Three year olds are curious, active – at least mine seem to have an endless supply of energy. They are beginning to make comparisons and differentiate patterns, colors and love to play pretend. Here are just a few of our favorite three year old activities. These activities were gleaned in part from from our weekly kids meme, It’s Playtime.
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Go on a
color hunt through your house. Seek out items that are all the same color. This is a great clean-up activity.
Play with paint.
Tinkerlab blew the paint around the page with straws with her kids. My three years olds loved this activity.
Make a
stamping “wheel” with an old packing tape roll and foam stickers.
Dye pasta with food coloring and rubbing alcohol. Kids love to make dimensional collages with the
colored pasta.
Practice picking up pom-poms with tongs and play a matching game putting them into muffin tins (via
Crayon Freckles).
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Create a batch of
fizzing sidewalk paint. Enjoy watching your sidewalk bubble as you spray it off with vinegar.
Have fun “cooking” in an outdoor-mud-kitchen.
Pepperpaints had fun making muffins with her girls.
Oobleck is a mixture of cornstarch and water. It has a consistency that is both solid and liquid, and can make great prints (via
The Imagination Tree)
Goop. We have a favorite recipe, and Mossy does too! We love
slimy goop!
Home Adventurer had fun emptying out expired items from her fridge and with some food dye had fun creating potions with her kids.
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Get physical. Our boys just love using bands to help contain them and provide resistance as they run. Great
activity for developing team skills.
Hopscotch is a long-time favorite activity. Here are easy to follow instructions on how to
make your own hopscotch rug.
Stretchies are also great for independent exercise and stretches. The girls at Making Stuff had fun with these
homemade stretchy bands.
This is on our to-do list. Make a giant bubble for your kids to play in – it looks like so much fun! (via
Play at Home Mom)
Have leftover chewed on pool noodles? Give them new life this fall/winter and use them as bats in a
game of balloon batting.
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Like this post but are looking for activities for other age groups of kids? Check out our other age sets:
Activities for One Year Olds
Activities for Two Year Olds
Activities for Three Year Olds
Activities for Four Year Olds
Activities for Five Year Olds
Great list of ideas! I especially love the home made roller stamp thing!
Love this list. Very helpful as we entertain our little ones.
Thanks for linking up and sharing last week on our mommy solution meme. This post was the most clicked idea from last week.
Check out your feature here:
http://www.crystalandcomp.com/2011/10/the-mommy-club-share-your-resources-and-solutions-12/
thanks so much for showing my math with tongs post! such an honor to be featured at your great site!
What a great collection of ideas!
Love the ideas! My last child still at home this year is a 3 year old. I’ve been looking for some fun activities to do just with him.
I need to try these with my playgroup!
What a great list! As a mom of a 3 year old I can’t wait to try many of these!
A lovely round up! Thanks for including our marbled oobleck!
YAY! super list with great activities to explore and do. Thanks for putting it together and serve the playcommunity!
Lovely greetings, Angelique
Great collection of activities….The balloon batting looks like a blast, and I’m really intrigued with the bubble!