Up until this time, drawings the child made varied from day to day. By the symbolic age, a child has developed or formalized his 'symbols', or drawings of himself and other things. He will repeat the same drawing over and over again. In other words, he has his system of drawing symbols down pat. There are other notable developments that come with this age.
Color becomes meaningful.
A child will make grass green, the sky blue, and the sun yellow. His use of space evolves from symbols floating around on a page to symbols touching a baseline. At this age the placement of objects drawn on a page are explored. The child is developing an order to his symbols just as he is developing an order of letters, words, and sentences. This age marks the difference of boy and girl preferences of what they want to create in art.