Gift Guide For 4-Year-Olds – Eco Friendly And Captivating Toys And Materials Your Kid Will Love

Are you on a hunt for educational, meaningful, fun, and hands-on gifts for that special 4-year-old in your life? In this post, I am sharing handmade and eco-friendly finds and toys many of which are made out of natural and eco-friendly materials. Here you will find my honest picks – some of the best educational toys for little hands.

But first, I will briefly highlight what 4-year-old children are up to at this stage in their lives

Four-year-old preschoolers are very inquisitive, curious and active little humans.
The independence they fought for so hard for the last couple of years is certainly allowing them more freedom to create, take care of their own needs, and express their desires, feelings, thought, and frustrations with more accuracy. All those factors make them a delight to be around.
Their busy little fingers enjoy fine motor challenges.
Also now is the time when they enjoy exercising their freedom and may not be inclined to work on an activity that does not particularly fascinate them.
They often enjoy observing others doing work ( e.g. their peers in the classroom or construction workers on the road) with great curiosity.
Children at this age are drawn to Practical Life activities that require of them extended periods of concentration, such as washing dishes, cooking, cleaning furniture, working with nuts and bolts, etc.
They become more fascinated with practical math – counting objects, noticing patterns, calculating, making predictions, observing the passage of time.

Playdough, painting, playing musical instruments, reading non-fiction books, exploring outdoors purposefully, playing with peers and older children are often some of their most beloved ways to spend time.

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Here are my gift recommendations for children between the ages of 4 and 5

Gentle Monster Wooden Wobble Balance Board

This board is great for children’s active imagination. It can be whatever they imagine it to be – a swing, a bridge, a shop, a cabin, a stepping stone, a racetrack, a lounge chair, fitness equipment, a puppet, a small football goal, a teeter popper, or a tunnel.

Sweet Lemons Rainbow Stacking Stones & Activity Cards

Use these vibrant stacking stones to spend quality time together as a family and watch your youngster’s skills advance.

InTemenos Store Musical HandBells For Children

This bell set is a great learning resource to encourage children to practice their hand/eye coordination, learn notes and play their first song.

I made a printable with learning activities to go along with the rainbow handbells. You may like to check it out here:

Janod MagnetiBook Magnetic Girl Face Dress Up

Here is a wonderful activity for practicing visual discrimination skills that help a child to see subtle differences between objects or pictures and to see if something matches up. This visual perceptual skill can be described as “paying attention to detail” while practicing fine motor skills to perfect daily tasks like zippers, shoe tying, and door opening.

Moderngenic ‘Pyramid’ Rainbow X-Large 100 Piece Blocks

This truly beautiful natural toy, made by the hand of pine wood, will stimulate children visually, mentally, and creatively.

Magblock Magnetic Wooden Blocks

Wooden block toys stimulate problem-solving, motor skills & three-dimensional graphics recognition.

ECR4Kids Oversized Hollow Wooden Block Set for Kids’ Play

If space allows, these blocks help kids develop spatial awareness and learn early math and engineering skills while they create ramps for toy cars or buildings for action figures.

Chiyr Wooden 4 Shapes Patterns Stacking Nesting Toys

Children can use their imaginations to create all sorts of constructions – bridges, houses, tunnels, hills, fences.

Dancing Bear Rock, Mineral & Fossil Collection Activity Kit

This kit teaches how to find, sort, and identify rocks, minerals, and fossils. It contains over 125 specimens including real shark teeth, coprolite (dino poo!), ammonite fossil, 2 geodes to crack open, arrowheads, fool’s gold, amethyst, tiger eye, goldstone, and many more.

Dancing Bear Fossil Collection Kit

What a fun collection for children to explore.

Let’s Find Momo!: A Hide-and-Seek Board Book by Andrew Knapp

An engaging book for children who are acquiring new vocabulary each and every day.

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon

Such a wonderful mindset to foster in children:”All the world is here. It is there. It is everywhere. All the world is right where you are. Now”.

Only One You by Linda Kranz

What a wonderful message and sentiment.

Check those books your Montessori child might enjoy 40 Must-Have Books For Preschoolers.

Haba Tap & Tack Jr. Imaginative Design Play Set

A resource to foster creativity, fine motor development, and understanding of geometric concepts.

Kizh Screw Driver Board Toys

Children love manipulating real tools. This is definitely going to be a hit!

AugToy Slide Puzzle Color & Shape Matching Brain Teasers

Fun learning activity for identifying colors and patterns.

Melissa & Doug Wooden Stamp Set: Dinosaurs

This stamp set for kids helps develop hand-eye coordination and encourages storytelling and imaginative play.

COUOMOXA Marble Run

Stimulate young minds’ imagination and creativity with varied track building blocks, letters, numbers, and animals.

Curious Columbus Quiet Book. When I Grow Up Activity Busy Book

When I Grow Up encourages children to discover their talents and passions through the world of make-believe and role play.

Taksa Toys Locomo Family Multicolored Edition I –

Wooden animal figures for fun open-ended educational outdoor play.

Amazing Handmade Toys for 4 – Year – Olds

California Studio Art Blue Headscarf Matryoshka Nesting dolls – beloved grading toy for little ones.
Mirus Toys Color sorting toy – rainbow color matching game – color work for early years. It helps with fine motor skills and pincer grip (scoop the balls or use a clothespin or tongs to place the balls), color matching and sequencing, clor identification, counting, learning the colors of a rainbow.
Woodie Apparel Wooden Puzzle Toy Oriental building blocks – the set is great for improving hearing sense, hand-eye coordination and most of all brain development.
Ayas Wood Creations Solar System Wood Board – a beautiful handmade Solar System Wooden Board for little ones to have fun learning about space.