Fortunately, the challenges of working with preschoolers are balanced out by the joys. Preschoolers revel in their increasing coordination, using their bodies exuberantly. They thrive in environments that encourage them to experiment with new materials, roles, and ideas through various projects and especially through play; they have great interest in feelings and are better able to express and label their emotions and identify others' emotions; they make some important gains in cognition, allowing them the pleasure of representing their world in pretend play, symbols, objects, drawings, and words; and, given a rich language environment, they show astonishing gains in language skills