Educational Toys for 4 Year Olds
Many toys for 4 year olds have educational value. Children are always exploring the world and learning through play. However, the toys featured in this article have specific educational value, helping children learn about letters, numbers, improve vocabulary, start reading and develop other skills in preparation for schools.
Check out some top ideas of educational toys for 4 year olds.
Check out some top ideas of educational toys for 4 year olds.
Electronic Learning Toys
Electronic learning toys aren't always my favourites as I often find that many toys without all the flashing lights and batteries keep children occupied for longer and have lots of educational benefit too. Having said this, some electronic toys do offer great benefits and help teach skills really efficiently. We do love in an electronic world too so its good to introduce kids to toys that will help get them ready for laptops and computers. Here are some of my top picks of electronic learning toys for 4 year olds.
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Scribble and Write
The Scribble and Write helps children practice tracing shapes and then moves onto letters, great for preparing them to write by following the lights on the screen.
The toy has four learning modes that can help preschoolers improve their fine motor skills and writing for school. Start drawing simple shapes and pictures, then progress onto writing upper and lowercase letters. The pen is sized for a child's fingers and is easy grip. |
LeapFrog LeapPad 3 Learning Tablet
This is a great first tablet for young children. It's designed to be durable and is drop tested!
I like that it has a camera and a video camera and young kids will enjoy adding fun effects to the pictures they take. There are 10 free apps that kids can play which are great for learning when having fun. You can buy lots more apps in the leapfrog store too. It also features build in wifi and kids can access a safe web with a closed web environment of kid friendly videos, games and more. |
Toys and Books to Prepare 4 Year Olds for School
It won't be long before many 4 year olds start school (my son is starting next September). There are lots of toys to help them prepare some of the skills that school requires.
Alex Ready Set School set
The Alex Ready Set School set has lots of fun activities to learn to write, to cut, stick, trace, learn colours & shapes. It includes wipe-away learning pads with dot to dot, ABC, colours & Shapes, and 1,2,3. Additionally there is a tie my Shoe lacing, scissors and stackable finger crayons.
The Let's Get Ready for school book include lots of exercises and activities on wipe clean pages so they can be done over and over. Learn letters, colours, numbers shapes, spelling and sorting. My son loves writing on wipe clean boards. At the moment he is 4 1/2 and loves tracing letters. |
Toys to Introduce Letters, Spelling and Reading
Melissa and Doug See and Spell
Melissa and Doug See and Spell are simple jigsaws where you complete the puzzles to spell a word.
Great for introducing letters and simple spelling. Kids just love doing the puzzles too. Help teach your 4 year old the alphabet with Orchard toys bright and colourful giant alphabet puzzle. |
Leapfrog LeapReader Reading and Writing System
If you want to give your child a head start at school and teach them to read and write the leapreader is a really fun way to do it.
It's a essentially a leapreader pen which wil help your child learn to read and write when used with the leapreader books and accessories which you by separately. It teaches kids to read through lively stories with fun sound effects. It teaches phonics, vocabulary and reading comprehension. It teaches 4 year olds to write by interactive handwriting guidance and their writing magically appears on leapfrog learning paper. |
The set featured opposite comes with the leapreader pen, activity sampler book, learning paper writing sheets. You can also download 2 audio books, tivia quiz and learning song.
It works with the LeapReader and Tag books (a library of 150+ books, games and more).
It works with the LeapReader and Tag books (a library of 150+ books, games and more).
Toys to Learn Numbers and MathsMelissa and Doug magnetic numbers are a great learning tool.
They can be put on the fridge or a magnetic white board. You can use them firstly just to teach numbers and later on to practice simple sums. |
Educational Games
Orchard toys do some great educational games.
The shopping list game featured opposite is a great memory and matching game. It's a simple game and 4 year olds love to play it. Each player is given a shopping list, they have to fill up their trolley with the items on the list. Children can learn to recognize various grocery products and read the names from their lists. |