- The first development you will see in the beginning years is your child's ability to roll over, crawl and stand. This is all usually accomplished within the first year to 18 months. Once your child can stand, they will also start taking their first awkward steps that look more like a waddle than actually walking and is why this age started being called toddlers. Other developments include being able to grasp and hold onto large objects like their bottle or a stuffed animal.
- Around two or sometimes as late as three, your child will start to walk a little better, without the waddle. This is because they have started to learn balance and control over their legs and body. Once they master their walk, they will start working on some fun motor skills such as running, jumping, or even hopping. They will also have taken the ability to hold things and turned it into the skill of throwing and catching. These will be very basic with a large ball or object. The child will also be working some finer skills such as holding a spoon and feeding themselves. It will be messy at first, but will continue to improve. To help them along give them toys that encourage them to use their fingers instead of their whole hand.
- By the age of four they have developed the skill of climbing things like stairs. You should watch them at this stage or they will be climbing other things as well, which might get them into dangerous situations. Even though they have figured out how to climb up, they have not yet mastered climbing down. Their running and jumping skills are improving as well as catching and throwing. Children of this age have also developed a few other foot skills such as kicking, although not with real good aim, and peddling. Fine motor skills have developed to the point where they can fasten buttons or zip a zipper. They will also be starting to learn how to control scissors and cut basic objects.
- By age four or five, stairs are no longer an issue, and they have added skipping to their list of skills. Throwing is developing some accuracy as is kicking, and their running speed has increased. Their fine motor skill use of their finger will also improve with toys that encourage them use their fingers instead of their whole hand. They will also be learning how to hold crayons and other drawing or coloring items correctly instead of just grasping them in their fist. Learning this will help them once they reach age five and have to go to school.
- At age five and older, most children have the basics down and are mainly refining their skills and improving on technique. There is little more to learn as far as knowing what to do. It is just a matter of learning to do it well.
