Month 53

Piaget believed that children were active participants in learning. He viewed children as busy, motivated explorers whose thinking developed as they acted directly on the environment using their eyes, ears, and hands.

Jean Piaget, a Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher, devoted his life to epistemology, or how thoughts were transformed into a body of knowledge. His theories of cognitive development were inspired by observations of his three children from infancy.

According to Piaget, the four stages of cognitive development are
• Sensorimotor (children aged 0-2 years)
• Preoperational (children aged 2 to 7 years)
• Concrete operations (children aged 7 to 11 years)
• Formal operations (adolescence)

All the stages correlate with brain development and growth

During the Preoperational period
• Child acquires language and symbolic functions, has the ability to search for hidden objects, perform imitation, and engage in symbolic play
• Egocentric – the child assumes that other perceive, think and feel just the way they do
• Children at this stage lack an understanding of conservation. For example, a child does not understand how two differently shaped containers can hold equal volumes of water
• Child has trouble with hierarchical classification. For example, a child cannot put sticks of different length in order
• The child at this stage also displays ‘magical’ (unrealistic) thinking or exhibits ‘magical play’
• They develop objective morality where the child’s sense of right and wrong (and the amount of guilt that comes with it) is determined by the amount of damage that has been done, not the intent or the motivation behind the action

How I think @ 53 months

By this stage, your child may listen to long stories, but may mix up the facts. He can find things that are alike and different in pictures

Motor Development: Gross Motor Skills
• I can walk up and down stairs without help, alternating my feet
• I can bounce a large ball

Motor Development: Fine Motor Skills
• I can print a few capital letters
• I can put on my shoes and socks

Language and Thinking Development
• I point to and name four to six colors
• I match pictures of familiar objects
• I draw, name, and describe pictures
• I like to look at the pictures in books

Social and Emotional Development
• I enjoy pretending
• I like to set and clear the table
• I play and interact with other children
• I can talk well on the telephone

Activities