The 38 Best Gifts for 3-Year-Olds

Cooperative board games—where players work toward a common goal, instead of competing against one another—are ideal for 3-year-olds who are learning to follow directions, take turns, and work as a group. The Count Your Chickens Board Game is a hit with preschoolers and parents at Toybrary Austin, our local toy-lending library in Texas. In this game, players team up to bring a mother hen’s chicks back to the coop. It’s simple and, just as importantly, fast (perfect for a 3-year-old’s attention span). Once you’ve all mastered the art of chicken reunions, check out The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game, another great cooperative board game for beginners. (We offer more ideas in our guide to the best board games for kids.)

—Caitlin Giddings

It’s hard to go wrong with a gift of novel art supplies. My son got a set of Do-A-Dot Art Rainbow Dot Markers when he was 3 (and just embarking on a now-years-long obsession with rainbows). The sticks are easy for little hands to grip, and the colors are vibrant enough to look bright both on cardboard boxes and on regular paper. I like that they have the special feel of paints but with less mess and effort. The markers also come in metallic and bright shimmer versions. You may want to pair them with a ream of paper or some add-on art supplies, like scissors and a glue stick.

—Kalee Thompson

The Haba Bubble Bath Whisk stirs up good, clean mischief. The roughly 10-inch-tall plastic gadget works like a rotary egg beater, resulting in a whirlpool of sloshing waves. (If my daughter uses the whisk a bit too exuberantly, her babysitter will emerge from bath time looking like she just visited the splash zone at SeaWorld.) But the pure glee this whisk elicits is usually worth it.

—Ingela Ratledge Amundson

I’m not sure which my son learned first—what the alphabet is or who the NBA greats are. B Is for Baller: The Ultimate Basketball Alphabet is an ode to pro basketball. Each letter of the alphabet presents an opportunity to explore the mythology of a current or former NBA star. For example, “T is for Three” depicts the Golden State Warriors’ sharp-shooter Steph Curry firing a three-pointer from one side of the Golden Gate Bridge to the other. Since this book came out, in 2018, two more have been added to the series. G Is for Golazo: The Ultimate Soccer Alphabet features athletes from the pitch, including Brazil’s Marta Vieira da Silva. S Is for Slugger: The Ultimate Baseball Alphabet highlights Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, among other baseball figures; in this book, “P” stands for “Pioneer” because Johnson was the first woman to pitch in the Negro Leagues.

—Lara Rabinovitch

As a preschooler, my son loved the challenge—and reward—of a good puzzle, and the Melissa & Doug 100-Piece Safari Floor Puzzle was one of his favorites. The large, durable pieces were easy for him to manipulate on his own (and hard to lose), and the result was a grand masterpiece that stretched across the floor. My son loves wild animals, so this particular theme—with giraffes, an elephant, and a rhinoceros in the savanna—appealed to him. If a 100-piece puzzle feels too intimidating, start with one of Melissa & Doug’s 48-piece floor puzzles, instead (dinosaurs and the solar system are two options).

—Ellen Lee

The concept of Petit Collage’s What Am I? Game is simple: Each player dons a pair of paper glasses and takes a turn tucking a card into the slotted nose bridge, making sure they don’t look at the illustration on the card. The bespectacled person then asks a series of questions to help them guess what’s on their card—there are 50 options in all, ranging from an ice cream cone to a sailboat to a turtle. My pre-reader daughter, who got the game as a gift for her third birthday, was able to play it right out of the box. And back then, we didn’t worry ourselves over leading questions or a little peeking. (Petit Collage recommends this game for kids ages 4 to 8. But younger children can enjoy a looser version, sans timer and maybe with a few extra hints.)

—Hannah Morrill

Toys that pull double duty are my favorite for my two kids, and these Smart Snacks Shape Sorting Cupcakes deliver learning and fun in equal measure. Each confection pulls apart to reveal a different shape, with the tops matching the bottoms and the bottoms matching corresponding divots in the pan. My younger son enjoyed the challenge of sorting shapes and identifying colors; as a preschooler, my older son worked these pastries into pretend baking games, picnic scenarios, imaginative shopping trips, and more. The set is nearly indestructible, and I found myself retrieving it during room cleanup every night.

—Ingrid Skjong

I can do without children’s books that blare sounds, but I make an exception for Welcome to Jazz: A Swing-Along Celebration of America’s Music, by Carolyn Sloan. Although I initially thought my 2-year-old might be a tad young for a jazz primer, he took to this book immediately—from the vivid illustrations featuring a trio of cats learning the genesis of jazz to the 12 buttons that, when pressed, play the different musical parts of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” (A 3-year-old might be in an even better position to enjoy it.) My son loved hearing the deep double bass, the jangly rhythm section, the free-spirited scatting—and he learned the names of jazz legends like Billie Holiday and King Oliver. This is a musical introduction we can all get behind.

—Ingrid Skjong

Someone gave us a pack of Mad Mattr Modeling Dough, which has several advantages over Play-Doh for both kids and caretakers. It’s moldable like a dough and compresses into hard shapes, but it stretches out into a kind of soft sand. It’s not sticky, it doesn’t stain or get everywhere, and it doesn’t dry out, though it’s also less ductile than Play-Doh.

—Nathan Edwards

When my toddler began showing an interest in stickers, I was delighted. What’s not to like about an activity that’s nostalgic, cheap, and doesn’t hog floor space? But when she began surreptitiously applying the stickers to random surfaces throughout our home, I was less thrilled. Our solution: Melissa & Doug’s jungle-and-savanna-themed Reusable Sticker Pad. The oversize, 11-by-14-inch pad comes with 175 durable, cling-style reusable stickers that can be arranged and rearranged on five glossy scenic backdrops, as well as on your fridge, windows, or dishwasher—consequence-free. The stickers come in varying sizes, and my daughter usually needs a little help freeing them from their tightly arranged contact sheets (older kids may not have this problem). If animals aren’t your jam, Melissa & Doug makes these pads in lots of other themes, too, like this Make-a-Meal version.

—Ingela Ratledge Amundson

It may seem as if most puzzles are created equal, but some of them stand out from the rest. Petit Collage’s Ocean Life Puzzle has 24 thicker-than-normal pieces that are easy for small fingers to grasp; the pieces also provide a bit of tactile feedback (click!) when pressed into place. Then, when it’s destruction time, they separate cleanly, without sticking together. Perhaps best of all, every Petit Collage puzzle comes in a vibrant and sturdy box complete with a rope handle for carrying (other 24-piece designs include a world map and wild rainforest). Crocodile Creek makes similar high-quality puzzles in stackable boxes that won’t rip or flatten; they were the hottest picks (and the first to disappear) during our neighborhood puzzle swaps.

—Julie Kim

These thumb-sized, multi-legged robots are equal parts endearing and frenetic. Propelled by the sheer force of their (amusing) vibrations, they skitter around corners, scale small obstacles, and right themselves. They move surprisingly quickly. So if—like us—you live somewhere with actual big bugs that race across your floor (hello from Texas!), you might want to warn your family before you let a Hexbug loose. Once they’re in play, they’re a blast. For cats, the challenge is to chase them around. (Just use caution around pets who aren’t discriminating about what they swallow.) For kids, the fun is in creating obstacle courses and elaborate containment chambers out of anything you can find, like train tracks, shoes, and boxes. (Adults get to just sit back and watch the cats and kids entertain each other.) The only downside is that each critter in this Hexbug Nano Nitro 5 Pack requires an AG13/LR44 button cell battery. The first one is included, but it will need to be replaced fairly quickly if your household enjoys robot bugs as much as mine does.

—Caitlin Giddings

If your child is a fan of this cool cat, then there might be some added excitement when you break out the Pete the Cat The Missing Cupcakes Game. But you don’t have to be familiar with the groovy feline and his friends (featured in this book and more) to understand or enjoy this cooperative board game. The object: Players try to collect 14 plastic cupcakes for Pete’s birthday party by working together on preschool-level challenges. They may have to sing, perform an activity, or act out a word, à la charades. But if anybody lands on the dreaded Grumpy Toad space, a cupcake must be removed from the board. Eventually, all of the cupcakes are accounted for, everyone “wins” (there’s no way to lose), and the game ends with the group singing “Happy Birthday” to Pete. In our experience, the challenges are varied enough to keep the players engaged. And the game tests memory skills (since you can’t repeat another player’s choices) and helps young kids associate images with words (reading is not required). More importantly, it encourages silliness.

—Barbara Kimberly Seigel

Letters that are robots in disguise? Meet Alpha-Bots. With these 26 colorful plastic letters, kids can twist, turn, flip, and lift the moveable parts to create robots, and then maneuver them back into their letter forms (it also comes in a numbers set.) Some robots may at first take more trial and error to manipulate, but that can ultimately help a kid develop spatial and fine motor skills—and it simply adds to the fun. Each robot can be looked at as a tiny individual puzzle, though collectively the robots might inspire creative play, too. My little one got a kick out of making the robots look like they were holding hands.

—Barbara Kimberly Seigel

Bugzzle is essentially a tangram (a puzzle made up of geometric pieces that can be arranged in different shapes) for toddlers. An early STEM toy that provides a soft, visual introduction to fractions, Bugzzle includes one sturdy bug frame, 18 semicircular plastic puzzle pieces, and 40 cards with increasingly difficult patterns to re-create inside the bug. Many 3-year-olds can become adept at remaking the patterns using the problem-solving skills and spatial reasoning that Bugzzle is designed to foster. For a more-traditional format, the Melissa & Doug Pattern Blocks and Boards Classic Toy encourages the same critical-thinking skills as Bugzzle, using colorful wooden shapes.

—Caitlin Giddings

When my then-2-year-old son got his Little Tikes Gas ’N Go Mower—long before we had a yard of our own—I don’t think he knew about actual lawnmowers, but that’s beside the point. He loved to run through the corridors of our home, pushing it and delighting in its pop-pop-popping sound. Later, his younger sister, then 3, inherited the lawnmower, and the mysterious appeal of this toy proved to be enduring. I still don’t fully understand why kids feel compelled to mimic mowing a lawn—a task many adults actively avoid. But I love this piece of plastic because there are no batteries, assembly requires no tools, and it has provided years of imaginative play for my kids. We now live in a house that has a real lawn, and my daughter will spend hours on end “grooming” it.

—Lara Rabinovitch

At age 3, my daughter loved every part of the Don’t Let the Bugs Fall! Game (a Jenga-style stacking game for kids): the die-rolling and calling out of the color rolled, the cautious removal of each block, and the dramatic collapse that signals triumph or defeat. She even loved to exhaustively rebuild the tower setup, which is objectively the worst part of actual Jenga. Admittedly, it can be difficult to play according to the exact instructions—you’re supposed to dislodge each bug-faced block one-handed, which is no easy feat. But after you develop some loose and forgiving house rules, the game is fun, fast-paced, and engaging for all ages.

—Caitlin Giddings

At age 3, some kids begin showing interest in gripping a pencil and trying to form letters or numbers. The Magnatab A to Z Uppercase magnetic writing board is an early handwriting tool that’s fun, tactile, and even semi-addictive. Kids use the thick magnetic stylus to trace letters, pulling the tiny metal beads into place. The beads are encased, so they can’t fall out or get lost. Directional arrows help budding writers visualize where to start and end each letter. There is also a Magnatab for practicing numbers and shapes. For free-form magnetic drawing and writing, try this simple slate. (And you can purchase a replacement stylus, if yours goes missing.)

—Caitlin Giddings

My kids use this eight-piece play cooking set to make chicken soup with chocolate, grape spaghetti, and countless other pretend concoctions. Melissa & Doug Let’s Play House! Stainless Steel Pots & Pans Play Set works well as a standalone gift. But it’s also a useful addition to a toy kitchen, like the IKEA Duktig Play Kitchen (featured in our guide to the best gifts for 2-year-olds). This play cooking set includes a colander, two wooden utensils, and its own vertical storage rack; since the pots and pans are made of stainless steel, they’ve lasted through my kids’ vigorous culinary sessions. (They’re even dishwasher-safe, but you can’t use them for actual cooking.) My son and daughter especially love that this cookware comes with a lid—once their pretend bibimbap or boeuf bourguignon is ready, they can surprise diners by removing it with a dramatic flourish.

—Lara Rabinovitch

IKEA’s colorful polyester Cirkustält offers long-lasting fun for a low price. The littlest kids may enjoy playing hide-and-seek inside or peekaboo from behind the curtains. Three-year-olds might like loading it up with mounds of stuffed animals, using it as a private place to play or rest, or turning the tent into a rocket ship. I can attest to this tent’s durability: We had one that lasted for at least five years, and there were many catastrophic rocket crashes during that time. IKEA’s Dvärgmås Play Tunnel, which we recommend in our guide to the best gifts for 2-year-olds, pairs nicely with the circus tent and was another hit with my kids. Availability at IKEA stores varies by location.

—Kalee Thompson

My child’s peer group absolutely loves dramatic play and dress-up. One minute they’re doctors, the next minute they’re firefighters, and at some point they all splinter off into different versions of Spider-Man on a group mission to destroy the house. The costume sets from Melissa & Doug—like this Fire Chief Role Play Costume Set—don’t include caped-superhero options. But they do let kids take on lots of heroic, real-world career roles, like veterinarian or pediatric nurse. Each costume comes with accessories—hard hat, hammer, and saw for the construction worker; fedora, sunglasses, and decoder lens for the spy—that help set the scene for freewheeling imaginative play. If your kid is, in fact, particularly obsessed with playing a superhero, they may also love these reversible Superhero Capes and Mask for Kids, with Velcro closures and matching felt masks. And if they’re more inclined toward imitating royalty, consider these sumptuous velour ones.

—Caitlin Giddings

Melissa & Doug’s Deluxe Double-Sided Tabletop Easel gives toddlers dozens of creative options for when they’re seated at the table or on the floor. On one side, there’s a chalkboard; flip the whole thing over and you’ll find a magnetic dry-erase board. The sturdy set includes a 50-foot roll of paper for painting and drawing, five sticks of colored chalk, a dry-erase marker and felt eraser, and 36 letter and number magnets that can be stored in the wooden base tray. It all packs down easily, so you can stow it anywhere or take it on a trip. (My toddler loves to sit outside on the ground with it and paint.) If you’re looking for a full-size easel, we like the KidKraft Storage Easel or the Melissa & Doug Deluxe Wooden Standing Art Easel, both of which we recommend in our guide to the best gifts for 4-year-olds.

—Caitlin Giddings

Liza Wilson, owner of the Toybrary Austin lending library in Texas, said that playing musical instruments—or even just playing with them—will help preschoolers explore sensory input in a way that’s creative and self-directed. The resulting sounds may be chaotic, but 3-year-olds can learn much more from real instruments than from simply pushing buttons or tapping screens to play pre-recorded songs. For 3-year-olds, small pianos and drums might be good choices. But Wilson said Toybrary’s Eastar Kids Accordion gets the most play. Kids love pulling on the bellows and pushing the vocal keys and buttons for harmony and bass. It’s a toy that can grow with a child as they progress from making creative sounds to learning actual songs—and, heck, even adults can have some fun fiddling with it.

—Caitlin Giddings

Puppets can be a great outlet for preschoolers to explore storytelling. When they were younger, my kids had a dedicated puppet basket, as well as this puppet theater. Yet I found that the individual puppets got way more use than the theater itself—my kids were more interested in private, imaginative play than in performing for an audience. Folkmanis makes a range of plush animal puppets: We were given a tiny praying mantis and a scaly three-headed dragon. But I think the Snowy Owl Hand Puppet was the most special one in our bin. It’s extra-soft and structured, with a head you can rotate using a plastic knob inside. After my older son got dive-bombed by a nesting owl—for real, and he was fine—we were able to embark on some extra-dramatic play with this thing.

—Kalee Thompson

When my son was 2 years old, a cousin gave us a bag of assorted train tracks. Over the following months, he enjoyed them enough that we upgraded to a full set of the Right Track Toys Wooden Train Tracks, to pair with his Melissa & Doug Wooden Train Cars. The 52 pieces of track allow for a sprawling setup, or you can keep the route more simple if space is tight. And the eight colorful train cars, which include a steam engine, caboose, and passenger car, can chug-a-chug separately or be linked together via magnets at the front and back. My son loved pushing the trains along the path he created.

—Amy Miller Kravetz

This cooperative board game was my kiddo’s favorite at 3½, since it paired her two most beloved elements of play—matching and talking about stinky things. The object of the game is always the same: Help an assortment of bright, friendly faced bugs get tucked safely beneath the rug (the game board) before they’re encroached upon by three invading stink bugs. Snug as a Bug in a Rug! has three levels of play to choose from, with escalating degrees of difficulty (we usually played the middle version), so it can grow with the player. The whole game takes only about 15 minutes to complete, unless (as we did) you feel compelled to lovingly tuck each bug in with gentle words of reassurance about how safe and protected they’ll now be under the rug. We also liked to feign outsize horror in response to the stink bugs’ hideousness and odor ... which takes some of the sting out of the fact that we lost to them so often.

—Caitlin Giddings

According to the International Dairy Foods Association, the average American devours 20 pounds of ice cream a year. Love for the stuff starts early, as illustrated by Melissa & Doug’s Scoop & Stack Ice Cream Cone Playset. Kids can spoon and serve with two magnetized scoopers, which have a satisfyingly realistic feel when you are doling out one of the four scoops of ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and mint chocolate chip) to top off the two wooden cones. The flavors may be well edited, but the playful possibilities are nearly endless.

—Ingrid Skjong

Play kitchens are all the rage due to their encouragement of imaginative play and social-development skills. (See our guide to the best gifts for 2-year-olds for our favorite one.) But play workbenches deserve the same amount of love. My daughter couldn’t get enough of the Black+Decker Junior Power Tool Workshop. She would collect all of the small accessories, such as nuts, screws, and bolts, and load them into the toolbox. But the coolest part was the attention to detail on the power tools: In addition to a working vise, the workshop comes with a miter saw and a drill, which function realistically and emit battery-powered sounds. The entire thing has more than 50 parts, including a flashlight, a phone, and everything else a kid needs to fall in love with home repair.

—Caitlin Giddings

For preschoolers, dolls can be an important tool for early social and emotional learning. The right doll can also help children build self-esteem and empathy by mirroring identity differences back to them in a positive light. Miniland (an award-winning toy and doll maker based in Spain, and a favorite among preschool educators) has made inclusivity a priority, and its dolls are a pick in our guide to the best dolls. The collection includes infant and toddler dolls with a range of skin colors and features, including dolls with glasses, with a hearing aid, and an award-winning doll with facial features common in children with Down syndrome. My daughter loves this Miniland doll, which has Asian features; with a bob and blunt bangs, the doll even resembles her. The anatomically correct dolls come dressed in simple one- or two-piece white cotton undies. To add to their wardrobe, you can choose from accessories including shoes, sweaters and overalls.

—Julie Kim

When she was 3, my second daughter received a Micro Mini scooter for Hanukkah. It’s Wirecutter’s pick for the best scooter for kids under 5. And any doubts I had about giving such a pricey scooter to a preschooler were blown away once I saw how my daughter handled this one, compared with the cheaper models she’d borrowed from friends at the park. Other scooters were wobbly, clanky, difficult to steer, and laborious to propel. On this scooter, my daughter could zip and glide around with ease, deftly navigating turns by shifting her weight, and using the foot brake on the back wheel to slow down and stop. It comfortably fits kids up to age 5, so multiple children can use it. (Tip: Extending the scooter’s handlebar to full height makes it convenient for an adult towing a tuckered-out kid home.) When the time does come to graduate to the next size up, we recommend the Micro Maxi, as described in this article.

—Courtney Schley

Hape’s three-story All Seasons Kids Wooden Dollhouse is bright, gender-neutral, and open on all sides. My daughter loved that she could reach into any room from almost any spot to adjust the furniture and play with the wooden people (sold separately). I liked the extra furniture sets and accessories we could buy (including these pets). This was a staple toy during her toddler and preschool years—until we got a puppy, who eventually devoured everything in the dollhouse, including the two families who lived there. (Note: The price of this dollhouse can jump as high as $200; you may want to look on Facebook Marketplace or in a local online parents’ group to see whether anyone in your area is selling a lightly used, pre-owned dollhouse.)

—Jackie Reeve

The Schwinn Roadster Tricycle, Wirecutter’s recommendation for the best low-rider tricycle, is built for confident pedalers who are ready to tear up some ground. Unlike other trikes’ plastic or foam tires, the Roadster Tricycle’s tires are air-filled, like a bicycle’s, making this a grippier and faster ride. The heftier build and low center of gravity (a riff on the classic Big Wheel) give this tricycle the stability needed to handle faster, tighter turns, so it’s a thrilling ride for a 3-year-old. And with its shiny metal body, tassels on the handlebars, a bell, and a wooden deck in back (where a friend can hitch a ride), the Roadster Tricycle cannot be beaten for style.

—Kate Gammon

After mastering the art of gliding on a Woom 1 balance bike (the upgrade pick in our guide to the best balance bikes, and a recommendation in our gift guide for 1-year-olds), my 3½-year-old leveled up to this model—a real bike with pedals! The Woom 2 Pedal Bike is thoughtfully designed for the needs of the youngest riders (the slightly larger Woom 3, with 16-inch wheels, is the upgrade pick in our guide to the best pedal bikes). This bike has a low standover height and weighs just over 12 pounds, so a small human can easily mount and operate it. The BMX-style riser handlebar puts kids in a comfortable upright position, so they can look around while cruising the neighborhood streets. Two hand brakes are suitably sized for little fingers. When my daughter was first getting started on the Woom 2, we removed the pedals and let her continue to push off with her feet and glide on the bike until she got used to steering and braking. Then we raised the quick-release adjustable saddle an inch or so and added the pedals. She soon had the basics down. It’s cool to see what kids can do when they have a bike that’s designed for them.

Note: In July 2023, Woom bikes announced a recall following 77 incidents of handlebar stems malfunctioning, causing cuts, bruising, and abrasions. New Woom bikes, and those made after 2021, are not affected. Do not use an older bike until you’ve checked to see whether it was part of the recall. If so, it can be repaired with a free kit provided by Woom.

—Caitlin Giddings

Like many kids, my second daughter developed a full-blown fascination with animals at around age 3. In her case, it was monkeys, monkeys, and more monkeys. After amassing a sizable collection of monkey stuffed animals, a monkey necklace, and other monkey swag, she informed me that she was ready for a real, live one. Instead, with a $60 sponsorship, we “adopted” a squirrel monkey named Chestnut at our local zoo in Philadelphia. We printed and framed the accompanying adoption certificate, which states that my daughter is now Chestnut’s “zoo parent.” And we paired it with a stuffed squirrel monkey from Wild Republic, which offers dozens of stuffed creatures in both small and extra-large sizes. (It also has these beautiful birds, which make authentic bird calls and were produced in partnership with the National Audubon Society.) If you don’t have a similar program at your local zoo, the World Wildlife Fund’s Symbolic Species Adoptions kit provides adoptions for more than a hundred species. So it’s likely you’ll find whatever animal your kid adores, whether it’s a three-toed sloth or a pangolin. Each adoption comes with a stuffed animal, an adoption certificate, a photo, an information card about the species, and a reusable WWF tote bag.

—Courtney Schley

Additional reporting by Julie Kim. This article was edited by Ellen Lee and Kalee Thompson.