A Powerful Early Childhood Education Resource for Teaching Child Development

The Childhood Stages Simulation Kit is an early childhood education resource designed to help students explore the physical, cognitive, and emotional milestones of child development through hands-on, interactive learning. From toddlerhood to adolescence, this kit immerses learners in realistic scenarios and engaging activities that build empathy and deepen understanding of childhood growth. Whether you’re teaching Family & Consumer Sciences or supporting students on certification pathways, this resource brings developmental concepts to life in a meaningful and memorable way.

Use this early childhood education resource to set up simulation stations to rotate students through that highlight developmental milestones for each childhood stage. The milestones are compared to a similar, higher-level milestone later in development for comparison. These activities help students step into a child’s shoes and build empathy for each development life stage. By understanding how a child experiences development, students can foster better care, more successful communication, and stronger relationships with young children.

The toddler stations highlight eating, playing, and communicating. The eating station simulates the challenges toddlers face when learning to self-feed using child- and adult-size utensils to pick up small food items. The play station demonstrates the cognitive and physical challenges toddlers experience during play by putting together puzzles of varying complexity and sorting shapes. Lastly, the communication station allows students to explore how toddlers express needs and develop social communication through role-play.

The Childhood Stages Simulation Kit comes with supplies and instruction to set up three preschool simulation stations: dressing, art, and social interaction. This early childhood education resource comes with shoe- and knot-tying trainers for the dressing station that simulate preschoolers’ fine motor skills. At the art station, students explore more fine motor skills and as well as preschoolers’ creative expression with classroom art supplies. For social interaction, the kit comes with blocks for building structures, which will help highlight how preschoolers learn to collaborate and communicate.

The three stations for school-age simulations are academic, physical activity, and social dynamics. At the academic station, students will understand the intellectual challenges at different ages. They do this using worksheets provided in this early childhood education resource’s curriculum. The kit comes with balls, ropes, and beanbags for the physical activity station. At this station, students will explore coordination, agility, and sportsmanship. The social dynamics station highlights the evolution of social problem solving and relationships using scenario cards.

The adolescent stations revolve around emotional regulation, social identity, decision making, and case study analysis. Students will explore strategies for managing emotions at the emotional regulation station through guided meditation. They’ll examine the formation of social identity by creating an identity collage using classroom art supplies. At the decision-making station, students will understand how decision making evolves in adolescence. They do this using scenario cards that come with this early childhood education resource. Finally, students apply their understanding of adolescent development to real-life scenarios at the case study analysis station.

Not sure how you’re going to set up all these stations? Don’t worry. The Childhood Stages Simulation Kit comes with a standards-aligned, ready-to-use curriculum. The curriculum features five lessons that introduce child development and dive into each stage of childhood. The complete curriculum takes six to eight hours to teach. However, you can easily select specific lessons or activities to work into your current lesson plan. It comes with presentation slides, student activities, and assessment tools that align to the National Family & Consumer Sciences Education Standards.