Attachment parenting is about helping kids feel confident and reaching their full potential. Here are some great activities that preschoolers and parents can enjoy together.
Preschoolers and Conversations
Kids this age want to be part of the conversation. Make time each day to ask them questions that will allow them to show off what they know. If they love dinosaurs, ask them what their favorite dinosaur is and why. It’s also a great time to get into the habit of asking a child about their day.
For example, ask “What did you like most about your day?” “What was the most difficult part of your day?” or “What was the most exciting part of your day?”
Telephone Game With Preschoolers
Four is a great age to learn how to play the telephone game and they will likely find it very funny. Get together with friends and family in a line and start by whispering a simple sentence to the four-year-old who will whisper it to the next person until it goes to the end of the line. Preschoolers will laugh out loud to find out how twisted the sentence got from start to finish.
Magazine Collage With Four-Year-Old
Get some magazines, scissors, glue and construction paper and have fun with a preschooler by asking him to cut out images of his favorite things. Help with cutting and pasting as needed so that the four-year-old can make a big collage. Then hang it up somewhere, like his room or on the fridge, for him and the rest of the family to look at. The four-year-old will enjoy telling people about his “masterpiece.”
Read and Play “What Comes Next?” With Kids
Reading stories with kids is always a great way to bond together. A fun twist to reading a book is after reading a page, ask the child, “What Comes Next?” This allows the four-year-old to show off his knowledge of a well-read story or use his imagination to guess what could be on the next page. Another fun idea is to use puppets with a preschooler and create a story together.
Board Games and Lego for Kids
Simple board games that involve rolling a dice and moving a game piece, like Snakes and Ladders, are great to introduce at this age. Matching and memory card games are also fun. Putting together puzzles and building with blocks or Lego pieces are also great activities to do together.
Follow the Leader
Have some family fun by playing follow the leader indoors or outdoors. Another idea is to do a pared down scavenger hunt. For example, give kids task like, “Find something that is green and something that is red. The first one to finish gets to be the leader.” Then whoever wins gets to pick two things for everyone to find.
Outdoor Fun With a Four-Year-Old
Go outdoors together to get active. Throw a soft ball back and forth or kick a soccer ball together. Shoot some baskets with a preschool-sized hoop or get some plastic hockey sticks and a ball and play some hockey. Let him ride around with his tricycle or try out a two-wheeler with training wheels. Another idea is to do some gardening together, be it planting seeds for a balcony planter or in a community garden.
Take Preschooler Out to the Park
This is a great age to enjoy the playground. He will likely have mastered the slide and can climb up and down playground structures made for preschoolers with ease. He will have fun hanging out at the monkey bars and digging around in the sand area with a shovel and bucket.
There are a lot of fun activities for four-year-olds to do such as making a magazine collage, playing board games, playing follow the leader, kicking around a soccer ball and running around at a playground.
Find this article useful? check out What Can a Four-Year-Old Do?, What Can a Three-Year-Old Do? and How to Get Toddlers to Do Simple Chores.
Reference:
Newton, Ruth. The Attachment Connection: Parenting a Secure and Confident Child Using the Science of Attachment Theory. California: New Harbinger Publications Oakland, 2008.
Tami Nicholson - Tami is the Topic Editor for Parenting Methods at Suite101. She is a mother of two with a background in education and journalism.
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