From three to five years of age, children continue to develop in key areas of cognition.

The most obvious change from toddlerhood is the extraordinary increase in the child’s ability to mentally or symbolically represent concrete objects, ideas, and events.

This increasing ability to use mental representation allows children to make plans before taking action, and their activities take on a more purposeful direction.

This varies from child to child, but can be developed with hands-on activities. To help facilitate this, we created small volcanoes as part of our Hawaiian theme. Children started by placing dirt onto trays.

They then added blue gravel as their “water”.

Following, they used their pointer fingers to poke a hold into their “mountains”.

After this, they added baking soda, and for the grand finale, orange-colored vinegar.

They gleefully watched as their volcanoes “erupted” before their eyes!