Please come and tell me what your 4 year old DD's favourite toys are ...

[JimmyTarbuck]

My 4 year old DD is asking for the TV a lot at the moment and if it's not TV, she is 'reeeeaaaaallly hungry', probably because she is a bit bored. She is an only child (not our choice) and has a pretty short attention span. I do lots with her like baking, painting, play doh, etc and she likes helping around the house, but she struggles to entertain herself. I have just sold a fair bit of her plastic tat Fisher Price Little People stuff on ebay and told her she could choose a few toys with the money. What do your 4 year old DDs play with for more than 5 mins at a time? All suggestions gratefully received.

my dd who's 4 loves
play doh
and that awful moon dough stuff (but only gets to play with that outside)
chalk - let her draw over the slabs outside - as soon as it rains it washes off
lego
models - old cardboard boxes, glued together
snails/beastie hunts in the garden (told not to bring them into the house!)
dressing up
putting on a 'show' for us ie dancing/singing
stickers

she still loves her little people/doll house/barbies and will play for ages with them
ds - moshi monsters/hello kitty
books to look at the pictures
hama beads
making necklaces etc from pasta
gluing - anything!
domino's
marbles/bouncy balls

ps - dd1 (7) loves all the above too

As mother of 3 dds, I add another vote for playmobil. We got ours off ebay. It gets set up again and again, then just chucked in a plastic box at the end of the day (unless some has been left out for the 'fairies' to play with). 4 yr old does play with it now, but it comes into its own more as they get older (9 yr old still plays with it at least 1x week). She also really enjoys her money tin (old treacle tin that she stores her pennies in) and watering the garden (not that it needs it!).

Playmobile.
Playing games with her dolls/teddies - nursery, going on holiday, weddings, doctors - she can nag for a companion with this
Arts & crafts.
Pottering around the garden chuntering away to herself.

That's pretty much all she will do without my input.

Lego, small Lego obviously for this age, not duplo. My dd will sit on her own with it and build houses for dinosaurs and the like for ages.

She also loves building dens and tents in her room using the metal aired and a spare duvet and then takes toys in there and role plays.

Craft of any sort, so play dough, drawing, sticking, stickers.