Activities for 4 year olds
Activities for 4 year olds at home
| Activity | What kind | What a child does |
|---|---|---|
| The Rainy Day Box | Make | Cards of forts, crafts, games and experiments with things most homes have, each saying how long, how messy and what a grown-up does. |
| The Activity Book | Puzzle | Mazes, word finds, riddles, dot-to-dots and logic puzzles in four sizes, most of them new every day, to print or do on screen. |
| Dot-to-dot | Puzzle | Join the numbers and a picture appears. Counting practice with a pencil. |
| Shadow match | Puzzle | Match each picture to its shadow: looking closely, with no reading needed. |
| Odd one out | Puzzle | Find the one that does not belong, and say why. |
| Mazes | Puzzle | A new maze to print or trace with a finger. |
| Spot the difference | Puzzle | Two pictures, a handful of changes to find. |
| Coloring pages | Make | Pictures to color on screen or print for the table. |
| Trace letters | Make | Trace capital letters, starting with the first letter of your name. |
| The Art Studio | Make | Crayons, paint and coloring on the screen. |
| No-bake recipes | Cook | Food small hands can make with no oven: mix, spread, stack and eat. |
| The Kitchen | Cook | Real recipes step by step with Crumb, saying which jobs are a grown-up's. |
| Funny food | Cook | Snacks shaped like critters and faces. |
| Exercises at home | Move | Real exercise sorted by how much room it needs, from a chair's width to a hallway. |
| Stretches | Move | Slow stretches for a calm end to a busy day. |
| The library | Read | Free stories by reading level, to read together or alone, with no account. |
| Short bedtime stories | Read | Stories short enough for one more before lights out. |
| Peabody TV | Read | The library's books as read-along shows. |
| Pet care books | Read | Short stories about looking after dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters and more. |
| Preschool learning games | Play | Tap-to-play games where every question is said aloud, so no reading is needed. |
| Picture timers | Play | Fun picture timers for a turn, a tidy-up or ten minutes of screen time. |
| Road trip games | Play | The License Plate Game, car games and checklists for the drive. |
What 4 year olds are like at home
A 4 year old can follow two or three steps, hold a crayon well and help in the kitchen with mixing and spreading. They like to show what they made.
A day for a 4 year old
| When | Try |
|---|---|
| Morning | Exercises at home |
| Before lunch | The Rainy Day Box |
| Lunch | No-bake recipes |
| Afternoon | The Activity Book |
| Evening | Road trip games |
| Bedtime | The library |
13 of the 22 activities above need no screen once they are open or printed. For games only, see preschool learning games. Everything here is free through the end of 2026, with no ads, no sign-up and nothing to download.
Other ages: 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12.
Questions parents ask
What can a 4 year old do at home?
Things to make, puzzle, cook, move, read and play: the table lists 22 that suit a 4 year old, from The Rainy Day Box to Road trip games.
Which activities for a 4 year old need no screen?
The Rainy Day Box, The Activity Book, Dot-to-dot and Shadow match, and more in the table.
Are these activities free?
Yes. Everything here is free through the end of 2026, with no ads, no sign-up and nothing to download.
What if my child is ahead or behind for 4?
Ages are a guide, not a rule. Look one year either way: 3 or 5.
Teacher? Share this page to Google Classroom. Children open it with no sign-up.
Checked against how Peabody works on 6 November 2026. Written with help from AI, from Peabody's own code and library. Peabody is a learning app, not an assessment: if you're worried about your child's learning, talk to their teacher. How Peabody's pages are made.