Play at Home Activities for 4 y.o. Boy

Hi C.,

Get a kiddie pool. Children love the water. Get a horse on springs and let him ride.

The Vermont Country store use to carry them.

Take the children to the park and let them play. Take a picnic lunch and a blanket.

Hope this helps. Good luck. D.

Hey C.,

I'm a mom of five children ages 13 to 5 months. 3 girls and 2 boys. At home we make slime, playdoh and lots of cooking that they enjoy doing. Also we have our own garden that the kids are incharge of, they love it. Watching what they have grown and being able to enjoy the fruits of there labor.

Hope this helps !!

J. Z.
Healthy Homes Healthy Products
www.shaklee.net/Z.
I'll give you $ 20 - $ 125, want it?, ask me how!

There are millions of activities to keep kids busy inside and outside. Here is a list of things I do with my kids ages 5.5 and 4.

1. Paint
2. Playdough with lots of cookie cutters and rolling pins
3. Puzzles
4. Boad games (Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, Elefun, Kerplunk)
5. Cars and Pop-up playsets that hook together
6. Trains with track (we build one to take up an entire room)
7. Cards
9. Bike riding
10. Chalk
11. Water balloons
12. Blocks/Lincoln Logs/Duplo/Legos
13. Dinosaurs
14. Mr. Potato Head
15. Library
16. Children's Museum
17. Aquarium
18. Living Museum
19. Barbies
20. Tea Party/Snack Shop

Don't stress. Most kids can have fun just taking a walk to the park, make it a nature walk and collect things along the way. All kids really want is to spend time with you.

Hope this is helpful.

L. S.

Well, you can get him out of the house, and them them to mds', park, and etc stuff like that. I am a mother of 3. Plus, i am with the mother's day play groups, and that is where that we go, someone 1 time a week, so that the kids, can meet each other and have fun for a few hours, eat, and play., while the parents, and relax and meet each other as well.

Thanks J.

Here are some ideas I've tried with my 4 y.o. boy-
* put different familiar objects in a bag and have him reach in (without looking) and try to guess what they are

* build a fort using blankets/sheets

* use empty water bottles as pins, get a ball and go "bowling"

* hide similar objects (i.e. rolled-up socks) around the house and have him go on a treasure hunt

* have him go through old magazines and cut out pictures of different things that start with each letter of the alphabet; glue the pics on construstion paper and create your own alphabet book (split this project up over several weeks)

Also, google craft ideas for kids and you will get all kinds of ideas (with instructions) on craft projects you can do at home. The dollar store now has wooden things like cars, trains, bird houses, etc.. that you can have him paint and display in his room. Hope this helps!

When my step-daughter was 4, she loved to put together puzzles. She's now 8 and still puts them together occasionally. Lots of crayons and loose leaf paper, pencils and tracing paper, and coloring books. Preschool workbooks to start him on his numbers and alphabet.

Just a few ideas. I'm sure others will give you plenty more ideas. We only had her on weekends back then, and we didn't mind letting her watch a few cartoons on DVD, so those were pretty much her activities besides playing with her toys and dolls and figurines.

If he is curious buy toys that let him use his imagination like cars, trucks, blocks. Things where he can make them do what he wants rather than action figures where they do basically only one thing. My son loved mega blocks. They came with the big dump truck and he used to ride in the truck, make towers on the back of the truck which was the block base. They have a firetruck and helicopters and other things now too. He could use his imagination and make whatever he wanted. Sometimes he would just build something to knock it over. Plus you can count the blocks with him when he is playing as well as make patterns out of different color blocks. Good luck.

*Throw cushions from sofa onto the floor and jump on them to a music CD.
*Take walks outside and find objects to make into natural art at home.
*Make pet rocks.
*Make a bird feeder out of pine cone, string and peanut butter. (Even my 10-year-old son and nephew enjoyed that).
*Read and teach songs. If you have binoculars, he can watch the neighborhood birds and learn to identify them even now. Get picture books from library on birds and ask if the ones he sees look like the ones in the book. He might just say, "bird." But, it's ok. It'll be fun and he'll get a kick out of the binoculars.
*Teach him to count objects & coins.
*Watch PBS "A Place of Our Own" (6:30 am. on WETA in my area). The hostess presents GREAT craft projects that are appropriate for preschoolers and can be adapted for toddlers and older children. Can't watch it? Check online at www.aplaceofourown.org. Absolutely FABULOUS! Amazing what we can do with things laying around the house.

A friend if mine who is a teacher just showed our 3 1/2 year old this game last week.Supplies:empty plastic shopping bag and immagination. She called it a MAGIC BAG:)
We hold a magic bag and everyone takes turnes to reach in it and get something special. Like we get scooters out of it and ride them around the house,different flavor ice cream and everyone tries what flavor they like the most,we get bunnies that we run after and try to catch . Really there is not limit to the magic bag....fly and airplain, build a castle.......our kids can not get enough:)

Here is a good website for learning activities and worksheets.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html

DLTK's site has a plethora of activities and ideas.

I would offer anything outside. Go to the library and find some books on outdoor activities. Kids love the outdoors, they love the bugs and the grass and learning new things that go on out there. It's good for them and teaches them to love their surroundings and not be afraid of things like bugs and such. You can smell the flowers grow some easy veggies or just take a walk to the park. My kids go outside everyday, usually just to a local park but it wears them out and they learn about dealing with other kinds of kids. Hope this helps.

Hi. I have a 4 year old daughter. Here are some of her favorite at home things to do:

Playdough--she seriously plays with this for hours! If I have time I even let her help me make the homemade kind(Kool-aid playdough is my fav...) She loves to use cookie cutters and some of the play dough tools you can buy.

Forts--I let her use the cusions in the family room and blankets to make forts. She loves to take animals in there and use her flashlight and pretend she is camping. My 1 1/2 year old loves this too.

Animals-- Those little hard animals from Michaels and A C Moore are great! Just about every 4 year old I know, boys and girls, love these. They spark a lot of creativity alone or with other kids.

Art--drawing, painting, cutting, pasting, stensils, etc! You can give a 4 year old some glue, paper and alphabet pasta and let them get messy. It's so great to see what they come up with.

These are just some ideas--I know every kid is soooo different. I can't wait to see some of the other responses so I can get some new ideas too!

Hi C.,
The V Smile is good. It will have him watching tv. but its educational/games, not cartoon junk. The only downside is that its on the pricey side.
Some other ideas...
Legos. They come in different sizes.
Large colorring books.
Large white boards/markers.
Hot wheels/cars.
Waffle blocks. Available through toys r us and amazon. They link together to form things.
Plastic animals/dinos/etc.