Age 4 · Talking, Reading and Writing · 6 activities
Talking, Reading and Writing activities for 4 year olds
Six activities where the talking is the work: hearing the sound a word starts with, carrying three instructions across the house, and putting a story back in the order it happened.
Four is the year talk stops being names and starts being order. A three year old labels what is in front of him. A four year old says first, then, after that, and he can hold all three parts of an instruction the length of a hallway without dropping the middle one. Sequence is what to watch for below, and it turns up twice: in Three-Step Instruction Hunt, where the order is in the ear, and in Story Sequence Cards, where it is on the table in five drawings.
The other half of the year is sounds coming loose from words. Cardboard Post Office and Sound Drop is a shoebox with four slots and a letter taped over each one, and the child says the sound a picture starts with before posting it. The letters go on masking tape rather than on the box, so four new sounds next month cost ten seconds.
To start tonight with nothing at all, take the instruction hunt: no setup, five minutes, and the room is the material. The rest want a felt tip and one evening, once, after which they live in an envelope for years. The wider shelf is Talking, Reading and Writing, and the storytelling half of it is Storytelling, Vocabulary and Grammar.
The six at four
Ordered by the age each one suits best, youngest first. The list is built from each activity's whole age range rather than its single best year, so all six suit a four year old: three started at three and carry on here, two are built for four, and one is a four year old's first go at something that peaks at five.
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
Five of the six are a marker, a shoebox and things already in the house. The continent map is the one that has to be bought, and it says so on its line and again at the top of its own page.