The third year of life is a time of expansion for children’s cognitive, affective, and physical growth. Three-year-olds are more conforming and predictable than two-year-olds and tend to show curiosity toward anything new in their enviroment. Fifty percent of their play is sensory-motor, resulting in a strong need for activities that develop fine and gross motor abilities. The spoken language of early three-year-olds may consist of about 900 words and increases to 1500 by the age of four.

Three-year-olds are capable of magical thinking, that is, that their actions and thoughts can bring about events. This egocentric and attractive feature of Three-year-olds (as well as four-year-olds and five-year-olds) allows them to create a life of fantasy and make-believe. Stuffed animals take on human characteristics providing children the opportunity for development of imagination and language.

The ability to think symbolically has increased at this age. Typically, three-year-olds might take two dominoes, stand them up, and pronounce, “This is my mommy and daddy!” Artwork is often exhibited by later three-year-olds as a face with stick arms and legs.

Three-year-olds can speak sentences of four, six, or more words, listen to short stories, and count to ten or more. They can often identify as may as seven colors and use scissors (although lines may not be followed accurately).

These and many other characteristics are classified under the areas of cognition, language, self esteem, social studies, math, science, and gross and fine motor movements.