Educational toys for a 4 yo?

[KLeeCW]

We got DS a wooden marble run for christmas. It's great for hand eye coordination and for learning shapes like prisms, cubes, cylinders, etc. He's loving finding new ways to set it up. It's the imaginarium one from TRU, not sure if it is still available. He was also given a play money set to use for learning money and he opens pretend stores. It's good for counting, but he isn't quite ready for counting in 5/10/25 increments just yet. But it's helping him to be ready.

It really depends on your child. Artsy? Builder? Explorer? In the past, I asked for a treasure chest. We were given one that is about 1.5 feet wide and about a foot tall. We add cool things to the box. Gears from a broken clock. Or maybe packaging material that looks neat. All different things to use for pretend play or art projects. Then DS uses them to make space ships or castles, etc. Every few days, we go to the box and we each pick a few things and make up stories for them. A scrap of fabric goes from a super hero cape to a table cloth to a parachute. Metal gears are keys to a fantastic world or DS will look through the hole in the middle and pretend he sees pirates in the distance. Every month I go through the chest and take out some things and put in new things. It was one of the best gifts we ever got and it's made better by the fact that we change it all the time.

[HeatherlovesCDs]

We have those pop beads. The only problem with them is they end up ALL over the house. My DD does love them though. Actually, my boys even play with them. They make snakes out of them. I admit, we have thought about getting rid of them simply because we are so sick of finding them everywhere. *sigh*

I really want these for my kids http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo...02325806~~.jsp Expensive, but I've heard wonderful things about them.

[sallyjean]

The Yonanas is awesome! My son loves his Boogie Board writing tablet. It's just a basic LCD screen and stylus but it's great for practicing writing and drawing. Best of all the batteries never need to be replaced.

[KLeeCW]

Originally Posted by HeatherlovesCDs We have those pop beads. The only problem with them is they end up ALL over the house. My DD does love them though. Actually, my boys even play with them. They make snakes out of them. I admit, we have thought about getting rid of them simply because we are so sick of finding them everywhere. *sigh* I really want these for my kids http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo...02325806~~.jsp Expensive, but I've heard wonderful things about them.

DS has these! We love them. Easy to play with and easy cleanup!