Age 4 · Numbers, Shapes and Thinking · 7 activities
Numbers, Shapes and Thinking activities for 4 year olds
Seven activities where an object holds the answer: numbered cups, a drawn pattern card, a torch, a tray that takes each piece in one place only.
Four is the year counting stops being a song. A three year old runs the numbers off happily and lands on a different total every time, because reciting and counting are two different jobs. At four the two join up: one bean, one cup, one number said, and the last number said is the answer to how many. Egg Carton Counting Grid is built around exactly that, and the cup walls are what make it checkable without you leaning over.
The same year, a shape comes loose from the object it belongs to. Stand a tin in a torch beam and it throws a rectangle, and a four year old will go and find the next thing that throws one. That is the whole of Shape Shadow Match, and it is the beginning of thinking about a square rather than about a biscuit tin. Those two halves of the shelf are Counting and Quantity and Shapes, Space and Geometry.
Four also holds a rule across a run of items, which is what Pattern Card Bead Lacing asks for: a card with four beads drawn on it at life size, and a lace that has to end up matching. If tonight needs to be quiet and short, that one and the egg box both set up in two minutes and both run without you in the room.
The seven 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 seven suit a four year old: the first arrived at two and still holds, and the last is a four year old's first go at something that peaks at five.
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
Most of this is an egg box, a torch and the back of a cereal packet. The bead lacing wants a handful of wooden beads and a shoelace, and the continent map has to be bought; both say so on their line and again at the top of their own page.