Four year olds are starting become quite independent in their play, can get more adventurous with the activities that they do and can be quite helpful. Jennie Lindon explains helps you to understand the psychology of 4 year olds in this exclusive video and we had lots of lively conversation around 4 year olds and play during your Play Fest. You can save 10% on Jenny Lindons Book What it Means to be 4 exclusively with Izziwizzi Kids quote “izziwizzi” at the checkout. We have summarised some of the ideas that came forward during Play Fest to give you ideas with your 4 year old.

Feel free to add your comments.

These were favourite products for 4 year olds during Play Fest:

- Fuzzy felt
- Books
- Face Paints
- Happy Hopperz available from KidzOutdoors.com
- Jigsaws
- Board games to explore taking turns
- Puppets
- Think fun Zingo bingo
- Cars
- Role play with figures
- Old fashioned to encourage imagination (eg no batteries!) – wooden toy farm, bus and abacus
- Plastic animals and dinosaurs
- Anything robot
- Anything Toy Story
- Balance bike

Favourite Activities:

- Racing to do specified challenges such as see who’s the first to pick up 10 items
- Sticker charts
- Camping out in bedroom
- Riding bike
- Anything craft
- Making perfume with recycled plastic bottles and water
- Sensory play

Keeping Kids Occupied on Car Journeys

- Lots of singing
- Name a colour and they have to name as many things as they can in that time
- The Mini Flick game – spot a mini and flick the person next to you
- I spy
- Car snooker

Three year olds are energetic, learning to talk and becoming more independent. Jennie Lindon explains helps you to understand the psychology of 3 year olds in this exclusive video and we had lots of lively conversation around 3 year olds and play during your Play Fest. You can save 10% on Jenny Lindons Book What it Means to be 3 exclusively with Izziwizzi Kids quote “izziwizzi” at the checkout. We have summarised some of the ideas that came forward during Play Fest to give you ideas with your 3 year old.

Feel free to add any further ideas in the comments below.

Activity ideas with 3 year olds from Play Fest:

- Making wooden spoon puppets
- Walks in nature or outside
- Messy stuff, painting and jumping in puddles, lots of outside stuff
- Water – transfer water from jug to jug using montessari techniques
- Creative – drawing, painting, playdough, chalks,
- Playing out in the garden
- Bounce, dance, sing and shout
- Role play superhero characters
- Making Gloop
- Tig
- Hide and seek
- Counting songs
- Bear hunt or picnic
- Penne pasta and some string
- Sand or mud pies
- Make musical instruments
- We love playdoh and colouring books at the moment
- planting flowers, seeds and summer bulbs is great for this time of year
- Playing Dinosaurs is another favourite, & usually involves alot of greeness and grrrrr
- Grow own veg
- Geo caching was recommended. Here is how it is described by one mum during Play Fest. You need a gps system- i use my iphone. You log on to http://www.geocache.com or download app. Lots of treasure boxes hidden all over the world. They give you the location on the cache (treasure) and then off we pop to find it! Gives the kids a purpose for walking- mine absolutely love it. You can take an item of treasure as long as you put something in it’s place. Worth a go

What can we do to encourage 3 year olds to be helpful?

- Clear tables
- Tidy up time
- Sorting and matching socks
- Putting washing in
- Set table
- Clear away
- Put clothes away
- Anything to clean
- Make a car wash in the garden to clean the bikes
- Cooking peas
- Bunny hunts, cat hunts, worm hunts
- Wash the rice before cooking
- Sweeping up
- MCleaning, cooking and gardening sets so children can get involved to help safely.
- Hang out the washing and insists on holding one end of the washing basket when we carry it out to the garden!
- Put pajamas under pillow
- Taking rubbish to the bin and recycling!
- Putting books back on the shelf
-The shopping! Draw pictures on a shopping list and make a game to see who can find the items in the supermarket
- Get the post in the morning
- Washing up

The topic came up about potty training too. Games to encourage kids to use the potty?

- Munching peas
- ping pong ball in the toilet hit the target
- Cheerio in the toilet hit the target

These were Play Festers favourite products for 3 year olds:

Products for 3 year olds reviewed during Play Fest

- Fuzzy felt
- Books
- Face Paints
- Happy Hopperz
- Jigsaws
- Board games to explore taking turns
- Puppets
- Think fun Bingo bingo
- Cars
- Role play with figures
- Old fashioned to encourage imagination (eg no batteries!) – wooden toy farm, bus and abacus
- Plastic animals and dinosaurs
- Anything robot
- Anything Toy Story
- Balance bike