Free Games for 4 Year Olds

Four is when a lot of pre-reading skills start to appear. Children begin to hear that cat and hat sound alike, notice that a pattern goes red, blue, red, blue, and recognise a handful of letters, usually the ones in their own name. Counting gets more reliable up to ten, and memory improves enough for a simple matching game to be fun rather than frustrating.

The games here lean into exactly those skills. Rhyme Time and Alphabet Catch practise sounds and letters; Pattern Party asks what comes next; Counting Fun and Dot to Dot work on numbers in order; Memory Match, Sound Match and What's Missing? stretch short-term memory a little further each round. Rounds are still short and there is still no way to fail, but there is more for a four-year-old to figure out than in the games for three-year-olds.