The best Montessori toys for 4-year-olds, according to an expert

This adorable little wooden shoe offers an enticing opportunity for your child to begin learning to tie their shoes. While your four-year-old is more independent than ever when it comes to dressing themselves, shoe-tying is a challenging skill that many children are working toward mastering at this age. As they practice, your child will refine their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

A set of children’s handbells is one of the best tools for budding musicians to learn about basic musical notes and scales. Each bell offers a different note, which is labeled and distinguished with a bright color all its own. You can even teach your child to play their first simple songs by using color-coded notation. Make your own using markers and index cards, or find free ready-to-use options that are compatible with this handbell set here.

This classic Montessori material is one you’ll find in any Primary (3-6 year-old) classroom, and for good reason. This simple wooden spindle box set gives your child valuable, hands-on practice with numbers, setting a foundation for later math work. This material includes a natural control of error, a hallmark of Montessori materials, in which children don’t have to be told that they have made a mistake and miscounted the spindles – they will discover it themselves when they run out of spindles before completing the activity!  This activity also helps children gain a visual understanding of the concept of zero.

This sensory bin can be filled with rice, beans, oats or sand, offering a wide range of sensory experiences for your curious child. The natural wood bin and tools make a lovely addition to any Montessori home, and provide a hands-on, self-directed play activity with endless possibilities.

As your child grows, they require more challenging gross motor activities to continue to refine their skills. This wooden balance board grows with your child – they can sit, rock, stand using the handles, and even remove the handles as their balance improves over time. A balance board not only builds physical strength and coordination, but it has also been flipped over by many children and used in imaginative play as a tunnel or bridge for their toy vehicles! There’s so many ways to play with your child’s emerging creativity.

Montessori is known for exposing children to geography and diverse cultures early and often, and this fun puzzle globe is a great way to get young children interested in the world around them. With colorful, removable continents, children can navigate their way around the world in an interactive way. Here you can find the “continents song” that many children learn in the Montessori classroom, which is fun to sing with your child as they play.

Practical life activities are incredibly valuable in the Montessori home, and this sleek wooden children’s knife is a safe place to start in giving your child more autonomy in the kitchen. Perfect for slicing a banana, strawberries, mushrooms, and similar foods, your child can work alongside you in the kitchen with this handy tool. They will feel so confident preparing their own fruit for snack time!

As your child gains more independence and gross motor control, they are ready to tackle a wider range of practical life activities. Age-appropriate chores for young children at this age might include dusting and sweeping, and these realistic tools are just the right size for their little hands to get the job done!

This beautiful wooden letter tracing board would make a lovely addition to your child’s toy shelf, offering them autonomy in beginning to practice handwriting. Your child can get creative, making play dough pressings and crayon rubbings as they gain letter recognition in preparation for reading.

Four-year-olds are increasingly social and working on cooperative play, learning to work together toward a common goal. This board game is a fun, simple way for children to play on the same team to make sure all the owls make it back to their nest before the sun comes up!

Play silks are a beautiful and versatile tool to enrich your child’s open-ended play for years to come. Whether they make a superhero cape, create a colorful fort draped over furniture, or tuck in their baby doll for naptime, the possibilities for imagination to blossom are truly endless.

One of the best Montessori toys for 4-year-olds is this wooden art easel, with plenty of opportunity to draw, paint and express themselves creatively. At this age, free exploration is key, as it is the process of creating art that children benefit from experiencing, rather than aiming for a specific outcome. This book is a great resource filled with simple process art ideas for your preschooler.

Plant care is one Montessori practical life activity that is often enjoyed by preschoolers, and this sweet little gardening set is just right for their small hands to dig in the dirt, plant and water seeds, and watch them grow! This realistic picture book would be perfect to accompany your child’s hands-on education in the life cycle of plants.