How many activities does your 4 year old do?

[LisaNJ25]

That is alot for 4yo. I couldn't imagine having 1 child in that many activities.

My dd just turned 4yo and has dance class once a week. She also starts pre-k later this week and that will be 5 days week, 2.5 hours a day.

When she is 5 she will join girls scouts. Cheer leading doesn't start until 6 here.

My older dd is in girl scouts and does one recreation sport a season. I will do the same with my 4yo as she gets older. Only exceptions is if she is still in dance class than she would have 3.

 

[nessz79]

I have a boy, but we only do preschool as well. He goes full time from 8 to 3 every day, so in my mind, that's enough for his little body. I don't want him to tire out and be susceptible to illness.

I'm letting my 5 year old DS adjust to Kindergarten for a couple months before we even consider an additional activity. We may not do anything during the school year.

In the summer we'll do swim lessons again. That's a survival skill, so I would definitely enroll your little girl in that at some point in the near future. I always hear about little ones drowning. We live in Florida where every street has a few swimming pools and you just never know.

We've considered piano lessons for the 5 year old who is more artistic. We will probably do some sort of art class for him next summer.

So, as you can see, we let the school year be mostly focused on academics. Summer is for trying new activities. We're teachers so we have lots of time to do those summer things.

 

[retire2disney]

I think at that age picking 1 or 2 things that your child will really enjoy would be the best. I can tell you from my own experience, you don't want to spend every second running around to different activities. Your child will be well rounded even if they are only able to do 1 or 2 things off of your list. You don't want to burn them out. It would be very easy to do at that age.

I have a neighbor who has a couple of kids and her kids are involved in EVERYTHING!! Somedays after school they have more then 1 activity and they don't get home until the evening!! It's crazy. Her girls don't seem to want to do most of the things, but Mom pushes them to do it all. My DD made the gymnastic team this summer, this same Mom decided that she needed to then put her girls into gymnastics because my DD does it......... Again, WAY to much for these girls. Try a couple of things with your child and see what they like. I'm sure you will figure out what is best for you. Best wishes!!

 

[npmommie]

my kids only do 1-2 activites, thats it.
at 4 yo my dd did gymnastics all year, soccer in the fall, ice skating in winter, and swimming in the spring.
my ds at 4 yo just does gymnastics.
he is adding swimming this year to gymnastics, and my dd also.
so they will both have 2 activities

 

[imthatgirl]

my 4yo son will start preschool next week. other than that nothing. when my daughter was 4 she just did preschool. we do a lot of family activities and we do all the free library and town activities we can make.
personally i dont think kids should be burnt out quite this young. at this age they just want to play with their friends so thats what my kids do. i figure if i have them doing all these things now by the time they reach highschool they wont want to do activities. and really jr high and highschool is the time they need to be doing activities to keep them out of trouble.
i have a neighbor with 2 little girls 4 and 6 and they are in every activity imaginable. i feel so bad for them when they get off the bus. we have a ton of kids in this neighborhood who all play after school, exceot for these 2 girls. they are off to gym,dance, hebrew school, soccer, t ball....you name it theyre doing it.

 

[NMAmy]

When dd was that age she went to preschool. No other activities. When she was older, I limited her to one sports activity per season and Girl Scouts. I was a single mom and I just didn't have the time or the money for her to be in every activity. I do think it was good in that it gave us family time and everything in our world didn't center on her activity schedule. Now that she's in high school and can drive herself, she is a cheerleader, editor of the school paper, and co-editor of the yearbook along with AP classes. She's good at managing her time but even at this age, I worry that she's spreading herself too thin. As long as her grades stay up, she can continue with all the activities.

OP, that seems like an awful lot for a 4 year old. She'll have plenty of time to try all sorts of activities.

 

[CNYGuy]

Agree with NMAmy...our daughtert simply did preschool. Over the summer she did Kindermusik one day a week. I think that is sufficient. Kids need unstructured time to learn independent play and creativity...

 

[foltzy]

My dd is 3 and will be starting preschool 4 days a week for 3 hours. She's also doing dance one night a week for 1 hour. She wants to do gymnastics too which is 1 day a week for 1 hour but I think we're going to hold off on that for now.