3-5 year old's development

By this time your child should be much better at using their hands and using tools like spoons and forks and pencils and crayons. You can help them with this by encouraging them to use cutlery when they’re eating, and by giving them lots of opportunities to draw and paint with different materials.

Encouraging your child to draw with their index (pointer) fingers is a good way of helping them improve their co-ordination. You could try giving them different materials to work with, like paint or shaving foam – you can spread this on a tray or on the bathroom mirror at bath time. Getting stuck into messy play is also good for helping them express themselves.

Kneading, rolling, cutting and making things out of play dough is also great for helping little hands and fingers get strong and skilful – you can find a recipe to make your own play dough on the BBC website. And believe it or not, making different shapes from play dough, like circles, squares and triangles, is great practice for learning to write!

At this age your child loves to be praised, so make sure you give them lots of encouragement when they try new things and attempt to do things for themselves.

Encourage their independence by giving them a small task to do every day, like hanging up their coat, putting their shoes away or helping to unpack the shopping.

Reading to your child is another great way to help them improve their speech and language schools and get ready for school. Our pages on helping your 3-5 year old with their speech and language have lots more tips.