What do 4 year olds say to each other

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	and play with? I'm trying to understand how to help my son socially, but I feel I've lost sight what is typical at that age.  He will be 4 in a couple of months and is in his first year of preschool. I observed my son's preschool class this week. I wanted to know what the kids say to each other--what I found was not much in that setting. They do seem to exchange a lot of nonverbal communication, though. So, those of you who know--please share with me. What do typical 4 year olds talk about and play with. What kind of things are cool? I'm tying to model some appropriate phrases and play skills, but I don't know what they are. Thanks. Flip At 4 and 5 they make a lot of statements. So a statement/statement comment program will help. They talk about their shirt (I'm wearing a _____shirt) Shoes (look my shoes light up) They will talk about toys that they have. (I have a truck at home, My Mom bought me a new________) They talk about their birthdays and birthday parties. The will play pretend pirates, or dinosours etc. (Lets run from-------, Lets dig for treasure) They will talk about shows they watch on T.V. Sometimes saying Hi back will work.That's funny we just finised a statement-statement program. And, his favorite thing to do is to comment on the color of his and other people's clothes! Thanks--those are helpful things.I have two four year old girls in preschool. I have to say that most of the boys and some of the girls just parallel play. From time to time they might invite a kid to join in an activity and say stuff like 'let's run' or 'I want to play with trains' but their play is not very interactive. Some of the girls are doing that girlie walking hand in hand stuff and sitting in corners and giggle but the boys do not have as much back and forth communication in play. If you have a quiet observer kind of boy, other kids night just think he is shy and not treat him any different. If he is more of the ones who melt down or get kind of hyper he might here from the other kids stuff like 'you bug me'. So I think you are right - most kids do not communicate verbally with each other much. They do start to notice each other and do the parellel play though. Most communication at this age with non-sibling peers is non-verbal.micki--he is the quiet observer and from a distance appears shy around his peers. It is interesting to see the nonverbal communication that occurs at this age. I wonder how he will learn some of this nonverbal communication. I'm sure it is tough for our kids.I work as an aide on a four year old kindergarten bus, and can sort of relay a conversation (pretty typical) that three four year old boys, sitting in one seat, were having yesterday. This is pretty par for the course. Boy 1: It's my sister's birthday. She gots a cell phone. Boy 2: My daddy's gots a cell phone. Boy 3: My mommy gots two cell phone. Wait, I think ones for my daddy. Me:     How old is your sister? Boy 1: Old. Me:     (laughing) How old? One hundred? (boys are giggling) Boy 1: (getting silly) She's one trillion years old. (boys giggling) Boy 2: My sister is REALLY old. She's a hundred! Boy 3:  I has a brother and he's twelve. For real. Boy 1: (serious) Oh, my brother is sixty. I think. Yeah, he's sixty. Hey, look at the geese outside! (they all look and start talking about geese. In short, short attention spans, they do talk to one another, they do stay on topic (but change topics often), they are usually able to articulate their thoughts, and most have silly senses of humor. MY LIFE IS FOUR YEAR OLDS SINCE I'M ON THE BUS WITH THEM ALL DAY...lol. We have a few special needs children. I don't know what is wrong with them, but they are totally different. Two are non-verbal and in wheelchairs. One sings to himself a lot, but doesn't talk to other children. One seems like he's in his own world or is taking too many drugs and rarely does anything except make noises. My middle one who is NT was always a talker- to anyone about anything! He would tell other kids at Target"Hey are you here to buy underware for your brother too?" Of course my oldest was like"shut up!"  My C just turned 4 and he is very limited on what he says but he tries to say alot of things...just hard to tell if you dont know him,KWIM?? I used to work in day care room for 3-4 yr olds, and the best part was, they would think any idea to do anything I thought of was awesome! Most loved to talk about themselves...what shows they watched, where their mom was, what they did with their dad last night, their food they ate for lunch...etc. Oh I hope someday I can hear C say those things! It would melt my heart. With the play, I remember my boys at the age of 4 being very active...they loved the physical stuff, so even while playing they would pretend the dinosaurs were fighting or I remember Logan playing with his matchbox car sets and the cars would always be jumping off ramps and jumping other cars rather than just quietly driving on the street.  But I remember a lot of talking about the above stuff and if they were here with me I would get a lot of little conversations about what they were just doing.  I think they like to just tell you what they are doing even if you are there observing it. My dd is a talker too!  She does this quite a bit, only difference is her pretend play is much more calm...she loves to play with her barbies and she loves the little pet shop toys and she will just sit and make up whole scenarios with her dolls or animals.  She pretends to be the Mom and then the baby and then the big sister etc.  The boys mostly did things like the one sided conversations.  The would only make the one dinosaur talk and eat all the other dinosaurs instead of making each one do different things. Not sure if one way of play is more typical of 4 yr olds or if boys vs. girls makes the difference.  This is all very interesting and helpful to me. Thanks for sharing!
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