Are you looking for educational and fun gifts for your 3-year-olds? Below I have some great gifts for 3-year-old boys and girls including puzzles, trains, and pop-up tents. These are all gifts my 3-year-old twins have loved at one time or another.
One fun thing about 3 year olds is they are starting to use their imagination more which makes gift giving even more exciting! It’s been a fun year watching my twins develop their imaginations and act things out with toys.
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Create an Amazon Wishlist First!
Before you get started, start an Amazon Wishlist if you’re wanting to share ideas with others for what gifts your 3-year-old would like. It’ll make life easier.
You can create an Amazon Wishlist that you can share with friends and family. We have one for each child, and ourselves! We add items to the list all year and give the links to family who buy the kids birthday and Christmas presents. It’s great because as people buy from the list it disappears so no one buys a duplicate. To add an item to the wishlist, just click on “Add to List” on any Amazon product page then select the list you’d like to add it to.
- My blog post: How and Why to Create an Amazon Wishlist
Build a Flower Garden Toy
This looks like so much fun! This is great for helping with fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, creative thinking, and more!
Even though a girl is pictured here, boys would enjoy this as well. At least in our house, we don’t worry whether a toy is marketed primarily to boys or girls, all toys are fair game. My boys love flowers and love making things for me, including Lego flowers, so I’m sure they’d love these too!
Melissa & Doug Latches Wooden Activity Board
Melissa & Doug have so many amazing products that are educational, durable, and fun! The Latches Wooden Activity Board is a neat way to help develop fine motor skills and teach children how things lock and unlock. Hopefully, that won’t come back to bite you in the future – ha! Really though, our kids love this a lot.
Each “house” is a different color and has a different number. Once the child is able to open the door they can open it to see 1 purple horse, 2 blue dogs, and so on.
Educational Letter and Word Boards
These will grow with your children, in a sense. At first, they can just get used to seeing and feeling the wooden letters, and then they can get used to associating the letters with words and what they spell. They are durable and come in a nice wooden case. Each board is double-sided for double the spelling power!
SEE-AND-SPELL DEVELOPMENTAL TOY: The Melissa & Doug See & Spell learning toy is a 50 plus piece colorful wooden puzzle with easy-to-handle letters that fit into 8 2-sided cutout boards to spell 3 and 4-letter words.
STURDY WOODEN CASE: For easy storage and portability, this learning toy comes with a sturdy wooden case, which is compact and easy to carry. Packaging and colors may vary
Paw Patrol Magnetic Dress Up Play
If your kids are anything like mine, they LOVE Paw Patrol! I just came across the Melissa & Doug Paw Patrol and added them to their Christmas lists. This looks so fun to be able to mix and match what the pups are wearing and use their creativity and imagination.
Dress 4 wooden magnetic PAW Patrol play figures (Chase, Marshall, Skye, Rubble) in coordinating mix-and-match outfits
Includes 4 play figures, 4 durable stands for pretend play, 8 double-sided mission cards for story-starters and outfit ideas, 48 wooden magnetic accessories
All pieces store in wooden take-along tray with slide-in lid and handle for easy cleanup and portability
Magnetic Tiles
Magnetic tiles are full of never ending fun! Kids can build a lot of great things from houses, to castles, to trucks. Non-name brand sets are much cheaper than the Magnatiles brand and work just as well, in my experience.
Tent and Accessories
Our boys love this camping set and we love it too since it’s fun for them and easy to pack up and stow away when we rotate toys out. The boys have really enjoyed learning about camping, even though they haven’t been for real yet.
Update: My boys have been camping for real now and they still love this set. They love to reenact the camping trip.
A MUST HAVE FOR LITTLE EXPLORERS ENJOY CAMPING ADVENTURE: Meland updated camping play set provides with 30 necessary camping accessories including a play pop-up tent, sun hat, campfire with extendable stand, binoculars, oil lamp, 2-in-1 pretend hatchet with knife,magnifier, water bottle, cooking pan with pretend foods, portable carrying lunch box, 3-in-1 emergency whistle with functions of flashlights and compass and pretend camping utensils.
Wooden Train Tracks and Trains
We have three boys and each boy has their own train table in the basement. It’s amazing how much these boys love their trains. These wooden tracks are the best we’ve found, they’re durable and fit with all of the name-brand tracks as well.
Train Table, Trains, and Tracks
If you really want to make your kids’ day, go with a train table! Admittedly, we got our three off of Facebook Marketplace so much cheaper than buying new but thought I’d share a really nice new one if you can’t find a used one locally.
Wooden Train Set
You can never have too many wooden train sets, at least that’s how my boys feel. We have quite a few between the three boys and they love to mix and match them.
Digital Camera
I know, getting a 3 year old a digital camera seems crazy but hear me out! They have digital cameras that are made JUST for KIDS!! All 3 of my boys have their own digital cameras and let me tell you, they are HARD on them yet they still work!
The VTech kids camera is what my 3 boys have and they’re great. They are easy to use, durable, and tons of fun. There are little games on them too which are generally a little too hard for 3 year olds but some of them my twins can do.
They are all able to take pictures, record videos, and look at them afterward. They love having their own cameras.
Micro SD Card
If you get the camera above I highly suggest getting a Micro SD Card as well. The camera above can hold a 32GB MicroSD Card as shown below.
2-Pack Dinosaur Truck Carriers
These look so awesome!! Admittedly we don’t have them…yet, but I have a feeling that if I were to show my twins who happen to love red and blue, they would demand these go on their birthday list!
Dinosaur Truck playset include: 2 Transport trucks,1 Play Mat and 14 dinosaur toys.
Wooden Pattern Shapes Puzzle
We have one similar to this but ours doesn’t have this awesome case! With these wooden shapes your kids can make all sorts of different designs of their own or the ones that are shown on the included cards. This set is really great for teaching kids different shapes, colors, and how shapes put together certain ways can make different things!
Watch Your Child’s Imagination Come to Life: The LIKEE pattern block set contains 36 wooden pieces and 60 pattern cards including animals, vehicles etc., kids can try to build what is shown on the cards or create their own designs, great for developing spatial awareness, color & shape recognition, hand-eye coordination, and problem-solving!
Scribble Scrubbies
Scribble Scrubbies are so much fun. We have some of these and I think I enjoy them as much or more than my kids. It’s so cool to be able to draw on them and then wash them off. It’s cute to see my boys do it too, they are so delicate with the animals when they scrub them with the brush.
I’ve found that having a cookie sheet with an outer rim underneath this while using it helps reduce the mess from the water and makes for a happier experience for all.
SCRIBBLE SCRUBBIE MEGA PACK: Includes 12 Scribble Scrubbie Pets, 1 Scrub Tub, 2 Scrub Brushes, 12 Washable Markers, and Instruction Sheet!
Little Passports Activity Boxes
Looking for an activity to give this year instead of just another toy? Check out Little Passports Activity Boxes. There are several different activity boxes for different ages and interests.
My kids and I have tried out a few different Little Passports Activity Boxes including Animals Wild, Craft Discovery, and Space Quest, which I’ve written blog posts on. We have so much fun with them! It’s great to have something that we can work on together while also learning instead of just another toy that is going to sit on the shelf (or let’s be real, the middle of the floor).
With Little Passports Activity Boxes you can buy one box at a time or you can buy a subscription, which ends up being cheaper per box.
The buttons below include links to my blog posts as well as a 50% off an annual subscription or 20% off any purchase on their site. The other button links to the Little Passports Gift Guide that will help you decide which one to buy for your little one!
As a mom of identical twins and a son two years older, I have gained invaluable experience in the realm, and chaos, of parenting. With a Master's Degree and Education Specialist Degree in School Psychology, I spent years as a school psychologist, helping children navigate through their educational and emotional challenges. Now as a stay at home mom and professional blogger, I combine my areas of expertise to help you in your parenting journey.