Christmas is less than a week away, but it’s not too late to snag a few great gifts for the kiddos on your list. I’ve rounded up some last minute gift ideas for 4-year-old boys, all of which should arrive by 12/24 if you have Amazon Prime!
1/ Schleich Toy Knight ($19) – Big P is really into knights and castles right now. This knight figure is both beautiful and designed to hold up to years of rough play. If your 4-year-old has siblings, you can easily pair this toy knight with other Schleich figures.
2/ Mini art set with a sketchpad (pack of 4, $12), our favorite crayons ($9) (seriously they’re the best!), quick drying paint sticks ($10), and a big pack of stickers ($5) – One of my favorite last minute gift ideas for all ages is to buy a few sketchpads and a few of our favorite art supplies. This is also a great sibling gift.
3/ Playmobil set (starting around $12) – I didn’t grow up playing with Playmobil sets, so it took me awhile to understand how these sets fit in with all the other Lego and Lego-like toy options. My basic understanding is that they are not substitutes for each other but complements, and I’m pretty sure my boys will adore the imaginative/creative aspect of the Playmobil sets.
4/ Squigz ($25) – We gave our boys a starter pack of Squiz as an early Christmas present before we left to spend the holiday with my in-laws. We opened them up on the plane and both of my older boys (almost 4 1/2 and 2 1/2) went CRAZY over them. We also got a pack of the pipSquigz for my 6 month old to open on Christmas morning.
5/ Blue Cloak ($40) – My boys adore dress up, but they already have most of the standbys (police, fire, construction worker, doctor, superhero, etc). They both asked for new dress ups for Christmas, so we opted to go with a cloak from Magic Cabin, which is one of my favorite toy retailers and has a darling selection of open ended and imaginative toys.
6/ Easy Playhouse Castle ($25) – Mrs. Dolphin has written about these play castles that encourage both artistic expression and dramatic play. I know my boys would LOVE to wake up to one of these from Santa (yes, even Santa understands the value of Prime shipping!)
Are you done with your Christmas shopping yet? What did you buy for the 4-year-old boys on your list?
blogger / apricot / 431 posts
I will have to get those sketchbooks. Lil’ Pizza is always going through so many notebooks and papers. I often try to check out the $1 section at Target but I like those sketchbooks you found. I will have to try out those crayons. They look less messy than oil pastels.
blogger / apricot / 482 posts
My kids would love anything on these lists! The silky crayons are AMAZING and we bought a set for Panda for his stocking.
Quick question if you do get the Playmobil: I’d love an explanation of how they work with Legos! We are building a Lego collection, but I don’t really get Playmobil…
blogger / apricot / 275 posts
@Mrs. Pizza: Those Slick Stix have been our boys’ favorites for awhile now and still get the most use, by far, out of any of our art supplies. They’re not messy like crayons but glide on smoothly like oil pastels. And they’re washable! I highly recommend them – they’re my have-to-have art supply for sure.
blogger / apricot / 275 posts
@Mrs. Dolphin: My boys LOVE Legos too, but I kept seeing people (including Mrs. Bee) recommend Playmobil sets, so I did some googling. What people say over and over is that Playmobil sets are more like doll houses – you put them together, but they’re more for dramatic/ imaginative play vs. construction/ building like Legos. Like you could build a doll house with Legos but you likely wouldn’t keep it that way for long. But a Playmobil set allows you to have that dollhouse like play but with a variety of characters/ themes (including lots of boy-friendly ones!)
blogger / grape / 99 posts
Ah that castle! Just added it to my cart for a fun preschool project when we do castle week, it looks perfect!
blogger / nectarine / 2608 posts
@Mrs. Dolphin: so Lego people will be like the small, stocky hobbits of the Playmobil world. Can they play together? Absolutely. But the scale is generally going to be a bit off. If you have lots of Lego sets all mixed together, or just loose Lego, then it’s no big deal to construct things that will work better. The girls mix and match all the time, and when you’re playing it’s not usually any big deal if your palace pet is 17x the size of its human counterpart. So they definitely compliment one another, but aren’t “together.” My summary of Playmobil is basically if a perfectionist had to create every detail of a situation in teensy, intricate plastic. There are tiny plastic iv bags for the ambulance. Individual flowers that can be placed onto bushes and trees if you are either under the age of 12 or want instant carpal tunnel. I sort of love them, but I have also had to come to peace with the fact that for every Playmobil flower or mini hedgehog we own, at least one other has been accidentally sacrificed to the vacuum.
nectarine / 2210 posts
@Mrs. Dolphin: @Mrs. Peas: @Mrs. Twine: I loved playmobil growing up and can’t wait till Dd is old enough for them. i wouldn’t consider them anything like legos though since there’s no building involved. I’d say it closer to tiny barbies with a ton of themes. Growing up we had knights, pirates, Cowboys and Indians, Victorian, and amusement park sets. (There was a Victorian dollhouse I always wanted but never had.) in a way the themes make them similar to legos but they are still so different.
blogger / apricot / 482 posts
@Mrs. Peas: @Mrs. Twine: @Miss Ariel: This is all so helpful! I couldn’t understand why so many blogs/people would use playmobil and lego in the same sentence because playmobil seemed to be more like a dollhouse/figure type toy rather than building toy. I’m glad that I’m not crazy and playmobil actually seems quite different!