Age shelf · what suits a four year old · 24 activities
4 year olds
Twenty-four activities for the age at which a child says what it is going to be before they start.
The plan turns up at four. A four year old announces the thing before doing it, the dark one goes at the end, this card is first because he wakes up first, and then minds when what happens is not what they said. That gap between the plan and the result is the engine of this whole shelf.
It changes what a good activity looks like. Four is the age at which something invisible becomes sortable: ten identical sealed pots that can only be told apart by hand, matched into pairs by weight and then checked on a coat hanger balance. Nothing about that is visible. It is entirely a plan held in the head while the hands go and test it. Story cards work the same way, four drawings pushed round the table until the order is the order things really happened.
Sessions get longer here, fifteen to twenty minutes on something a four year old has chosen, and a good half of this list is two and three year old work that a four year old now does beautifully rather than approximately. Starting a rung below where you think your child is costs nothing, and it is how a long run starts. Too easy, too hard, or just right is the page on judging that.
Four has three corners with pages of their own: numbers, shapes and thinking, talking, reading and writing, and senses and sensory play.
The twenty-four
Ordered by the age each one suits best, so the work that began at two and three comes first. The list is built from the whole range an activity suits rather than its single best age, which is why it runs from the peg bowl up to a wooden map a seven year old still likes. Every line gives the setup, the play time and whether anything has to be bought.
- Clothespin Pinching Your child squeezes a wooden clothes peg open and clips it onto the rim of a bowl, and then does it forty more times. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Kitchen Tongs and Ice Tray Transfer Your child picks up a cotton wool ball with kitchen tongs, carries it across the table and drops it into an ice cube tray, twelve cups in a row. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Peg and Hole Matching Your child picks up a fat peg, lines it up over a hole that just fits it, and pushes it home. none once made · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Sponge Squeezing Your child soaks a sponge in one bowl, carries it dripping to the other, and squeezes it out with both hands until the first bowl is empty. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Walking the Balance Line Your child walks the length of a strip of tape stuck to the floor, slowly, and then turns round and walks back. 2 min · under 5 min · household only
- Water Pouring and Transfer Your child pours water from one small jug into another, and then back again, and again, until the table is wet. 3 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Balance Board Coin Steady Your child stands on a board that rocks slightly and tries to keep a coin still on the back of her hand, which means the whole body has to go quiet. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household, or a bought set
- Cardboard Post Office and Sound Drop Your child holds a picture card, says the sound its word starts with, and posts it through the slot marked with that letter. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
- Color Shade Grading Your child lays a handful of squares in a line, darkest at one end and palest at the other. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Mirror Feelings Copycat Your child pulls the face on the card, sees it in the mirror next to yours, and hears you name the feeling that goes with it. 2 min · under 5 min · cards you draw
- Nuts and Bolts Screwing Your child holds a bolt still in one hand and winds a nut all the way down it with the other, and then winds it off again. no setup · 5 to 10 min · five pairs, or the jar shelf
- Pattern Card Bead Lacing Your child looks at a row of beads drawn on a card and threads the same order onto a lace, one bead at a time. 2 min · 10 to 20 min · beads, a lace, a drawn card
- Straw Blow Ping Pong Race Your child blows a ping pong ball across the table through a straw, and races it to a strip of tape at the far end. no setup · under 5 min · household only
- Three-Step Instruction Hunt You give three instructions in one breath, and your child goes and does all three, in order, without help. no setup · 3 to 5 min · nothing at all
- Tweezer Transfer Challenge Your child lifts dried chickpeas one at a time with a pair of tweezers and puts each one into its own small well. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Blindfold Rope Path Walk Your child follows a rope laid along the floor with her eyes closed, finding the turns with her feet while your voice tells her what is coming. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Button Sewing Card Your child sews real buttons onto a punched card with a shoelace, up through one hole and down through the other, until the card is covered in buttons. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
- Egg Carton Counting Grid Your child reads the number written in the bottom of an egg carton cup and drops in exactly that many beans, one at a time, twelve cups in a row. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
- Painters Tape Floor Balance Track Your child walks a line of tape stuck to the floor without stepping off it, then does it again carrying something. 4 min · 10 to 20 min · one substitute needed
- Shape Shadow Match Your child stands a solid shape in a beam of light and works out which of the outlines traced on the paper its shadow belongs to. 2 min · 10 to 20 min · household only
- Story Sequence Cards Your child puts four or five cards into the order the thing actually happened, and then tells you the story they make. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Weighted Pod Sorting Your child picks up two pots that look exactly alike, decides which one is heavier, and keeps going until all ten are in pairs. 15 min, once · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Balance Beam Coin Carry Your child walks a taped line heel to toe carrying a small stack of coins on a saucer, and discovers that the only way across is slowly. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Continent Map Puzzle Your child lifts each continent out of a wooden map by its knob and puts it back where it came from. 1 min · 10 to 20 min · has to be bought
One thing here has to be bought, the wooden continent map, and it says so on the line and again at the top of its own page. The rest of the shelf is household.