A four-year-old who learns to put the same shapes and colors together is typically in which stage of Piaget's cognitive development?

• A. Sensorimotor
• B. Preoperational
• C. Concrete Operational
• D. Formal Operational

Answer: (B)

Classification by color and shape is a skill that appears as children enter Piaget's preoperational stage. At about four years old, kids begin using symbols and language to represent objects and can group items by simple attributes like color or shape. This shows emerging categorization, even though they haven’t yet developed the logical operations that come later. In the sensorimotor stage, thinking is tied to direct actions and the here-and-now, not organized classification. In the concrete operational stage, children handle more complex logical tasks with concrete materials, including understanding conservation and multiple classifications. In the formal operational stage, they reason abstractly. So, putting together shapes and colors fits the preoperational period.