Your 4 year olds favourite toys

[Summerdays2014]

Hi,

I’m a teacher with a 4 year old so we will both be off school/nursery from Friday. Im very lucky not to have to worry about childcare. I’m looking at getting him some new games/toys/anything to keep him occupied especially when I am having to work from home - uploading lessons, marking work sent to me etc. Do you have any suggestions?

He loves Lego and superhero’s - we have lots of these!

He is not bothered about arts and crafts - gave him one of those no less colouring books this morning and he was less than impressed!

He does love books so I’ve got lots of new ones ready to go.

We are also lucky to have a big gardens so outdoor door suggestions would be great!
Thanks in advance.

DS1 never liked colouring either, but try printing off mazes and/or worksheets where he follows dotted lines, as handwriting practice. It might be a good age to look at first phonics stuff if he has any interest (if not, don't push it). Playdough is good. Sand, water and/or mud play are good. Some simple gardening, bird seed table etc? With a book to identify different bird types.

Mine likes cars and putting them all in one of those big trucks to drive them somewhere and make a big traffic jam in every doorway he can find!

Mines obsessed with Thomas the Tsnk engine so have a million trains and track! He loves space so has a projector for the ceiling, Facebook's etc. He also loves looking at globes so have an interactive one. It makes it easier that he can read so he's happy to read magazines/books by himself.

tank and factbooks!

My 4.5yo (reception) is on a Hama bead marathon

We have a folding trampoline (bought from Amazon ages ago), we've brought it into the house at the mo as it's a bit wet here. DS has been bouncing on it a bit, trying to get him to burn off some energy.

We also have pop up play tents and a pop up basket ball thingy (with some ball pit balls for indoor use). He loves throwing them into the basket ball thing and they're pretty light so not likely to do too much damage.

When my DD was 4 she loved marble runs, wooden train set, lego, jigsaws, games like pop up pirate and frustration a few orchard toys games like shopping list and ladybird spots one. Chalks for the back yard. I know you said no crafts but she liked threading beads in varying patterns. Could do the same with buttons I guess.

But she also liked 'helping'. So I got her doing boring stuff I find annoying but the novelty was great for her. She quite often dusted skirting boards for me 😂

Pop up play tents we have

Pop up basket ball thing

Folding trampoline

As I said, we've had these for the kids for birthdays/Christmas for the last little bit. All been well played with and coming into their own at the moment.

Drs set was vv popular from about age 3 to 6.
Trampoline.
Gloop (non-Newtonian fluid made from maize flour and water - Google receptie)
Dressing up stuff

Some great ideas thank you! Like the basket ball thing and trampoline!