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Looking for appropriate chores for 4 year olds? These 15 ideas are simple to get started with teaching your 4 year old some basic household responsibility!

I recently shared 10 Chore Ideas for Toddlers — and now I’m back with more chore ideas for 4-year-olds!

Why 4-year-olds?

Well, because I happen to have a 4-year-old right now. 🙂 However, don’t feel like these chores are only appropriate for 4-year-olds. They’d probably work great for children of other ages, too.

Appropriate Chores for 4 Year Olds: 3 Important Things to Remember

1. Children Need to Know What You Expect of Them

If you don’t show your children how to do a job well, you can’t expect them to know how to do it right. Before asking them to do a chore on their own, work alongside them a few times showing them specifically how to do it.

2. Don’t Expect Them To Do It Well — Especially At First

It often takes a lot of repetitive teaching, gentle correcting, and practice before a child can do a job well. Don’t expect perfection — especially when they are young. What matters is that they are putting forth effort and trying their best.

3. Praise 10 Times As Much As You Correct

It’s easy to want to focus on pointing out all the things a child does wrong and where they need to improve. Instead of dwelling on what they didn’t do right, focus most of your energies on praising those things they did well. Encouragement and affirmation go a very long way!

15 Chores for 4 Year Olds

Children at this age are probably able to dress themselves, brush their teeth, and comb their hair. If they aren’t doing these things on their own, I’d encourage you to start by teaching them those chores.

1. Pick Up Their Room — Make sure you show your child exactly what a clean room looks like. And if their room is really messy, I’d suggest working with them to clean it and giving them one specific project to work on at a time. Young children are often still learning the concept of staying on task, so you want to make sure you don’t overwhelm them by giving them too large of a task to accomplish then they are ready to tackle.

2. Vacuum — If you have a vacuum with an attachment, they can use the attachments on furniture or small areas in your home. Kaitlynn also can vacuum one room, with a little help from me.

3. Water Plants — Use a plastic watering can (we found ours at the dollar store or you can make one from a milk jug) to make it fun and easy for small hands.

4. Fold Washcloths, Hand Towels, Underwear, & Other Small Items — I often will sort these out from the big laundry pile and make a small pile for each child to fold, based upon their folding abilities.

5. Sort & Fold Socks — Sorting and folding socks can be a fun job for little people. And you can teach matching, colors, and counting with it, too.

6. Put Away Laundry — When the girls help with laundry, I have each of them put away their own laundry plus sometimes some towels. It’s amazing how much more quickly things get put away when multiple people are working together!

7. Dust/Wipe Down Surfaces — 4-year-olds are great at cleaning baseboards, small floor areas, wiping down cupboards, or dusting surfaces. If you have a feather duster, they might have fun trying that out, too!

8. Wipe Down Sink/Toilet — Cleaning wipes work especially well for young children to use. Or, you can spray some nontoxic cleaner onto a rag and let them wipe down the sink, toilet, or floor in the bathroom. Kaitlynn is also learning how to clean the toilet with the toilet brush, with my supervision.

9. Empty Trashes — 4-year-olds are usually big enough and strong enough to tie up the trash bag and haul it out to the garage or back door.

10. Wipe Down Door Handles — Give your child a cleaning wipe or a damp rag and have them wipe down all the door handles. This is a favorite chore at our house!

11. Clear the Table — Teach your children to clear their plates after each meal (our children are still working on doing this without needing to be reminded!)

12. Rinse Dishes/Load Dishwasher –A 4-year-old is usually old enough to stand on a chair at the kitchen sink and rinse nonbreakable dishes (be sure to remove the knives and other sharp or dangerous objects before letting them do this). They can also help to load silverware and other nonbreakable dishes into the dishwasher.

13. Simple Meal Prep — Kaitlynn has learned how to pour cereal/milk, make toast and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, and pop popcorn on her own. She also often helps me when I’m cooking.

14. Set the Table — Teach your children how to set the table correctly from the time they are young–it’s a skill many adults still don’t know! 🙂

15. Mop — My dad got the girls child-sized mops for Christmas and they love them. And while Kaitlynn is still working on perfecting her mopping skills, she does a pretty good job at mopping a small area.

Printable Chore Chart for 4 Year Olds

If you’re a visual person, you may download my FREE printable chore chart to start using in your home today!

Looking for other age-appropriate chore ideas? You might find these chore lists helpful:

• 20 Chore Ideas for 7-Year-Olds
• 10 Chore Ideas for Toddlers

What chores do your 4-year-olds do? I’d love to hear other ideas!

After I posted about our success with a paid and non-paid chore system yesterday, many of you wrote in and asked if I could share some specific chore ideas. So, I thought I’d share some lists of age-appropriate chores that we assign in our home in order to give you some ideas and inspiration for what might work in your home.

Today, I’m tackling chores for toddlers. Before I share our list of toddler chore ideas, here are a few tips for encouraging your toddler to help with chores.

1. Keep It Simple

Don’t try to have your toddler learn how to do five new chores at once. Start with one simple chore and then gradually add a few more after they’ve gotten the hang of one chore.

2. Shower Them With Praise

Remember to enthusiastically praise your toddler and to make chores a fun and exciting thing. Work alongside them showing them the right way to do things and giving them lots and lots of positive affirmation for their efforts.

3. Don’t Give Up!

Training requires a lot of repetition. Don’t get discouraged if it seems you’re not making any progress or getting anywhere with your toddler. Just keep praising, encouraging, teaching, and helping them with their chores. They’ll eventually get it!

10 Chore Ideas for Toddlers

::Get Dressed — They can also learn to put their dirty clothes in the hamper.

::Brush Teeth — with help from mom or dad to make sure they are thorough!

::Help Pick Up Room

::Water Plants — a watering can or small cup works great for this. Outdoor plants are best since toddlers tend to be a bit enthusiastic in their watering! 🙂

::Fold Washcloths

::Put Away Laundry — Silas has learned how to put away his pile of folded laundry in his drawers.

::Pick Up Toys & Put Into Tub — Cleaning up a huge mess is overwhelming for a toddler so it’s better to give them a simple task like putting all of the books back into the basket or the Duplos back into the tub.

::Dust — Give a toddler an sock to wear and let them dust all of the surfaces in a room.

::Wipe Down Sink/Toilet — Cleaning wipes work especially well for young children to use. Or, you can spray some nontoxic cleaner onto a rag and let them wipe down the sink, toilet, or floor in the bathroom.

::Empty Trashes — If you have small trashes in some rooms in your home, this is a perfect job for toddlers.

Want to help your youngsters develop a morning routine? You can print these free morning routine cards from Living Locurto.

Looking for other age-appropriate chore ideas, you might find these chore lists helpful:

• 20 Chore Ideas for 7-Year-Olds
• 15 Chore Ideas for 4-Year-Olds

What ideas do you have for other simple chores that toddlers can do?