How Do You Keep Your 4 Yr Old Entertained?

Sit on the floor with him and play with toy cars. Teach him to put them away then suggest train or airplane. Just do 1 toy at a time. It takes more time plus he's learning to clean up and care for his things. Take him to the kitchen for a snack (fruit someting healthy), clean up and start again. Is he potty trained? You could work on that. Have a cleared area where you 2 can exercise together for a little bit. Fun stuff. Jumping jacks, knee bends thrusting legs behind you after the squat. Stuff you can laugh at together. Make games out of everything while they're young and have fun. It's great body strengtheners to exercise and tires them out. Warm bath before bed and a bedtime story. Daddy can get in on this also (hide the remote).

I'd go old-school: tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, Legos. There's a reason those toys have endured!

As for playdates, I pick one activity. For example, yesterday I simply took a garbage bag full of old Christmas Fisher-Price figures (cost=grand total of $3 at a yard sale last summer), put it in the middle of the floor and let my daughter and her friend go to town.

I also keep a "rainy day" box at the bottom of my closet. It has small, new things like toy cars, art supplies, bubbles, et cetera.

Hope this helps!

Hi Aarti-
I have a 4.5 yr old son too. Not much into arts and crafts like my girls. We play super heros a lot. He kind of leads the play with which hero he wants to be, but sometimes he gets stuck for ideas. I sometimes suggest a few scenarios as to how he can save me, or maybe I'm the bad guy for awhile.
We also like making forts out of the sofa cushions, pillows, etc.
If you get any good ideas, I'd love to hear them too. It sure gets monotonous after awhile, without any fun new games. When I think of it, I try to google some things to do too - always good ideas on some of the parent sites on line.

Are you by chance Aarti M., from Evanston?

Sincerely,
A.

I see you are from Elmhurst, so am I. There is a great place called Bearfoot Fun and Fitness they have a little play gym just for his size. It's located right next to Eldridge Park, you just have to go to the park district to get a punch card and check their hours, this is if you are looking to get out with him!

I know it is a tough one keeping the kids entertained especially in the winter. Here are some of my ideas. One thing I do with my daughter is pretend that we are in a band. We each get an instrument and sing songs. She loves that. Another thing that kids seem to love is pretending to cook. I just give them each a bowl and wooden spoons and we have some plastic food items that I can give to them and they make soup! They just love pretend cooking. Another thing that I recently discovered is that kids magazines or books like National Geographic kids include some easy craft or learning songs that make for a nice educational activity. When all else fails I also have a bag of new toys that I hide and bring out if I am fresh out of ideas. Our library also has a great kids program and lots of toys for the kids as well. Hope that helps!

My son has recently gotten really into puzzles so those are a good time killer:) He also likes to practice things he learned at school(like letters) so I got some activity books. Barnes and Nobles has a huge section with all kinds. We also started a new game a friend told me about. Give him a small bag. Tell him to put 5-10 items in it. It can be anything. Empty it out and have him tell a story about the items. It can be pretty funny.

When we have playdates we tend to let the kids do whatever they choose.

I'm remembering those long winter days when my older kids were 2 and 4. Sometimes you do have to get creative! this is what I remember: floor puzzles, elaborate brio train tracks with block cities, crafty projects, baking or cooking something together ( a few times we did homemade pasta), afternoon bubble baths, enforced nap time, playing music and marching or singing to it, making animal puppets and acting out plays, play dough, homemade play dough, tent cities (blankets on upturned chairs and tables), videos and board games.

I just set up a playdate for my 5 year old with a new friend from school. I put out a lot of craft stuff and paints on one table. I brought up the blocks and the lego stuff so they could do that too. They had a great time and the friend really liked the painting. They took turns picking what to do and it worked out really well. I think I'll retire now!

Good luck!

I agree with the toys like Legos, train sets, etc. Tactile things are excellent like play dough or moon sand (I myself could play in moon sand for an hour, as it's relaxing and such a neat texture....therapuetic really). Things like light bright, puzzles, etc. Things like playing in shaving cream, stamps, cutting magazines or those toy advertisement books, etc. I know you say he's not big on art, but sometimes when you just have the materials there for them to go at as they'd like, they really get into it. If you are down there with your four year old, preschool games like Chutes and Ladders, Hi Ho Cherrio, etc. that help with educational as well as turn taking and following rules. You could make sensory tables for your four year old to go to town in with little toys (like character guys, cars, toy bugs, etc)...can use water, pinto beans, dry rice, Kix or Cheerios cereal...we keep bins of each along with moon sand and play dough tools in those plastic shoe boxes to have on hand and do different ones each day or what not. Except the water of course is an empty bucket filled each time they play with it. Many of our toys are stored in plastic bins in the play room too allowing for the toys to be rotated easier so they are not playing with the same toys each day, and helping with cleanup too. For example, divided by Little people, trains, Rescue Heroes, play food, Duplos, treasure box which is all the carnival and happy meal toys, etc. etc. For play dates it is then easy to pull out a couple bins and they can go to town with those so there is plenty to do and cleanup isn't terrible. These things are fun now and really do help their development for later. My 3 year old is in OT for sensory sensitivity, and it's amazing how much these "good old fashioned toys" help them develop hand-writing skills, thought processing, etc. etc. Ideal to stay away from screen time and battery toys, leaning further toward manipulative, tactile things as those are the things that really encourage thought processing and motor development more. My 3 and 4.5 year old sons love all this stuff as there is always something different to do and they come up with new ideas on how to play with the materials there. Some are a little messy, but with setting up boundaries on where to play with it, how to play with it (gently, like not clapping hands with shaving cream on them to watch the shaving cream fly across the room, etc) trying to keep things in that area however you set the boundaries, etc., cleanup is really not bad compared to the time they play with it. 5 minutes cleaning up the moon sand or play dough that accidentilly fell on the table or floor is sure worth the 45-60 minutes they'll often play in it creating the different impressions, digging, and building. :) Best wishes...winter is tougher of course without so much outside time!! :)