29 Best Learning Games for 4 Year Olds in 2024

Four-year-olds are curious, energetic, and developing their independence, self-control, and creativity. At this age, they can focus on a toy or activity for about 5-10 minutes, making it important to choose the right games. Engaging learning games for 4-year-olds can support their physical, mental, and cognitive growth. In this guide, we’ll share the best games for 4-year-olds that keep them entertained and help them learn.

29 Best Educational Fun Games for 4-Year-Olds’ Growth

The first five years are crucial for a child’s development. Therefore, you must engage your toddler in various games that can stimulate their senses and educate them. Notably, games for a 4-year-old has to be fun and exciting. So, after thorough consideration, we have created a list of the 29 best 4 year old games:

6 Learning Games for 4-Year-Olds

1. SplashLearn Educational Games

Skill Development: Reading, math and early skills
SplashLearn is an interactive and adaptive educational platform designed specifically for young learners. It combines fun with learning, offering a variety of games that help children build essential skills in a playful and engaging way.

Key Features:
Extensive skill coverage:

• Math Games: Children can explore numbers, counting, and basic arithmetic through fun, character-driven activities that make math enjoyable.

• Reading Games: SplashLearn introduces letter recognition, phonics, and simple stories, laying the groundwork for early literacy and a love for reading.

• Creative Exploration: The platform includes drawing and painting games that encourage creativity and self-expression, helping children explore their artistic abilities.

• Motor Skills and Problem-Solving: Interactive puzzles and challenges are designed to enhance fine motor coordination and critical thinking.

Adaptive Learning
SplashLearn tailors its activities to match each child’s learning pace, ensuring they are both challenged and motivated. This personalized approach helps sustain their interest and supports ongoing skill development.

Parent Involvement
Parents can easily monitor their child’s progress with detailed reports, making it easy to see where their child excels and where they might need extra support. 

Why SplashLearn?
SplashLearn strikes a balance between education and entertainment, making it a valuable tool for supporting the emotional, physical, and cognitive development of 4-year-olds. It’s a great resource for parents looking to enhance their child’s learning experience at home.

2. Matching Letters

Skill Development: Memory skills, spelling, and word recognition

Matching Letters is a learning game for four-year-olds that helps develop their memory skills and strategic mindset while also improving their word recognition ability. It is the perfect game to play with the entire family and develop your child’s alphabetical skills. It is simple to play since it only has 60 cubes that can only form 3-4 letter words. 

Price: $16.99

Buy: Here

3. Wooden Magnetic Letters

Skill Development: Matching, fine motor skills, alphanumeric recognition 

This educational game for 4-year-olds is fun and engaging. The game board is designed with different alphabetic and numerical letters. Your children will use a magnetic fish rod to find the right letters based on your instructions. With this game, you can teach colors, numbers, letters, and matching skills.

Price: $19.99
Buy: Here

4. Zingo

Skill Development: Thinking, reading skills

Zingo is a simple bingo game for toddlers that helps develop their critical thinking and reading skills. Your kids have to follow the instructions mentioned on Zingo cards and match different connectors on their slips. It is fun and easy to play a game that the entire family can enjoy together.

Price: $21.49
Buy: Here

5. Shape and Color Bingo

Skill Development: Shape recognition, color identification, counting

Requirements: Bingo cards with shapes and colors, markers or small objects as bingo chips

Create bingo cards with different shapes in various colors. Call out either a shape or color, and have children place markers on the corresponding spaces. This game helps them learn to distinguish between different shapes and colors while also counting their markers.

Price: $12.89
Buy: Here

6. Block Patterning

Skill Development: Shape recognition, building, spatial awareness

Requirements: A set of blocks in different shapes and colors, pattern cards or printed images of simple structures

Provide children with blocks of different shapes and colors. Show them patterns or pictures of simple structures, and ask them to recreate the patterns. This game reinforces their understanding of shapes, colors, and how to build structures.

Price: $13.99
Buy: Here

Related Reading: Best Shape Activities For Preschoolers

5 Group Educational Games for 4-Year-Olds

1. Scavenger Hunt

Skill Development: Leadership, instructions, understanding, and processing skills

Requirements: Random items to hunt

Whether it is your 4-year-old’s birthday party or you want to tire out energetic preschoolers, you can organize a scavenger hunt. You can create doodles or drawings to create a treasure map, as some four-year-olds might struggle to read written instructions. 

In addition to this, you can make a scavenger hunt more fun by dividing your children into groups of two and organizing a small competition among them.

Related Reading: Best Scavenger Hunt Riddles For Kids

2. Hopscotch

Skill Development: Counting, physical strength 

Requirements: A chalk and pebble

Hopscotch is a classic and fun game for four-year-olds. To play this game, using chalk, create a grid of nine blocks and mark numbers in each block like 1, 2, 3, etc. Now, give a stone or pebble to your preschooler and ask them to throw it on any number in this first row. They have to then hop down the grid and then back and pick up their pebble while standing on one foot. It’s going to be fun watching kids hopping, falling, and laughing. 

Related Reading: Best Counting Activities for Preschoolers

3. Jump Rope

Skill Development: Balance, coordination 

Requirements: Jumping rope

Jumping rope is a fun and entertaining game for four-year-olds. All it requires is a jumping rope, and your preschoolers can have a blast playing with it. They can even do group jumping to develop coordination and body balance. It is a perfect outdoor activity for 4 year olds to improve their body strength.

Related Reading: Best Movement Activities for Preschoolers

4. Tag

Skill Development: Motor skills

Requirements: Open space to run around in

Tag is a game that four-year-olds and adults can play and have fun with their friends. There are several versions of this game. So, you and your child can play freeze tag, simple tag, or any other version of tag that your family plays. It is a perfect game to improve motor and sensory skills among young children as they have to respond quickly while playing this game.

Related Reading: Best Fine Motor Activities For Preschoolers

5. Bean Bag Toss

Skill Development: Coordination, teamwork, counting, color recognition

Requirements: Bean bags in different colors, a target board or containers with different point values marked

Divide the children into two teams. Set up a target board or different containers at varying distances, each labeled with a certain number of points. The kids take turns tossing bean bags towards the targets to earn points for their team. This game encourages teamwork, coordination, and counting skills, and it’s safe and suitable for 4-year-olds. The colorful bean bags can also be used to reinforce color recognition as the children play.

Related Reading: Fun Team Building Activities for Kids

5 Educational Board Games for 4-Year-Olds

1. Shape Sorting Puzzle

Skill Development: Shape recognition, color identification, problem-solving

This classic puzzle game involves matching various shaped pieces to their corresponding slots on the board. It helps children recognize and distinguish different shapes and colors while also enhancing their fine motor skills and problem-solving abilities. It is one of the best board games for 4-year-olds.

Price: $19.99

Buy: Here

Related Reading: Best Math Puzzles for Kids to Improve Cognitive Abilities

2. Snug as a Bug in a Rug

Skill Development: Matching skills

Snug as a Bug in a Rug is an award-winning game for preschoolers. It has an exciting storyline in which kids have to put as many bugs as they can under the rug before three bugs stink and destroy everything. The game is available in three interactive modes to keep your kids interested. The game contains 1 game board with a built-in spinner, 24 colorful bugs, 3 stink bugs, 1 die, and instructions. 

Price: $23.95

Buy: Here

3. Cootie

Skill Development: Motor skills, matching skills

Cootie is a classic preschool game that you must have also played in your childhood. The game is pretty simple. Your child has to spin the wheel and hope to get the part they need to build their plastic bug. The person who makes the bug first will win this game. However, all the colorful parts and mechanism to create a bug is excellent educational training for four-year-olds.

Price: $24.95

Buy: Here

4. Chutes and Ladders

Skill Development: Counting, Strategy 

Price: $9.99

This is another classic game you can find everywhere. Several versions of the game are available so that you can purchase the game with your child’s favorite cartoon characters. The game board has 100 squares your child must cross while moving through different ladders and chutes. It will be fun when ladders lift your child’s pawn closer to the winning square, and chutes bring them down again. It is a great family game to enjoy and learn numbers.

Price: $19.99

Buy: Here

5. Candy Land

Skill Development: Color recognition, counting

Candy Land is a great board game for 4-year-olds at home. It is a classic game with gingerbread players, colorful cards, and several sweet adventures to explore. Your children will use cards to find their way through the chocolate fountain, candy cane garden, etc. No reading is involved in this game, so it is perfect for young minds.  

Price: $12.10

Buy: Here

Related Reading: Best Board Games for Preschoolers

6 Educational Physical Games for 4-Year-Olds

1. Hide-and-Seek

Skill Development: Motor skills, analytical thinking 

Requirements: A safe space with places to hide

We don’t think hide and seek requires any explanation. Every person has played this game in their childhood and had a blast. So, if you are a preschool teacher or parent, you can play hide and seek with your four-year-olds to improve their reflexes and analytical skills while also getting some physical exercise.

2. Animal Walk

Skill Development: Hopping, galloping

Requirements: Animal picture chart

The animal walk is the perfect game for preschoolers to teach them the characteristics of different animals and do some physical work. All you need is an animal picture chart to show to your toddlers. And ask them to imitate the walk of the animal mentioned on the chart. With this game, your child will move, hop, and gallop to build physical strength. 

3. Keep the Balloon Up

Skill Development: Balance, coordination 

Requirements: Balloons and an open play area

It is a two-player game. To play this game, you have to give a balloon to the two players and ask them to balance the balloon in the air using their bodies except for their hands or feet. They must move from one point to another while balancing the balloon. It is an excellent team coordination and balance-building game for 4-year-olds.

4. Wet Sponge Designs

Skill Development: Throwing

Requirements: Lots of old sponges

During the summer break, you can play this fun game with your four-year-olds. First, gather some waste kitchen sponges and put them in a tub of water. Then, ask your preschooler to throw wet sponges on a hard surface like a concrete wall or floor. This is not only a fun game for a 4-year-old but also helps to strengthen their arm muscles. 

5. Simon Says

Skill Development: Jumping, hopping, crawling, and more

It is a fun game for four-year-olds without any complicated rules. The player has to say “Simon says” and instruct other players to do any physical action like jump like a duck, hop like a bunny, etc. It is a ruleless and joy-packed physical game for preschoolers. 

6. Ball Roll Relay

Skill Development: Coordination, teamwork, motor skills

Requirements: Small balls, cones, or any objects to create a course

Ball games are a great way for four-year-olds to develop coordination and teamwork skills. Set up a simple course using cones or other objects, and have the children take turns rolling a ball along the course, navigating around the obstacles. You can make it more engaging by timing the relay or adding challenges like rolling with one hand. This game helps enhance motor skills and teaches kids to work together in a fun, active way.

Related Reading: Best Fun Ball Games for Kids to Excite Them

7 Educational Indoor Games to Play With 4-Year-Olds

1. Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button

Skill Development: Guessing, social skills

Requirements: A button 

It is a quiet game for preschoolers to play indoors. Get your preschoolers to sit in a circle and ask them to close their eyes. One person will have a button in their hand and pretend to pass it on to everyone. Once the button is passed on, everyone will try to guess who’s got the button. 

2. Broken Telephone

Skill Development: Listening skills 

Another simple game to play with a group of four-year-olds. Make the group sit in a circle; one person will whisper a sentence into the ear of the person sitting next to them. That person will pass the message to the next person, and so on. The cycle keeps moving until it reaches the last person in the circle, and they will say the message out loud. The game’s main motive is to improve students’ listening and information-processing skills. 

3. Story Time Clap

Skill Development: Language development 

Requirements: Storybooks

This is an excellent game for 4-year-olds to improve their reading skills. You can pick one child and give them a book to read aloud to the rest of the group. You will then assign the listeners a specific word or phrase. When they hear that word or phrase being mentioned in the story, they have to clap. It is a great way to improve young students’ reading, language, and listening skills. 

4. Touch and Feel Box

Skill Development: Sensory development 

Requirements: A box and different textured objects 

This game is perfect for students suffering from sensory disorders. To play this game, you must put some unique textured items in a box. After that, ask the children to touch and feel one of the items. Without seeing it, they have to guess the item’s name based on their feel and touch senses. 

5. Musical chairs

Skill Development: Motor skills

Requirements: Lots of chairs  and music

Musical Chair is an excellent party game for preschoolers. You have to arrange chairs in a circle facing outwards. However, there should always be one less chair than the number of players. Once the music starts, everyone walks around the chairs, and when the music stops, they have to grab a seat. The person who is left standing will lose the game. Keep on playing until you have a winner. 

6. Story Time Blocks

Skill Development: Narrative skills, counting, building

Requirements: A set of blocks, a comfortable play area

Encourage children to narrate stories while building with blocks. For example, ask them to build a “house” and tell a story about what happens in that house. This activity enhances their ability to narrate and express their ideas while engaging in imaginative play.

7. Color and Shape Scavenger Hunt

Skill Development: Color and shape recognition, physical activity

Requirements: A list of items in specific shapes and colors, safe indoor space

Create a scavenger hunt inside the house where children search for items of a specific shape or color. For instance, “Find something red that is a circle” or “Find three green squares.” This game helps children identify shapes and colors while counting their finds.

Related Reading: Best & Indoor Activities for 4 Year Olds

What Do Kids Learn at The Age of 4?

At the age of 4, children are like little sponges, absorbing all kinds of new information. Here are some of the key topics they typically learn:

• Basic Math Skills:
  • Counting from 1 to 10 (or higher)
  • Recognizing shapes (circle, square, triangle)
  • Understanding simple patterns (like ABAB)
• Language and Communication:
  • Learning new words and building simple sentences
  • Recognizing letters and beginning to understand the sounds they make (phonics)
  • Following simple instructions and asking questions
• Social Skills:
  • Sharing and taking turns with others
  • Understanding and following basic rules
  • Playing cooperatively in groups
• Fine Motor Skills:
  • Holding and using pencils, crayons, or scissors correctly
  • Drawing basic shapes and simple pictures
  • Building with blocks or doing simple puzzles
• Emotional Understanding:
  • Identifying basic emotions like happy, sad, angry, and scared
  • Expressing their own feelings with words
  • Developing empathy by recognizing how others feel
• Basic Science Concepts:
  • Exploring the world around them (plants, animals, weather)
  • Asking questions like “why” and “how” to learn more
  • Understanding simple cause and effect (e.g., if you drop something, it falls)

Related Reading: What Do Kids Learn in Preschool

Let’s Play!

Games are an essential part of child development. With games, children learn to socialize, become team leaders, and learn new things. Their physical and mental strength also improves.

Play all the suggested games to improve your child’s physical and mental development. Choose from a vast number of games you can buy, as well as free games for 4-year-olds, and get started!

Explore more online educational resources and printable worksheets for kids that will aid in their learning experience.

Related Reading: Fun Free Games for Kids to Play Online

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What impact do games have on children?

Games are a great way to enhance your four year old’s physical development. Games like tag or ‘Simon Says’ will improve your child’s muscular strength and body balance. In addition to this, games also help stimulate your child’s brain and develop their mental strength. Besides this, playing games also ensure your child is active and tired enough that they sleep well at night.

What are the benefits of board games?

Playing board games increases brain function and strategic skills among young children. Board games also help to improve social skills and strengthen relationships. Board games are the perfect way to have some family time and reduce stress. In addition to this, these games teach life lessons and patience.