ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some of the developmental milestones that most children will have reached by ages of one, two or three years in various spheres of development. The rate at which each child moves through each stage varies due to many factors including genetic predisposition, home environment, attachment to primary caregiver and cultural norms. Research into how infants and children learn has been dominated by two twentieth-century giants: Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. John Dewey also contributed the theory of experiential learning to the debate. The chapter relates their theories to activity planning for an outdoor toddler group. Piaget and Vygotsky believed that children actively constructed their knowledge of the world around them by interacting with it, and used these concrete experiences to develop and refine their understanding. However, where Piaget viewed children as being engaged in solitary wanderings, Vygotsky stressed the importance of the social environment and interpersonal interaction in a child's learning and development.
