Your child is getting older. Have you observed how your 4-year-old has become more self-reliant and self-assured lately? If not, you will notice it shortly.
This is when most toddlers begin to exhibit more self-control, independence, and creativity. They are pleased to play around with their toys for a long time, are anxious to try new things, and are finer to express their feelings when they become frustrated.
Children reach many of the following developmental milestones before they are six years old, although their pace varies.
4-Year-Old Development: Language and Cognitive Milestones
Your curious youngster is better positioned to talk. Additionally, your child’s vocabulary and thought process are expanding. Your kid should be able to answer simple questions logically, quickly, and with good notions and show emotions even better.
Children in this age group like to sing, rhyme, and invent new words. They are lively, silly, and many times loud and rowdy.
4- Year-Old Development: Movement Milestones and Hand and Finger Skills
Your 4-year-old should be learning through play, which is precisely what they should be doing. Your youngster should be able to run, jump, throw and kick balls, climb, and swing with ease at this age.
What Should a 4 Year Old Be Learning?
Your youngster can already do many household chores like going to the toilet, opening a toothpaste tube, pouring water in a cup, and unbuttoning buttons. Still, you have undoubtedly observed your kid happily run around, jumping, catching a ball, and hopping. Correspondingly, your child has also begun many academic activities such as storytelling, singing songs, poem writing, understanding time, and naming colors.
One of your main goals as a parent is to educate your four-year-old for kindergarten—academic-wise, behaviorally, and socio emotionally.
As a parent, you’re probably aware of your youngster’s age-appropriate developmental milestones (such as the ability to sit still for extended periods). As your 4-year-old begins to develop reading, listening, writing, and speaking abilities and basic maths skills, they will need to master gross and fine motor skills in physical activities.
A 4-year-old’s homeschool curriculum must be compatible and adaptable. It must also be interesting and exciting enough to lay a solid foundation of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and confidence.
Characteristics of 4-Year-Olds
Four-year-olds can run swiftly and can even walk down steps. They can put on clothes and undress independently, draw lines, and even string tiny beads.
It’s also the age that their vocabularies grow, allowing them to string together four or five words in a statement. JumpStart’s activities for four-year-olds are created to help keep the one-of-a-kind development characteristics.
So many changes are taking place in this generation, and it’s critical to expose them to the appropriate activities for four-year-olds.
Different Kinds of Activities for 4-Year-Olds
There are a lot of activities for four-year-olds depending on their emotional, social, and language development. Please give them the courage to color, draw, or play with balls. Besides helping them develop motor skills, it also encourages them to be innovative.
There are a lot of options for 4-year-olds when it comes to activities.
Getting them to create a narrative (have them utilize their imaginations and invent the tale while you type it or write it down), stringing essential jewelry, identifying alphabets, writing their names, or even assisting around in the kitchen are among the things to do with them.
There are various games and different activities that you can engage in with your kid to have fun together while also teaching them how to speak and listen, increase their vocabulary, count, and other early numeracy and literacy abilities. Most importantly, these suggestions are entertaining!
Games and activities
1. Read books together
To your kid, read books of all sorts: pictures, words, pictures, pop-ups, and information and poetry.
Which child doesn’t enjoy listening to a good story?
2. Go to the library
Paying a visit to the library is an excellent method to spend quality time together reading. The library allows your kid to find, flip through, and pick from various book types, including fantasy, non-fiction, and poetry.
A lot of libraries have pre-school singing or rhyming activities. It’s also a great place to go on a rainy day
3. Sing counting songs
Singing aids kids in developing their speaking and listening abilities while having fun with the words. Counting songs, such as ‘One, two, three, four,’ might help your youngster have a good time with numbers.
Songs like ’10 Green Bottles,’ for example, or ‘Three Little Frogs’ go in reverse order; this may be particularly beneficial when children learn about adding and subtracting. Using their fingers as counters to create a visual link between numbers and amounts can be effective.
4. Cut and paste
Scissors are hand tools that help youngsters grow coordination, direction, and strength. Scissors may be difficult for some youngsters to master; therefore, they require extensive training and supervision.
Make chains out of paper or have them search through publications and catalogs for images that match specific colors or categories (such as color or other classifications) to slit out and paste into pictures of themselves.
5. Dressing up
Role-playing and dress-up are fantastic ways to communicate and listen while also providing creative play. A fun dressing-up moment might help your youngster practice putting on their clothes. Zips, buttons, and armholes may all be used to good effect in an inconspicuous training session.
6. Play math games
Try these entertaining activities with your kid to help them improve their mathematics abilities while also boosting their confidence. Playing games is something that many children enjoy doing, and it’s a simple method to contribute to their education.
7. Cook together
It’s not only enjoyable, but it’s also a perfect method to start teaching math – counting the eggs to be used in a cake recipe, adding or removing toppings on a pizza. To develop eye-hand coordination and control, allow them to pour liquids or ladle flour. You both get to enjoy a delicious treat!