15 Fun Activities for 4 Year Olds That They Can Do On Their Own!
If you have a 4 year old in the house, you know it can be difficult to find things to keep him or her entertained. Frustrating even, at times.
Four year olds want independence in their play on one hand, but also usually want you to often provide them with the game to play – or get them started/play it WITH them. Four year olds can be very creative, but also sometimes need some direction.
What activities for 4 year olds will get them happily playing while you get some work done (or just put your feet up in peace for a few minutes)?
This collection of activities for 4 year olds will help answer that question!
Several of these activities for 4 year olds are somewhat tied to my website theme of kids dress up play. But don’t worry if your child “doesn’t like to play with dress up clothes” – keep reading. You’ll probably still find some winners here for your child. Not all children love putting on costumes – but pretty much all children have wonderful imaginations and love creative play!
15 Activities for 4 Year Olds They Can Do On Their Own… Without You!
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Depending on what you have in your craft cupboard or on your games shelf, you might be able to get started with some of these already today!
It is not my intention in this post to list all sorts of expensive toys you need to buy. Most of the specific items recommended cost less than or just around $10 (making them also great ideas for little gifts). If items cost more, I’m only including them in this list of activities for 4 year olds because they are too awesome NOT to include. Like Lego. But that you can often find at garage sales and thrift stores, right? 🙂
Play Dress Up!
Of course on a website devoted to dress up play for kids, I have to start with dress up play. 🙂 There is SO much they can do, with a great collection of dress up gear. And yes, they can do this solo! Using toys and stuffed animals as companions, there are many, many games they can play while in character!
Instead of rewriting all of the ideas, see these posts for TONS of great dress up games ideas:
- Dress Up Games and Activities For Kids
- Dress Up Games for Girls Who Love Fashion
- Dress Up Games For Girls – The Non-Screen Kind
Blow Bubbles
Blowing bubbles isn’t just an activity for the beach, or for when you’re on holidays! It’s a cheap and fun activity for 4 year olds, and it never gets old! There’s something mesmerizing about silky bubbles floating upwards that kids (of all ages) love! Here are some homemade bubble solution recipes… if that’s your thing.
Barbies or Action Figures!
Kids around age 4 are just starting to understand role-playing and characterization and you’ll pick up on that when you watch them deep in play with their Barbies, dolls, GI Joes, Animal friends, Super-hero action figures, TMNT figures, or whatnot. Watching Barbie dancing with Superman is pretty funny. 🙂
Build Something AMAZING!
With wooden blocks, with sand in the sandbox, with cardboard tubes and empty cereal boxes from the recycling bin, with blankets and chairs, with lego, with pretty much just about anything! Encourage him or her to get creative! Sometimes it helps to give them a few suggestions, I’ve found – and even get them started. But once the wheels are spinning, he or she is good to go! Suggestions include: A Zoo, a castle, a fort, a school, a hospital, a playground, a race track, a tower, a campground…
Play Doh Mats To Dress Up A Scene
Draw your own item, print off a clip art, or use a simple coloring book page of something your child likes. Princesses? Fire trucks? Clowns? Tape the paper firmly inside a page protector and tape the page protector to the table so it won’t slip around. Your child can use play dough or clay to fill in the scene! (Think Barbara Reid’s pasticine illustrations!)
It helps to have a variety of colors available, and soft play dough like the Play Doh shown here is a bit easier to handle than thicker clay.
Play doh itself is one of my favorite activities for 4 year olds to do on their own, quietly at a table. Whether it’s these play dough mats, a big bag of cookie cutters and a roller, or some kitchen tools, or just fingers and an imagination, play doh is fabulous. And yes, it comes out of clothing in the wash.
Melissa & Doug Reusable Sticker Pads
These things are SO great. I did a review on the Melissa & Doug Dress Up Reusable Sticker Pad – check it out for lots of detailed info on the “Dress Up” Themed one.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much play time these reusable stickers have gotten in our household. The favorite for us is this “Habitats” one – with 5 habitat scenes and 5 pages of animal stickers.
Another great thing about the Melissa & Doug Reusable Stickers is… they also stick (via static cling, not permanently) to MIRRORS and WINDOWS. Hours and hours of sticker fun to be had – at the table, AND in the bedroom during quiet time!
There are TONS of different themes, including the following: Princess, Playing House, Vehicles, Castle, My Town, Habitats, Prehistoric, Adventure, Dress Up, Fairies, and more!
Melissa & Doug Magnetic Doll Sets
Depending on your child, he or she at age 4 may still really enjoy playing with these magnetic dress up “dolls”. There are several different male and female versions of the doll, and each comes with various costumes for various games. The boy character “Joey”, for example, comes with pieces for a police outfit, superhero get-up, knight armour, and more. You can get a Princess themed set, a Career Woman set, an “everyday girl” set, and several others. Check out the variety here!
Kids can mix and match, make funny or realistic outfits, and more!
The manufacturer’s recommended age is 3-6, but comments on these magnetic dolls on Amazon.com indicate that most are finished with them by age 5 or 6… that 2-4 may be more appropriate. Either way, you know your child. It’s a quiet, easy creative play idea… a fun activity for a 4 year old that he or she can do on their own.
Oversized Coloring Books
If your 4 year old likes to color, these giant coloring pads are AMAZING! There are so many different options besides Paw Patrol too. See Available Options By Clicking Here!
For less than $10 you get 18 unique pictures, on quality paper – in GIANT size! (12.75″ x 19.4375″ – basically, mini posters). There are all sorts of fun options to choose from! Trolls, Spider-Man, the Avengers, Doc McStuffins, Frozen, Disney Princesses, Planes… and more!
Add in a package of new markers or crayons and you’ve got a nice quiet afternoon ahead of you as your 4 year old colors to his/her hearts content!
Stickers, Stickers, Stickers!
Need I say more?! If you have a 4 year old, you’ll very likely know what a big hit stickers can be! Four year olds can spend tons of time with them, and giving them a sticker book, sticker pad, sticker activity book, or the like will definitely bring a smile to their faces!
Jigsaw Puzzles
Parents will know what kind of puzzles will suit their particular 4 year old – if they are at the 100 piece stage, or most comfortable with 48 piece puzzles – whether they like Jumbo Floor Puzzles, or small pieces they can sort on a table.
Look & Find Books
This Minnie Mouse one is great – my daughter loves spending time quietly hunting down various items and characters in the fun scenes. She does prefer to “read this” with me or her Daddy though – making it into a game, but it IS a really good book for kids who can’t yet read, but need to be occupied for a while.
Be sure to check out your local library or thrift store for books like this one (but unlike me, be sure that if you buy it second hand, check that pages haven’t been ripped out…)
Lego
Lego is “the ultimate toy”, I think. Kids can be SO creative with it – the opportunities for building something new and interesting are limitless! Whether you have the “big lego” (Duplo), “big kid Lego” (Original), Lego themed sets, or Lego Junior kits, you can be sure that with a bit of encouragement (aka, spending the time a few times to give them some ideas to run with), Lego will be one of the best activities for 4 year olds – they are at the perfect age to dive into this creative world!
Beads / Jewelry Making
Listen to Audio Books
If you can’t read to them at the moment, why not let someone else do it for you? Have a stash of their favorite children’s books with CDs or download some audiobooks
Write a Letter or Make a Card
Perhaps you, like me, have a fairly decent “collection” of scrapbooking/card making gear gathering dust (now that you’v discovered the beautiful world of digital scrapbooking). Stamps, cardstock, stickers, metallic pens, etc… they are very appealing to 4 year olds for making fancy cards and pictures to send to Grandma and Grandpa, let me tell you! Talk about a great use for something we’ll/I’ll likely never use again! 🙂
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Cheers,
Marlaine
This is the perfect list of activities to be made available in my home…. but my kids are already teens. But I serve in a children’s ministry in church and I think this list is also applicable there. To have a fun body/mind/soul stimulating space in our homes and churches is so important. Thanks for sharing this list and I wish you the best in everything you do in your home too.
Hi ht, thanks for commenting! I agree – kids everywhere need to be encouraged to develop their minds through play and play-based learning.
May God bless your efforts in your church’s children’s ministry!
These are all great ideas Marlaine. In our household the kids love playing dress up, blowing bubbles, play doh and making cards. Another activity is rock painting, although this one needs the help of an adult. But thanks for sharing these great ideas 🙂
Hi Gaylene, rock painting is a great idea for a 4 year old, for sure!! Thanks for the suggestion, as I’d forgotten about this one.
My daughter and her cousins love to paint rocks when we go camping in the summer. First the treasure hunt on the beach, then craft time! 🙂 I find it’s a great picnic table / who cares if you get everything dirty craft. And they turn into great picnic tablecloth paperweights! 🙂 Thanks for your input! Have a lovely day.
These are great ideas. You know, I think that with the explosion of video games and smartphone movies, kids are doing less and less of the good old stuff like lego, coloring, dolls, and such. A lot of kids in their free time just pick up the iPad and head right to Youtube or Netflix or Hulu. I think parents should educate their children and maybe create a preset time for video games, and the rest they have to do real stuff, like lego and playing outside that will help them develop. What do you think?
I agree wholeheartedly. It’s way, way too easy to flip on a screen to keep your kids entertained. Especially if you’re tired… which a lot of parents ARE. But the benefits of actual PLAYING are undisputed.
In our house, my kids know that they’ll be allowed to watch something Mom-approved on Netflix for the hour before dinner – and that’s it. They’ve learned not to even ask because it’ll be a no. (That was tough to achieve… but worth it.) A favorite activity right now in our house is zoo-building with blocks, plastic animals, and duplo. I love it!
Thanks for your great comment, Ben!
Hi Marlaine,
My kids are still on Christmas break and they are always trying to entertain themselves. I wish I had stumbled on this site sooner!! It would have helped us out a lot. Thank you for providing great ideas. I will definitely bookmark this site for future reference.
Kind Regards,
James.
Welcome, and hope to see you back soon! 🙂
Have a great time yet on with your kids in your holidays!
My daughter is not quite yet three but I found this article quite helpful. She likes playing with bubbles. We got her a machine that blows out bubbles and she absolutely loves it. She also loves playing with play-doh and stickers.
When she is older I want to do jigsaws with her. I used to love doing them when I was a child. I know we’ll have great fun with that solving puzzles together.
Making cards will also be great fun. We can do this together when it comes to our family’s birthdays and special events as well.
Thank you for sharing these great ideas.
Thanks Owain! Glad these were already helpful for you and your daughter! Have you discovered yet the “First Look & Find” books (the ones for toddlers)? We pick them up for a buck or two regularly at second hand stores – my toddlers have spent a lot of time with them! They call it “reading”. 🙂
No I haven’t. I will have to check them out. Thank you.
No problem!
Good read. I like all the great ideas you mentioned in your article. I was looking for some good oversized colouring books for my nephew but cant seem to find any near my house. I like some of the colouring book options you have given here. Which one would you recommend me to buy for a 3-year-old boy? Thank You so much.
Hi Thevin, for a 3 year old boy? I’d guess that you couldn’t go wrong with Disney’s Planes or PAW Patrol! My 3 year old nephew likes both – a LOT. 🙂 We love these coloring pads – they are a much bigger hit than traditional coloring books for some reason! If you’re buying him markers with them, a tip that your nephew’s parents would REALLLLLY appreciate would be to buy the “Ultra Washable” kinds. 🙂
Have a great day!
Hello Marlaine,
great list of activities! My daughter is only three years old but she loves to dress up as a fairy and dance to the children Halloween songs on youtube:) I can also attest to the jigsaw puzzles and stickers. And lego, that’s an amazing invention for all ages:D
I have a question that deviates from a focus of your blog but…do you have any tips on board games for such a young children? Or is it too soon?
Thanks in advance:)
Marek
Hi Marek,
Thanks for commenting, and great question! Many games will be a bit challenging, but check out “Candyland” and “Zoofari” – both are board games your daughter might like! It has been a hit with our 3 year old daughter! She also loves Memory and Picture Bingo. Hope that helps! 🙂
Marlaine
This is great information especially for me. I have four little girls from 1-4 and I’m sure I could get them doing a few of these activities today. It’s hard to keep kids busy but this is worth a shot. Glad I came across this website and this post. I will share on my Facebook page. I’m sure this information is beneficial to many others.
Thanks so much, William! Where I live it’s chilly and damp outside – too cold for outside fun, and inside activities like these certainly are making MY days easier! 🙂 Hope it helps keep things happy where you are too!