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Games Under 4 years old can be difficult to find. They could include: Balance games, stacking, music, memory games, numbers, alphabet, names. sensory games, foreign languages.

Let’s work on our balance! There are so many things in life that require you to have balance. Starting out young will give them a step up!

Maybe your child needs to learn about shapes, colors, or coordination. Well, try this website. They have lots of educational learning toys and games. Want to use a game to help shape your child’s future? Well, try this one: Law of Attraction for Kids. It is really amazing how they use games to teach life lessons!

More Games Under 4 years of age

Or, maybe, you want to teach your young child about foods. This website, The Barefoot Mommy, has kitchen toys to help with colors, shapes, and a multitude of other learning toys.

Want to work Games under 4 years for building their IQ? Try this site with IQ Builder.

Maybe you want to explore home-schooling. There are so many options! But this website can get you started! Mommymaestra is a website about home schooling and learning from a Latina Mom. Go here to get great prices on supplies – Discount School Supply!

Of course, what better way to teach your child than with a book! Books are a great teaching aid. You can easily put it down when your child looses focus and pick it back up with ease, anywhere in the story! 

Here is an option that will help teach your child the basics of math, reading and word skills starting at age 4. Zoowhiz: it’s worth checking out!

Literacy, Language and the Brain

1. The greatest amount of brain growth occurs between birth and age five. In fact, by age 3, roughly 85% of the brain’s core structure is formed. In contrast, the majority of our investments are made in the traditional education years of K-12, which begin at age five. “Lifetime Effects: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through age 40.” Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, 2005.

2. Cognitive processes develop rapidly in the first few years of life. At birth your baby’s brain is only 25 percent of its adult size. By age three your child’s brain will be 80 percent of its adult size. www.zerotothree.org/child-development/healthy-minds.html. 

And, Some more Facts!

4. Given the course of brain development, it is not surprising that young children who are exposed to certain early language and literacy experiences usually prove to be good readers later. Just as a child develops language skills long before being able to speak, the child also develops literacy skills long before being able to read. National Research Council. (1998). Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

3. The developing brain triples in the first year alone and is virtually fully formed by the time a child enters kindergarten. Eliot, L. (1999). What’s Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life. Bantam Books.

5. The average child from a professional family hears 215,000 words per week; a child from a working-class family hears 125,000 words per week; and a child from a family receiving welfare benefits hears 62,000 words per week. Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing.

6. Researchers found that when mothers frequently spoke to their infants, their children learned almost 300 more words by age 2 than did their peers whose mothers rarely spoke to them. Huttenlocher et al., 1991. Early vocabulary growth: Relation to language input and gender. Developmental Psychology, 27, 236-248.

Make Word Games Under 4 a priority in your house! 

7. The most important aspect of parent talk is its amount. Parents who just talk as they go about their daily activities expose their children to 1000-2000 words every hour. Hart and Risley (1999) The social world of children learning to talk.

8. In the first three years, infants and toddlers begin acquiring the first of thousands of words they will use throughout their lives. Simultaneously, children are learning the rules of grammar as well as absorbing the social conventions that exist around communication in their community. Im, J., Osborn, C., Sánchez, S. and Thorp, E. (in press). Cradling Literacy: Building Teachers’ Skills to Nurture Early Language and Literacy Birth to Five. Washington, DC: ZERO TO THREE.

9. While good early experiences help the brain develop well, poor experiences can literally cause a genetically normal child to have a lower I.Q. Scientific evidence shows that maltreated children who receive little stimulation – children who are exposed to fewer colors, less touch, little interaction with adults, fewer sights and sounds, and less language – actually have smaller brains. De Bellis, M.D., Keshaven, M.S., Clark,D.B., Caseey, B.J., Giedd, J.B., Boring,A.M., Frustaci, K., & Ryan, N.D. (1999).Developmental traumatology.Part 2: Brain development. BiologicalPsychiatry, 45, 1271-1284.

10. Children’s academic successes at ages 9 and 10 can be attributed to the amount of talk they hear from birth through age 3. Hart and Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children.

Even more information!

11. By age 2, a child’s brain is as active as an adult’s and by age 3 the brain is more than twice as active as an adult’s – and stays that way for the first 10 years of life. Shore, R. (1997). Rethinking the Brain: New Insights into Early Development. New York: Families and Work Institute.

12. Experts are nearly unanimous in stating that babies should routinely experience shared books as soon as they experience shared talking, that is, during the first weeks and months of life. Butler, D. (1998). Babies need books. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

13. Early literacy encompasses all of a child’s experiences with conversation, stories (oral and written), books, and print. Rebecca Parlakian, Before the ABCs: Promoting School Readiness in Infants and Toddlers. Washington, DC: Zero to Three, 2003.

14. Reading aloud to young children is not only one of the best activities to stimulate language and cognitive skills; it also builds motivation, curiosity, and memory. Bardige, B. Talk to Me, Baby!(2009), Paul H Brookes Pub Co.

15. At its heart, literacy is about communication, which begins long before a baby utters her first word. Babies are prewired to learn, communicate, and connect with others; they tell us what they need through their cries, facial expressions, sounds, and movements. Janice Im, Carol Osborn, Sylvia Sánchez, et al., Cradling Literacy: Building Teachers’ Skills to Nurture Early Language and Literacy from Birth to Five. Washington, DC: Zero to Three, 2007.

So, whether you want to go all out and do some hard core education, of just have fun with it, we can help you! Find Games Under 4 years here!

Need some outdoor games or some games for older children? Try our Yard Games!

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