And he or she is learning a world full of new life skills and at breathtaking speeds:
• Drawing and coloring are both fun, creative, and excellent fine motor skill training for small hands.
• Building structures, cars, caves, taking them apart and starting over stimulates fine motor skills, inspires creativity, creative problem solving and innovation.
• Memory games are a great way to train cognitive skills.
• Songs and stories trigger the imagination, creative thinking, musical understanding and language development.
• Role play in everyday and/or fantasy scenarios can seem like a random mash-up of conflicting rules or realities to an outsider, but your child is exploring their own personality and place in his world. And because it’s just pretend, there are no hard feelings when the good guy is done catching the bad guy and it’s time for dinner.
• Exploring their environment: figuring out how things work and asking “why?” become their main missions. No everyday object is safe from being examined and possibly turned into play props.
• Asserting independence and confidence: 4-year-olds show their independence and challenge their own abilities in different ways. Whether they like to dress themselves, help you with everyday tasks, want to play with “big kid toys”, or become adventurous and “move into the play house” with a backpack full of crackers and comics, each are small steps on your child’s many life adventures.
How can you support your child’s learning through play?
1. Give children (and their friends) uninterrupted time and space to play.
2. Encourage them to play their own way.
3. Make sure they are safe – be there as a quiet observer and a gentle guide when they need you.
If you want to learn more about the benefits of building and access free activities and games for your 4-year-old, visit LEGO.com/juniors.