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A lot of changes take place between the ages of 2 and 3 years old, making it seem at times like the babbling baby you once knew turned into a big kid overnight. Dr. George Sachs, a child psychologist and the founder of the Sachs Center in Manhattan, explains that 3-year-olds are beginning to initiate conversation, produce simple sentences, and talk about things that interest them. That’s why Erica Hill, a consultant at the early-childhood-education research foundation HighScope, says any toy you give to a child this age should be one that you or another adult can play with alongside them: “There’s so much language development that’s happening, so talking and having conversations is really important,” she says. Engaging them in conversation is great for development, whether you’re discussing the placement of furniture in a dollhouse or challenging them to a matching game. In other words, they’re real people now — people who can, say, empathize with characters in a book or play around with the radio on a pint-size John Deere tractor; who can pretend they’re pop stars singing into a microphone or use basic blocks to build their own worlds (and much, much more).
With Sachs’s and Hill’s guidelines in mind, we talked to child-development specialists, toy buyers, and experienced parents about the toys they recommend for 3-year-olds. The 29 expert-approved gifts below are organized by price, so if you already have a budget in mind, you can use the table of contents to jump to that section. Otherwise, read all the way through to get the full picture of what 3-year-olds are into these days. Whether you’re shopping for a birthday or the holidays or any other day, it’s a list that keeps on giving.
Meanwhile, if you’re also shopping for children in other age groups, we have gift guides for 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds, 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds, 7-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 9-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 11-year-olds, and 12-year-olds — plus the meticulously curated Strategist Toy Store, filled with all our greatest hits.
Under $25
At this age, children will begin to express a preference for (or maybe an intense obsession with) specific characters from the books, shows, or movies you share with them. And action figures, like this Peppa Pig family, let them create their own little fan-fiction, screen-free. My niece, who is 3 years old, is madly in love with Peppa Pig and brings her collection of “Peppa people” everywhere she goes.
This easy-to-learn game is ideal for 3-year-olds because it involves no reading and no dice with numbers to count — instead, there’s a spinner to flick on a colored wheel and matching acorns to pick up. Yet it still fosters learning in a quick-paced setup, teaching kids about colors and improving their fine motor control. Games like this also “teach the skills of sharing, turn-taking, and handling frustration when losing,” says Dr. Sachs.
Jennifer Saxton, founder of Tot Squad, which connects parents to services like doulas, lactation consultants, and sleep experts, says her 3-year-old daughter loves this wooden calendar from Melissa & Doug because it lets her learn about the weather and the days of the week. “This calendar helps us practice and learn many of the basics,” she says. “My favorite features are the emoji, as she learns about her emotions, and the way it helps us practice her routines at home, which minimizes meltdowns.” The magnetized calendar doubles as a dry-erase board and comes with 80 magnets.
Zahra Kassam, founder of the at-home Montessori program Monti Kids, says playing with this Kinetic sand set “is like bringing the beach to your home but less messy. It’s very sensory, creative, and peaceful.” Susie Allison, former teacher, mom, and creator of BusyToddler.com, also recommends it for 3-year-olds and their families. “It moves and molds, bends, and cuts in a way that is completely different from other sensory bases. It has a velvety smooth texture — it isn’t gritty like sand. This isn’t going to get in your toddler’s eye like traditional sand will.” The set includes two pounds of red and blue sand along with ten tools and molds that kids can use to mix, marble, layer, or shape the sand in endless ways.
“Don’t forget about playing outside,” says Dr. Roberta Golinkoff, a professor of child psychology at the University of Delaware and co-author of Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children. She stresses the benefit of cheap and easy outdoor games like hopscotch that adults can share with young children. Use this set of 64 crayon-shaped sidewalk chalks to draw your hopscotch court, or “just give it to them and let them go wild,” she says.
The 100 blocks in this set from Melissa & Doug can be used in a plethora of ways, from building tall 3-D structures to arranging flat, puzzlelike creations and anything in between. The nine different shapes included, made of smooth, vibrantly painted wood, help kids lock in their knowledge of primary colors (plus green). And as Strategist contributor Steven John has seen firsthand with his children, playing with the blocks helps with the development of spatial awareness, fine motor control, and planning and executing.
“Plus-Plus pieces are designed in Denmark and can be used to create anything from simple towers to imaginative robots,” says Stirling Kelso, founder of Half Pint Travel. They’re one of our favorite open-ended building toys; in addition to the creativity and fine motor development involved in using them, “a tube of these repetitive shapes is a lifesaving distraction, especially in public, on an airplane, or at a restaurant, because they’re versatile and require some concentration to pull apart and put back together,” Kelso says. In other words, explains, “they buy you at least 15 minutes of freedom.”
Books are a welcome (and foolproof) gift at any age. Children’s fashion designer Grace Lim, a mom of two, says her daughters adored every book they encountered in the Little People, Big Dreams series. As Lim explains, the books help kids “learn about people’s different stories and backgrounds and how each person went through such different adventures to become who they are.” She adds that the content is particularly great for this age, telling us her now-4-year-old daughter was able relate to many of the books’ scenarios: “She often said, ‘Me, too!’ while reading along.” The books are available individually (Lim says her daughter’s favorite subjects included David Bowie and Mahatma Gandhi) or in sets like this one that includes stories about Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks.
If you have an aspiring pop singer on your hands, publicist and mom of two Sonya Li Casino recommends this wireless mic that her son loves to perform with. When he asked for a real microphone, she got him this Bluetooth one that can connect to other devices. While fun, Casino does have a word of warning. “It’s also slightly obnoxious,” she says.
Leigh Plessner, the co-creative director of jewelry brand Catbird, told us she got this little family of tuxedo cats for herself and her then-3-year-old to play with together, supporting the idea that talking — whether it’s pretend conversations between toys or with each other — is key to a young child’s language development. The set of four figurines includes a mother cat named Natalie, a father called Mason, and two sisters who go by Lily and Rose. Each has its own distinct (removable) outfit and moveable arms and legs and heads. There’s also a whole world of Calico Critter accessories, including houses, that you could add in with the figurines if you want to splurge.
Under $50
Golinkoff says encouraging imaginative play and social interaction is a fabulous way to nurture any 3-year-old. Parents should ask their children what they want to pretend to be, she says, whether it’s a doctor, a princess, a flame-breathing dragon, or even a creative combo of all three. We featured these silk butterfly wings from parent favorite Sarah’s Silks in our guide to the best dress-up clothing for kids. The wings aren’t cheap, but the quality and open-ended nature of them mean they will last for years on end.
Here’s an artistic toy that’s virtually mess-free: a set of reusable coloring books and included paintbrush-like pen that, when filled with water, magically makes colors appear on the page. As pages dry, the colors disappear, so kids can paint them all over again. Sarah Gregory, a mom to twin boys and a girl, calls them “so good” and explains that kids learn to “feel a mastery over them, which they hardly ever feel with anything else in their life.” Perhaps more importantly, she adds there is “instant quiet in our house when they get going on them.” They are also easily portable, making them equally great for use during car trips and at restaurants.
Super Smalls is another brand that was mentioned multiple times by the parents and educators we talked to for our list of the best dress-up clothing. The realistic-looking play jewels are among Backdrop cofounder Natalie Ebel’s (and her daughter’s) favorite pieces. Whether they use these rainbow gem goggles for swim practice or as part of a costume, the creative benefits and silly fun are the same.
This classic Tonka Truck was recommended in our guide to the best outdoor toys for winter, but it’s an excellent year-round toy both indoors and out. Jennifer Lynch, content developer at the Toy Association, loves this commemorative truck because its metal construction is durable, while the extra-large wheels are rugged enough to roll over sand, icy snow, and shag carpet. And its nostalgic design will easily encourage parents and grandparents to get in on the imaginative play.
This simple but remarkably effective STEM toy introduces the basics of block-based coding in the form of a kit that many 3-year-olds can use on their own (for the most part). The toy had a brush with fame when Danielle Busby of TLC’s OutDaughtered mentioned how she loved having the kids playing with their Coding Critters in the hall — “chasing the balls and the yarn, just like they do with our actual dog.” Except with this, they’re actually learning coding in the process.
These plucky little RC cars are perfect for 3-year-olds for two reasons. First, they couldn’t be much easier to drive, what with their mere two functions, which are forward motion and left turns (good prep for a NASCAR career, as it happens). The second reason is their construction: The cars are sturdy enough to take plenty of damage and keep working, yet lightweight enough not to do damage as they inevitably smash into furniture all around the house. This two-car set comes with vehicles that run on different radio frequencies, so both cars can be used at the same time, making them perfect for siblings — although a Strategist editor who also owns the cars has found that using them individually is great solo entertainment, considering how they amused her 3-year-old on a daily basis throughout the pandemic.
For the tot who would rather be in the band than its lead singer, Casino recommends this toy violin. “It’s so much fun if you have a kid who is obsessed with music,” she promises. The toy is programmed with seven demo songs that only “play” when your child moves the bow across its “strings,” she explains. “The violin is realistic-looking, the sound is good, and it even teaches my son how to hold a violin properly” — so it’ll give aspiring musicians a chance to practice their form before moving on to the real thing.
“My kids loved Transformers,” says Golinkoff, and while the action figures of our 1980s dreams still hold up in their own right, this VTech version modernizes the concept a bit. Pictured as a velociraptor that chomps and roars, it transforms into a rocket-launching rescue helicopter with a spinning propeller, searchlight, and an LCD screen. “Dinosaurs are good for girls and boys and great for make-believe,” notes Golinkoff.
Under $100
“Bouncing engages almost every muscle group in a child’s body, especially the legs and core,” says Lily Balsen, a New York City–based yoga teacher whose clients range in age from newborn to 80. Not only does it foster balance and a sense of spatial orientation, she says, but “rhythmic movement is organizing for the nervous system, so it’s a great self-soothing and self-regulating mechanism. Also, it’s just plain fun! I’m a big fan of the bouncy horse.”
PlasmaCars promote plenty of outdoor fun, getting kids excited and keeping them moving — without any batteries or even pedals needed. They are great for exercise and let youngsters burn off some of that famous (or infamous) energy. “We have carried this toy for years, and they always sell,” says Holly Magelof of the Dolphin Bookshop. And: “They’re durable enough to make great hand-me-downs.” As an Amazon reviewer who purchased one for a 3-year-old wrote, after giving the gift a personal pretest, “Super-smooth ride, easy to operate, and loads of fun for a 40-year-old woman! I can’t wait for my son to open this on Christmas morning so I can play with it again!”
Saxton told us about the Osmo, an interactive toy that transforms your iPad into an early learning tool. “My 3-year-old loves to use this interactive toy that bridges the virtual world with the physical one,” she says. “She can use its small plastic sticks to make shapes and objects, and then the Osmo scans them into the game so she can see her creations on the iPad.”
One of her daughter’s favorite features is the storytelling app. She uses the included costumes and props to dress a doll, which then gets uploaded into the program in real-time, allowing her to interact with it on the screen. Other games include letter recognition, “Squiggle Magic” for doodling, and “Costume Party” for character creation. (Just double check that the kit is compatible with an iPad you already own as it won’t work with the earliest generations or some of the newest models. And while this particular version only works with iPads, Osmo also sells one that works with many Amazon Fire tablets.)
While it doesn’t project actual constellations, Casino says this LED star projector helps simulate the experience of a planetarium at home. Her son received it as a gift for his third birthday and it has been a hit since the day he unwrapped it. “We love turning it on before bed and just watching the light show,” she says. “It’s really mesmerizing and relaxing.” Even though it won’t help them point out the Big Dipper, the gadget produces an aurora-like field of green stars against a blue nebula cloud that may get them even more interested in learning about the cosmos.
Gregory likes the way that this Clixo set (another one of our favorite open-ended building toys) combine magnets, origami, and building blocks to let kids “get creative by turning the pieces into creatures or using them to play games, like seeing how many different ways they can stack or shape them.” Because they are magnetized, Gregory notes the pieces can conveniently “live on a fridge, so kids can just pass by and fiddle with them.” She says they’re “a good sit-in-the-kitchen-and-make-something-cool-while-I-cook toy,” noting that “they don’t look terrible on the fridge and don’t take up much space.”
$100 and up
According to Hill, kids at this age love imaginary play and role-playing, especially when they can mimic the adults in their lives. That’s why she recommends “having toys to support that play,” because the closer a toy is to whatever real thing a child sees in their everyday life, the more engaging it is. For toys of this sort, she and Shannon Lockhart, a manager of early-childhood applied practices at HighScope recommend products made by Kodo, a company that creates high-quality playthings to support early-childhood education. This set of 20 tins comes in four sizes and would be great for a number of activities, including pretend play, stacking, dumping, and sorting. The fact that they’re metal and not plastic allows for an even richer sensory experience.
When toy historians look back at this era, Magna-Tiles will all but surely rank among the ten or 20 best toys of the time, and they’ll probably still be popular even in a hundred years. The magnetic shapes improve fine motor skills, spatial reasoning, planning, and, when a structure collapses, resilience. Once toddlers are hooked on Magna-Tiles, they can continue to add to their collection with a variety of expansion packs — making the imaginative possibilities endless. Also, they’re just great entertainment, even for adults. Maybe especially for adults.
Parents and kids alike adore the Toniebox, an audio-only entertainment system that keeps little ones occupied without screens. It’s a smart speaker that plays stories and songs when you place a magnetized figurine, or Tonie, on top, and there are dozens of characters to choose from, including Paw Patrol, Frozen, Peppa Pig, LeVar Burton, and Peter Rabbit. John says it’s “so easy to operate that my 3.5-year-old daughter can do it all by herself,” and he’s especially impressed with the production value. “Talented voice actors, rich sound effects — it makes the aural experience of the content every bit as rewarding as watching the movie.”
You can also get blank “Creative-Tonies” that you can program with any MP3 file, which Vulture writer Kathryn VanArendonk used with her two kids, or record yourself, family members, and friends reading and telling stories. “People talk about life-changing toys, and this one really helped my younger child self-regulate when she needed to cool down but had dropped a nap, and both my kids loved it for bedtime,” says VanArendonk. A note: You have to buy the speaker (Toniebox) and Tonies ($12 to $15 each) separately, but this starter kit includes a figurine that’s preloaded with a compilation of popular children’s songs. You can also buy bundles that come with two, three, or five Tonies and save a few bucks that way.
A beautifully non-gender-specific dollhouse with much for grown-ups to admire: a solar panel, a wind turbine, and mini recycling bins, all made of sustainable wood. As for the kids: It fosters hours of open-ended imaginative play, whether solo or with others, parallel or collaborative. One Amazon reviewer who gifted this to a 2-and-a-half-year-old wrote that “when she saw this house on Christmas morning, all of her other presents didn’t exist anymore.” And: “It’s also fun to point out and talk about the solar panel and wind power parts.” And: “she will get many years of play out of it.”
Lockhart says the train tracks at the preschool where she works are one of the most popular toys among 3-year-olds. Unlike so many STEM or STEM-adjacent toys, BRIO’s Smart Tech line really is age appropriate for 3-year-olds; they can figure out how to play with this smart engine in a matter of minutes and might be inclined to integrate it with their other train sets. What stands out more than its educational value, though, is the sheer entertainment kids get out of setting up a train track where the engine will complete a route, turn around, and stop at the child’s prearranged transmitter arches.
“This bounce house is a near-permanent fixture in our backyard,” says Jamie Banks, a North Shore–based mother of three, who has hundreds upon hundreds of fellow fans in the product’s Amazon reviews. “It is so easy to set up, and it gets kids excited to be active and to play out in the fresh air. The bouncing area is fairly big, and when they’re done jumping, it folds up quickly and easily. Also, it pays for itself after two uses compared to the cost of renting one for a party.”
You can certainly buy specific dress-up costumes to help your 3-year-old channel the characters from their favorite books and movies or reuse old clothing instead of throwing it away, says Golinkoff. But if you’re looking for a gift with more wow factor, this dress-up closet will delight them while also keeping everything organized. It has a garment rod, four shelf compartments, and a built-in shatterproof safety mirror so they can practice lasso tricks, spell casting, princess waving, or robot dance moves.
If you’re looking for the ultimate big-ticket gift, consider this John Deere ride-on tractor toy that’s almost as good as the real thing. Casino got this for her 3-year-old, and while she admits adults might get an even bigger kick out of it than children, she says that her kid loves riding it around the backyard, and can imagine “almost every 3-year-old going nuts over it.” The tractor — complete with detachable trailer — has two speeds and even reverses, while its oversize wheels provide traction on grass, dirt, gravel, and pavement. It comes with automatic brakes, and parents can also control the speed if they want. Perhaps the best part is that it has a functioning FM radio, allowing your would-be farmer to cruise (or plow) to their favorite tunes.
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