44+ Fun and Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

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Check out these fun and easy activities and play ideas for 4 year olds. Here you will find tons easy ideas that you can set up for your preschooler while you take a meeting or get some work done at home. There are also fun sensory bin ideas, cool crafts for them to make and amazing hand-on learning ideas that are playful and fun. Tons of easy ways to keep your 4 year old busy, engaged and entertained at home!

And check out my short form crafting series Curious Crafting on TVOkids and TVOkids YouTube! Watch all the episodes here. Look for Season 2 of Curious Crafting coming in the new year.

Ways to Keep 4 Year Olds Busy

This amazing list of ideas is organized into a few sections. Let me highlight them here for you so you can quickly find what you are looking for fast. Scroll down to find each section.

  1. Easy Activities That 4 Year Olds Can Do Alone While You Work. These are ideas that you can set up and let your 4 year old do while you work, tend to baby, fold laundry or simply sit down scroll through your phone (yup you’re allow to do that every once in a while)!
  2. Low Prep Activities for 4 Year Olds. Activities that require little to no prep to create for your preschooler.
  3. Fun Sensory Bins. Easy sensory bins to create for your 4 year old!
  4. Easy Crafts for 4 Year Olds. Fun arts and craft ideas that you can do with your 4 year old.
  5. Hands-on Learning Activities. Fun ways to learn everything from letters, to their name, to numbers, shapes, counting and more.
  6. Simple STEAM for 4 Year Olds. Engaging Science Experiments four year olds will love!
  7. Easy Process Art Activities. Process art ideas to help develop creativity and have fun!

5 Easy Activities That 4 Year Olds Can Do Alone While You Work

1. Wash the Toys.

Grab two large sensory bins or Tupperwares ware containers. Fill one container with water and dish soap. Mix it up to make it bubbly. You don’t need a lot of water to make this fun and engaging just an inch or two will do. Lay a towel underneath everything in order to reduce the mess and clean up afterwards. Fill the other tub with tons of farm animals or dinosaurs or cars. You can set up one thing to wash every week! Let them wash the animals in the soap water. Add towels for drying. You can also add fine motor tools like eye droppers or turkey basters for washing, sponges or scrub brushes. If you’re feeling ambitious you can also place the animals outside the tub and put clean water in the second tub allowing your child to wash and then rinse the animals off before drying them.

Fun Activity using Magnets

2. Playing with Magnets.

Fill a sensory bin with all the metal object you can find. Think toy trains, cars, coins, paper clips, fridge magnets, bells, magnetic letters, keys. Throw in some other nonmetal items too. Hand your child a magnetic wand and let them explore trying to pick up item. Add cardboard tubes to the sides of the sensory bin using painter’s tape and have them toss metal items down the tubes that will fit and then have them recover the items using the magnetic wand. Check out here how we did it.

Make Foil Presents

3. Foil Puzzle Match.

Tear off sheets of foil to fit the puzzle pieces and have them do the wrapping for you! Model how to wrap with foil, folding over the puzzle pieces rather than scrunching. Place all the pieces in the basket and let the unwrapping begin! Trust me they will want to do this more than once so tear off a bunch and hand them over as they need them.

Fun Activities using LEGO

4. LEGO Animal Trace

One a large sheet of butcher paper draw the outline of a few animals like a turtle, lion or peacock and invite your child to fill in the rest of the animal with LEGO DUPLO.

5. LEGO Body Trace

Similar to LEGO animal trace but instead you trace their bodies and have them fill them in with LEGO DUPLO or magnetic tiles!

10 Low Prep Activities For 4 Year Olds

6. Super STEAM Activity Book

Learning all about science, technology, engineering, art, and math sets kids up for scholastic success―and it can be so much fun! Watch kids enjoy building STEAM skills as they color friendly fish, help water find its way to tree roots, solve math problems with mazes, and more. 

Find out more and grab your copy here.

44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

7. Make a Bubble Snake

44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

8. Super Easy Ice Sensory Bin

9. Ready Made Playdough Kits

10. Dot Sticker Match

44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

11. Sponge Letter Wash Sensory Bin

44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

12. Pom Pom Water Sensory Bin

44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

13. Mega Blok Names

44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

14. Paint the Toys

Paint plastic outdoor toys with washable paints. Then have your kids rinse off the toys with soap and water and sponges before it actually dries!

44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds
  1. Pom Pom Mega Blok Sort
44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

Fun Sensory Bins and Sensory Play Ideas for 4 Year Olds

  1. Dinosaur Dig Sensory Bin for Kids
44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds
  1. Outer Space Sensory Bin
  1. Awesome Fizzy Ice Cream Shop Sensory Bin
44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds
  1. Easy Dandelion Water Table Activity
44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds
  1. LEGO Car Wash Sensory Bin
44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

21. The BEST (Super Easy & Soft) Playdough Recipe

22. Mud Kitchen Set Up For Kids

  1. Bubble Foam Sensory Bin
  1. Rainbow Pouring Station Sensory Bin for Kids
  1. Frozen Pom Poms
  1. Moon Rock Letters
44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

Crafts for 4 Year Olds

  1. Easy Glue Resist Rainbow Painting
  1. Easy Coffee Filter Butterfly Craft for Kids
  1. Easy Nature Butterfly Sticky Wall Craft
  1. Dandelion Snail Threading Board: Outdoor Spring Fine Motor Activity
  1. Melted Crayon Picture Frame: A Colorful STEAM Craft
  1. Easy Foil Printing
  1. Fizzy Painting
  1. Salad Spinner Lion Craft
  1. Puffy Paint Cupcake Craft
  1. Cardboard Laptop Craft
  1. Farm Animal Finger Puppets Craft
  1. Cotton Pad Turtle Craft


Easy Learning Activities for 4 Year Olds

  1. TP Name Sort Activity for Preschoolers
  1. Cupcake Liner Math Activity
  1. Caterpillar Pom Pom Counting: Easy Toddler Math
  1. Washi Tape Pattern Matching
  1. Dot Sticker Cupcake Math: Easy Toddler Activity
  1. Pom Pom Sweep
44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds
  1. Letter Sticky Wall Crafts
  1. Pom Pom Caterpillar Counting
  1. Caterpillar Number Match for Preschoolers
  1. Cactus Letter Matching & Fine Motor Activity
  1. Fingerprint Letters

50. Easy Paint the Shapes Activity for Preschoolers

51. Alphabet Matching

Easy STEAM Activities for 4 Year Olds

52. Easy Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiment for Kids

53. Fizzy Lemon Volcanoes

54. Dot Sticker Coding: Easy STEAM Activity

55. How to Make Oobleck for Kids

56. Dancing Water Beads

https://www.instagram.com/p/CghenNUODKO/?igshid=NmNmNjAwNzg=

Process Art Activities for 4 year Olds

57. Salt Painting for Toddlers & Preschoolers

58. How to Easily Do Blow Painting with Straws

59. Sock Hands Painting

60. Painting Ice: Super Easy Art Activity for Kids

61. Shower Curtain Painting

Age Suitability

This activity is good for kids 4 years and up. My kids are 4, 4, and 8 year old.

Mess Level

This is a mess level varies.

Difficulty to Create

Easy to Medium.

Skills Developed

Sensory play, letter recognition, gross motor skills, language development, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, imaginative play, creativity.

Check out My Books, TV Show & Play Kits!

Book: Exciting Sensory Bins for Curious Kids

44+ Easy Activities for 4 Year Olds

Did you know I wrote a book of sensory bins? Click here for more information Exciting Sensory Bin for Curious Kids. Or grab your copy at Amazon

Boring afternoons are made exciting with awesome animal-based bins, like Salty Shark Bay or Yarn Farm. Pretend play bins like Birthday Cake Sensory Play or Bubble Tea Party encourage creativity and imagination. And your kids will have so much fun they won’t even know they’re getting smarter with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) activities like Sink or Float Soup, Magnetic Letter Hunt or Ice Cream Scoop and Count.

Book: Big Book of Riddles for Kids

Riddle me this: What’s an exciting way to practice critical thinking while having a blast? The Big Riddle Book for Kids, of course! From hilarious puns to tough brain teasers, kids can build problem-solving skills with hundreds of riddles that show them how to think outside the box.

  • 350 riddles for kids—Have hours of fun with riddles, puns and jokes, and math and logic puzzles that’ll get their wheels turning!
  • Level up their skills—Riddles get trickier as kids progress through the book, challenging them as they get better at solving puzzles!
  • Double-check their work—Kids can check their answers in the back of the book with a handy answer key.

Help children expand their minds while having fun with this puzzle book for kids!

Designed for kids ages 6 years old and up.

TV Show: Curious Crafting

I’m so excited to finally share my new crafting TV show Curious Crafting which launched July 1 at on TVOkids and TVOkids YouTube!

This show is all about fun and easy crafts for toddlers and preschoolers. 

Set in the ultimate crafting space, Curious Crafting is a short form pre-school age series about the joy of making crafts. I lead a rotating cast of adorable little preschoolers (including my own) making magic out of common household objects.

In each episode we transform recycled items into magical crafts like a milk carton school bus, paper bag puppet or cotton pad turtle. The crafters learn and laugh their way through each activity while demonstrating what their young imaginations can create. 

Curious Crafting shares the adventure and joy of making art with takeaway lessons for creating crafts at home.

The Best Sensory Play Kits for Kids

Play is at the core of learning during the early years and it can take many forms. One of the most important of these is sensory play because it engages all of a child’s senses (taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing) and has a enoumous positive impact on brain development.

Our Sensory Play Kits are some fun and easy ways to keep your child engaged while at the same time using sensory play to nurture their mind!

Shop our ready made play kits here.

WILL YOU TRY ANY OF THESE ACTIVITIES WITH YOUR 4 YEAR OLD? PIN IT FOR LATER!

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