Activities for a 3-year-old: Fostering your child’s development

Turning 3 marks a whole new world for you and your child, who might be entering preschool soon, working on potty training, and getting into more “big kid” activities, like riding a strider bike or scooter. It’s a fun year, and made all the more so by incorporating sensory and developmental activities you can do right alongside your growing kiddo. After all, they still learn best by playing. Here’s our list of 10 activities to try with your 3-year-old.  

Sensory activities for 3-year-olds

1. Alphabet soup

In a large pot, ask your child to add in magnetic or foam letters, one at a time, identifying the name of each one. Hand them a wooden spoon and a pitcher of water, and let them stir up their “soup”. Do they want to add more ingredients? Try dried beans or rice—measuring the cups is a great way to start math skills, too. 

2. Sensory sound exploration

Set up a sound station with various musical instruments or household objects that make different sounds. Encourage your child to experiment and create different rhythms and melodies, fostering auditory sensory development and creativity.

3. Playdough monsters

Using playdough, help your kiddo roll, squash and shape their very own monster creation. Consider adding pipe cleaners and googly eyes to make them even more realistic, fostering fine motor skills, creativity, and sensory exploration.

Developmental activities for 3-year-olds

1. Daily helper

Involve your tot in daily activities and chores around the house, like matching socks when folding laundry, sweeping the front walk, setting out forks and spoons for dinner and letting them try to fill their own water cup. They’ll love contributing—and you can instill a sense of responsibility and independence.

2. Shape treasure hunt

Hide paper or cardboard shape cutouts around the house and help your child search for them, encouraging shape recognition, problem-solving, and gross motor skills as they navigate and collect the triangles, squares, circles and stars.

3. Nature journaling

On your next nature walk, take along a journal and art supplies to draw or write about their discoveries, which helps encourage their creativity and connection with the natural world.

Things to do with a 3-year-old

Week 1: Count and sort

Got a glut of pom poms or other colorful craft materials around? Ask your kiddo to sort the collection by color, then count out how many are in each group. This helps foster mathematical thinking and attention to detail as they group by color or size.

Week 2: Color jump

Tape down various pieces of construction paper on your floor and play a game where you call out a color and your child has to jump to that shade. To take things to the next level, cut out the paper into different shapes and call out both shapes and colors. Ideal for gross motor skills, color and shape recognition and coordination. 

Week 3: Make a fairy house

Using some found natural materials, like pinecones, tree bark, feathers and stones, create a cozy home to welcome a fairy. You can stack or glue your house materials into a small structure, whether you build it outside or on top of a piece of cardboard inside. Then wait for the fairy to move in! 

Week 4: Name tracing

Using chalk, sand, snow or another material, write your child’s name and ask them to trace it. Can they write it with a stick in the snow or sand? Can they stomp out the letters on the beach? Can they trace it on a page or in a book? The possibilities are endless, but this activity will help with name and letter recognition and encourage fine motor skills. 

Our favorite products for 3-year-olds

Petit Collage

1. Floor Puzzle

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$18.99

Made from colorful, thick and sturdy pieces, this is a great puzzle for toddlers who have graduated from the simple wooden puzzles of babyhood. Name the familiar woodland creatures as it comes together and work on vocabulary as well as patience, problem-solving and hand-eye coordination. (There are also other themes to choose from!)

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Little Tikes

2. Little Tikes Easy Store Trampoline with Folding Handle

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$69.99

Bouncing off the walls is pretty much a 3-year-old’s job. The best thing to do is give them a good outlet to do so. A total classic, the tot-sized Little Tikes Trampoline is great for small spaces. Just take it out when it’s time to get the wiggles out then fold it up to store it when you want to reclaim your living room!

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Manhattan Toy

3. Making Faces 34-Piece Emotion Toy

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$30

Kids can explore their own emotions through play with this kit of 34 punch-out magnetic facial features. It’s a good vehicle for identifying feelings—or just making funny faces!

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Melissa & Doug

4. Wooden Magnetic Matching Picture Game

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$13.79

This magnetic picture board is a great alternative when you’ve reached screentime limits for the day. Kids can select a scene and create their own image using the magnetic pictures–with endless possibilities.

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A version of this story was originally published on June 3, 2023. It has been updated.