provide opportunities for threes and fours to explore and investigate
their world with all five senses.
- Provide play materials that will encourage dramatic play.
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As you consider each child, observe the physical differences
in the children. Note each child's preferences in physical activity.
Mental Growth
Threes and fours are able to use more of their curious
nature due to their increasing physical skills. They also express more and more
creativity in their play. They, however, become more engaged in their
exploration due to their expanding attention span. They might stay with
an activity three to four minutes or even longer. As they talk more, parents
and teachers will continue to hear evidences of their literal mindedness.
Fears are common among threes
and fours because they have active imaginations. They tend to mix reality and
fantasy. The bear under his bed is very real to a child. Parents and teachers
help preschoolers with fears by gently distinguishing what is real and what
is not. Making fun of a child's fears will cause a child to hide his fears,
which will result in confusion.
Most three- and four-year-olds
are able to do the following mental skills:
| Skills |
Implications for Teaching at Home and Church |
Three-Year-Olds
- Use 300–1,000 words.
- Learn short songs and song fragments.
- Display creativity and imagination.
- Experience fears and bad dreams.
- Begin speaking complete sentences.
- Do one thing at a time.
- Want to know what things are and how they work.
Four-Year-Olds
- Remember name and address.
- Have increased attention span.
- Do two things at once.
- Use their imagination; may not be able to separate fact and fantasy.
- Show a curiosity about life-cycle.
- Understand time concepts better.
- Use 500–2,000 plus words.
- Enjoy the challenge of new tasks.
- Seek explanation concerning why and how.
- Begin to recognize basic reading words.
- Enjoy classification, sequencing, and sorting.
- Use many words without knowing their meaning.
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- Provide a choice of blocks, art materials, puzzles, music, and books,
including the Bible and pictures of preschoolers to expand their mental
skills.
- Provide group activities including singing, Bible stories and games.
- Model excellent language skills by using complete sentences with
the boys and girls.
- Acknowledge and accept a child's fears in order to help the child
distinguish reality from make-believe.
- Provide a variety of props for dramatic play.
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Parents and teachers, when considering threes and fours, note
specific mental skills.
Social/Emotional Growth
Three- and four-year-olds become very socially active
by seeking playmates. As they experience a variety of opportunities to play
with other children, they learn about themselves in regard to their place in
God's world. They continue to view their experiences from their personal
perspectives. They are also continuing to explore their limits. They
learn quickly how to relate to their peers.
Their emotions are very
strong during these two years of life. Whether alone or with someone, they can
become very upset when frustrated. With experience they are learning how effectively
to express their emotions in constructive ways.
As preschoolers
seek to find their place in the world, they explore gender roles. As they play
house in the homeliving area, they play out the roles they observe men and women
playing in their homes and communities. Preschoolers often switch roles in their
play. All of these play experiences help preschoolers develop basic concepts
about God's plan for His world that will last a lifetime.
As preschoolers misbehave
or step beyond their limits, guide them to take responsibility for their behavior.
God models positive guidance for parents and teachers in how He guides them
through life. For example, when a child deliberately spills a cup of juice,
hand the child a paper towel to wipe up the juice. Say, "Will, when you drink
juice, you need to be careful with your cup. You need to clean up the juice
now. When you calm down, I will give you another cup of juice." Avoid saying,
"It was an accident," when it was not an accident. Also avoid saying, "God will
not love you if you continue to. . . ." Both of these statements are not true.
Help preschoolers see the connection between cause and effect. When he spills
his milk (cause), he will clean it up (effect).
Most three- and four-year-olds
can do the following social and emotional skills:
| Skills |
Implications for Teaching at Home and Church |
Three-Year-Olds
- Try to please adults; conform more often.
- Show self-control but resort to temper tantrums when angry.
- Take turns more readily.
- Like to hear own voice.
- Respond to verbal guidance and enjoy encouragement.
- Play with others.
- Have imaginary friends.
Four-Year-Olds
- Have total confidence in own abilities.
- Are bossy; show great independence.
- Tattle frequently.
- Focus on cooperative play and take turns.
- Like to help when they initiate the idea and when initiated by adults.
- Respond to reason, humor, and firmness.
- Play cooperatively with other children.
- Enjoy imitating adults.
- Begin to distinguish truth from untruth.
- Enjoy competition.
- Are learning to share and take turns.
- Accept responsibility.
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- Provide play groups such as Parents Day Out for preschoolers during
the week in addition to Sunday School, Discipleship Training, Mission
Friends®, and Preschool Choir.
- Provide homeliving materials for role-playing at home and at church.
- Provide effective role models for preschoolers to observe at home
and at church.
- Provide clear and easy-to-understand limits and expectations that
are consistent among teachers in a room at church and parents at home.
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Parents and teachers, as you consider social and emotional
growth, write in illustrations of positive relationships with other children
and adults.
Spiritual Growth
Since middle preschoolers are increasingly able to express
themselves, parents and teachers can observe how they are developing spiritual
concepts. As you listen to preschoolers, note any misunderstandings about spiritual
truths. Their literal minds make them vulnerable to mixing fantasy with
spiritual truths. For example, the fantasy of Santa Claus can lead to confusion
about Jesus when a child discovers the reality of Santa Claus. He may be confused
about what he can believe as truth.
As a middle preschooler begins to take responsibility
for his behavior, respect his guilt feelings. These feelings will vary from
child to child. Follow God's example by assuring the child that you still love
him but you cannot accept his wrongdoing. Avoid saying, "God won't love you
if you continue to do. . . ." Instead say, "Jeremy, I cannot let you hit Dan.
You are hurting Dan." Quickly redirect Jeremy to an acceptable activity. If
Jeremy expresses feelings of guilt, talk with him and assure him of your love.
The ability to recognize feelings of guilt is an important key to spiritual
development. As you guide the child, you are helping him to develop important
concepts of God.
By their fourth or fifth
birthday most preschoolers can do the following:
| Skills |
Implications for Teaching at Home and School |
Three-Year-Olds
- Identify some Bible characters and stories.
- Enjoy singing songs.
- Understand that God, Jesus, the Bible, and the church are special.
- Try to please adults.
- Begin to understand consequences of behavior; may feel embarrassed.
Four-Year-Olds
- Like to retell Bible stories.
- Enjoy Bible verse games.
- Recognize that God loves people and help people in special ways.
- Accept responsibility for helping people.
- Begin to develop conscience.
- Ask questions about God.
- Express love for God and Jesus.
- Recall Bible stories.
- Make life application of Bible verses.
- Show concern for others.
- Sing songs about Jesus.
- Continue to develop a conscience.
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- Use books about Jesus that have realistic pictures instead of cartoon
pictures. Realistic pictures help a child understand Jesus to be different
(real) from cartoon characters (fantasy).
- Use books designed to teach spiritual truths that feature people
instead of talking animals. Mixing fantasy and reality is confusing
to preschoolers.
- Sing songs that use concrete terms and concepts easily understood
by middle preschoolers.
- Use Bible verse games that will help preschoolers learn the meaning
of the words as well as the words.
- Provide prayer opportunities for preschoolers to talk to God.
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Parents and teachers, as you consider spiritual growth, identify
their basic concepts of God, Jesus, the Bible, and church.
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