What most children do by this toddler age:

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Social and Emotional

• Copies others, especially adults and older children

• Gets excited when with other children

• Shows more and more independence

• Shows defiant behavior (doing what he has been told not to)

• Plays mainly beside other children, but is beginning to include other children, such as in chase games

 

Language/Communication

• Points to things or pictures when they are named

• Knows names of familiar people and body parts

• Says sentences with 2 to 4 words

• Follows simple instructions

• Repeats words overheard in conversation

• Points to things in a book

 

Cognitive (learning, thinking, problem-solving)

• Finds things even when hidden under two or three covers

• Begins to sort shapes and colors

• Completes sentences and rhymes in familiar books

• Plays simple make-believe games

• Builds towers of 4 or more blocks

• Might use one hand more than the other

• Follows two-step instructions such as “Pick up your shoes and put them in the closet.”

• Names items in a picture book such as a cat, bird, or dog

 

Movement/Physical Development

• Stands on tiptoe

• Kicks a ball

• Begins to run

• Climbs onto and down from furniture without help

• Walks up and down stairs holding on

• Throws ball overhand

• Makes or copies straight lines and circles