Congratulations! Now that your child is four years old, they can do a lot more than they could at three. Their physical, mental, and social/emotional skills are growing at an amazing rate, and the best way to celebrate that is by allowing them to practice their growing skillset in a way that’s fun and entertaining.
4 years is an age where kids often begin to develop their independence for the first time. With this budding independence also comes some conflict and defiance. Know that this is just an essential and natural part of your child’s growth and development.
When kids turn 4, their motor skills allow them to do more than they ever could before, including running, jumping, hopping, and even climbing! Their new mental skills allow them to count up to 10 and learn their ABC’s. They may even be ready to expand their social circle and independence by attending day care or preschool, or through a number of kids’ programs and activities for 4 year olds.
To help celebrate and further encourage your child’s learning during this time, we’ve curated a list of at-that are both fun and educational, specifically for 4-year-old kids.
Boost Memorization Skills
This memory game from Hands on as We Grow is so simple and easy to put together for your child. All you need is an egg carton or two and some colorful objects (they use pom poms, but colored buttons or paperclips are a few other good options) to arrange in a pattern in one of the egg cartons. Your child will then look at the pattern, cover the pattern row with an empty row from the other carton, and try to reproduce the pattern in the open row. Then they can remove the cover row from the original pattern row to compare their solution with the original. This helps kids develop learning and memory strategies they can use when they’re ready for school!
Toy Washing Stations
One of the ways 4-year-old kids can start to develop independence is by taking care of their own hygiene needs. To model and teach this behavior, make them responsible for the hygiene of their toys as well! Washing toys is an unconventional but brilliant approach to play. The water and soap make for great sensory fun, which contributes to your child’s brain growth and development enormously. Personal hygiene skills can be modeled through play this way. Furthermore, your child will have cleaner toys! Learn how to set up an optimal toy washing station at Coffee Cups and Crayons.
Handwriting Practice with a Sensory Salt Tray
Your child will start to learn their letters around the age of four, and a great way to help them practice making letters is with a rainbow salt tray. Writing in colored salt is a neural pathway-building sensory play activity as well as a terrific way to build writing and letter identification skills. Find out how to create a sensory salt writing tray for your 4-year-old at Active Littles.
Learning (Safety) Scissor Skills
Pull out the safety scissors and allow your 4-year-old to cut to their heart’s content. Making sure your child is able to manipulate scissors is a great way to ensure they can get the most out of arts and crafts in the future. It also helps them develop sound fine motor skills. Keep your child learning and growing in these areas with printable cutting templates from Fun with Mama.
Here’s hoping your 4-year-old gets a kick out of these 4 at-home activities. If you’re looking for more information on the internet’s greatest activities for kids, check out the Wondrfly blog!
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