My Gift Guide for Three Year Olds. Getting bigger, stronger and even more clever (with a side of sass)!

Three. My favourite age kid to play with. For real this time.

I love buying toys for three year olds. These guys can (usually) have full-on hilarious conversations with you by now and they are getting so clever and curious. They are wanting to co-operate (some of the time) and join in with ANY game you conjure up, and they can start to understand more complex games like ‘doctors’ or ‘shops’ or ‘doll house families’ with roles and even simple rules to the game like ‘money exchanges’ and ‘turn taking’.

They often love to role-play and their little imaginations are starting to run wild. Three year olds usually love to dress up, be silly, dance, climb and jump around. They will copy your actions and make up some of their own. Their little personalities really start beaming through like sunshine (or sometimes like a hideous thunderstorm sure).

Truth bomb: They can also be absolute little terrors at three, and the ‘terrible two’ tantrums have definitely not disappeared yet. The good news is that at three they have slightly better reasoning capabilities and with your help they can start to identify some of their very BIG emotions, so those tantrums can sometimes be diffused a little easier. Sometimes.

Oh and yes, sharing can still be an issue at three…..and four and five……(don’t worry, your kid’s not the only one).

Of course I have lots of Gross Motor Ideas in my gift guides, but as I mentioned in my first gift guide release for one year olds, I’ve made it my career to play with kids for therapy…..so after 15 years of paediatric physiotherapy sessions I’m pretty schooled up on what toys suit what age group and the developmental progression of play.

So here we go again. Round three of the paediatric physiotherapist’s gift guide. For three year olds this time. Please note I am in no way associated with any of the below companies that I’ve linked websites to. They were just the closest thing I could find to the picture of the toy I had in my head! (Lucky them).

Imaginative/ Dramatic Play

• Dress ups  

• Doll house (The Aldi doll house they do every year is perfect and so affordable, even with all the accessories. It even comes in a very chic white version now)

• If money is no object, this stunning tree house by The Small Folk has been hand picked from my dreams

• Wooden little peg families (OMG they do CUSTOM ones to match your own family!!) to go in your doll house

• Baby dolls and accessories

• Doctor set  (I heart this one)

• Vet Kits (this is one of the all time fave toys of every child who steps foot in our house!)

• Indoor or outdoor play kitchen and accessories

• Pretend food

• Cash Register

• Floor car mat

• Any ‘tiny’ critters/animals. This awesome 'tribe of dinosaurs' or ‘flock of unicorns’ from Tiger Tribe come in a cute little box and are still an absolute fave in our house, 2 years later. Great stocking filler!

Climb Climb Climb - the big kid form of crawling and so wonderful for co-ordination, strength, motor planning and just generally wearing them the hell out so they’ll be less pyscho.

Physical Play (Gross Motor)

• Balance bike 

• Three Wheeled Scooter

• Pedal bike or trike 

• Skittles set (OMG you have to see this penguin skittles set)

• Outdoor cubby/fort (obviously a very generous Christmas present) This one and this one are a couple of my faves. This one here by Plum is amaaaaazing but very exy.

• Outdoor swing-set

• See-Saw

• Trampoline 

• Hopper ball 

• Hopscotch rug (or alternatively just draw one with chalk!) 

• Gymnastic ribbons 

• Balls of any kind

• Bean bags and targets for throwing

• Elastics

• Balance Beams

• Wobble or balance boards

Painting: one mother’s dream is definitely another’s nightmare. Obviously only buy paints if you can stand having mess at home. As my best friend says….that’s what kindy is for. :)

Constructive Play (Fine motor/ Developmental)

• First up: The IKEA Flisat play table with storage boxes

• AND there’s stacks of adorable inserts to pop into them from Etsy! Genius!

• Duplo 

• More complex building blocks

• These play dough stamps from The Small Folk are adorbs and will inspire so much creative play

• Floor puzzles

• Simple jigsaw puzzles (no board)

• Stacking rainbow

• Mini garden tools, gloves and garden bed 

• Workbench and tools

• A ‘busy book’ or ‘Quiet book’ with buttons, shoe laces, press studs, velcro etc to practice with

• Memory Games

• Snap and Go-Fish Card Games

• Wooden Train set 

• More challenging threading / beading

• Thinner crayons and textas 

• Craft and paints (if you don’t like mess then a watercolour palette is great)

• Musical instruments

• This Balancing flamingo game I found on the Gram is very cool!

• Toys with locks and keys

• More complex busy boards

• Musical wooden marble runs (This one sounds absolutely heavenly but very exy).

• Musical marble tree (Slightly less expensive, also sounds divine)

• Quadrilla Marble Runs (or similar)

Books

• Colouring and sticker books 

• Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas

• The Paper Dolls and The Snail and The Whale by Julia Donaldson

• Where’s Wally

• Silver Buttons and How The Sun Got To CoCos House by Bob Graham

• The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

• Animalia

• The Waterhole

• In My Heart, A Book of Feelings by Jo Witek

• The When I’m Feeling Series by Tracey Moroney (I found this series was wonderful for trying to explain emotions to our big boy)

USEFUL WEBSITES

In my hunting around linking all these toys up for you I have found some particularly good (Australian) websites for developmental and gross motor toys for toddlers. Sorry, I know not all of my followers are Aussie but I’m going to stick to local so my head doesn’t explode!

https://milestones-physiotherapy.myshopify.com/

https://www.edex.com.au/

https://www.edresources.com.au/

https://www.honeybeetoys.com.au

https://www.woodenwonderland.com.au

https://moovbaby.com.au/

https://littlebiglearning.com.au/

https://www.oskarswoodenark.com.au

https://www.hartsport.com.au/active-play

If you haven’t already, please remember to also take a peek at my gift guide for one year olds , as it lists all the general things I look out for (and also avoid) when purchasing toys for my kids.

4 year old guide out next week! Remember to drop me a line if you can think of something I have missed on any of my gift guides so far. I love your input and will definitely share your wonderful ideas with the My Strong Little Body Community.

And if you’d like to get more paediatric physio advice for your babe straight to your inbox, then come on over and join the My Strong Little Body Family. Sign up here for my newsletter.

Love Alana xxx