How many 'extra-curricular' activities does your 4year old do?

[Holymoly321]

DS1 has just turned four and I'm noticing that some of my mummy acquaintences are getting thier DC's to do 'stuff' at the weekend, like rugbytots, yogabugs etc. I always thought weekends were for us to spend together as a family with DH and 2yr old DS2 but maybe I am depriving him of classes that will benefit him when he's older. What do your 4 year old DC's do and is it worth the money / effort etc?

I'm holding off booking boy up for "classes" or "sport" on the weekend. He does a ballet class mid week, preschool 3 days and toddlers 2 days if we fancy it. He seems to like chilling out at weekend with his dad and we do what ever takes our fancy, I don't want to HAVE to be somewhere at 10am saturday, I'd rather still be in my dressing gown having breakfast.

ds (3) goes to a pre-school gymnastics and movement class during the week (I stay with him and go round the equipment with him). DD (6) goes to swimming lessons and a gymnastics class during the week. We have weekends together as a family but usually go swimming or bowling and go out for a late lunch or dinner over the two days.

None of my 3 did any until age 7 , but they were all born within 3 years so I would not have considered it an option

My ds was 4 at the end of July (so is at school now) but last year I only went to a toddler group with him on one afternoon a week. He went to preschool every week day morning until 1145 then we did stuff together or met up with friends in the afternoons.

I never did anything at the weekends other than family activities and still dont. Maybe that is selfish but everyone seems happy atm.

I think that your son will most benefit from lovely, family weekends spent together, doing stuff you all enjoy.
At that age, they don't need to go to some organized class, we only THINK they do. Its just a recent thing. When I think of the classes I did when I was a kid, its funny, I never ended up doing any of those things when I grew up. I've decided to wait until my kids show an interest in a particular thing. Then I know I'm not just wasting money.

DS (3.4) likes being out of the house as much as possible so he does swimming, tumble tots, yoga, music and dance.

When DS was just four he did RugbyTots for 45 minutes on a Saturday morning. DH was out of the country for most of the year with work and I had DD to chase around after so it gave him some good throwing a ball around practice (and male attention) that he wouldn't have got otherwise. I will say that if I were doing it again I'd probably try to do a Playball class instead (they tend to be weekday afternoons, I think).

Now he's nearly five and in Reception he does a generalised sports class first thing on a Saturday morning. It's early so it doesn't eat into our weekend too much (in fact it motivates us to get dressed and out and have a more active family weekend), lots of his friends from school go so it's a nice opportunity for them to meet up outside school, and if it's a nice day we all cycle down and DD has a good time running around with us and the other younger siblings while DS is doing the class itself. I wouldn't introduce another weekend activity but this one does work for us as a family (plus it's a week-by-week thing that you don't have to commit to an entire term of, so if it doesn't fit in with our family plans for a particular weekend there's no problem).

He also does half an hour's swimming class roughly one week in three which we'd like to increase to once a week (but that's a weekday afternoon thing after school). This is because he got very enthused by swimming when we were on holiday in the summer but neither DH nor I seem to be able to actually teach him anything about swimming (possibly because I can barely swim myself and while DH can his technique is terrible ).

thanks all - will have a think about things. I would much rather have somethign that we can do week by week as opposed to be tied to something.