What do you get for a three-year-old girl? She’s too old for a lot of her baby toys and needs toys appropriate for her beginning curiosity and explorations.
A lot of three-year-olds are just now realizing that the world is big and exciting. They want to pretend to be like mom and dad or characters they see on TV. Dramatic play helps them to work out complex problems and conduct experiments with their environment. Toys that help them accomplish this not only help them learn but keep their interest.
If you aren’t sure what to get her, don’t worry. We’ve compiled a list of toys that are sure to be a hit at her birthday party or as a just-because gift. Each one is chosen for their possible play opportunities and to help her practice much-needed life and physical skills. Let’s take a look.
Joyin Toy Pretend Princess Purse Set My First Purse Toy
The first toy on the list is a piece of realia. This pink purse toy is a soft flower bag that comes with accessories that include a pretend camera, smartphone, car key, mirror, lipstick, coin purse, debit card and comb.
Dramatic play is essential for a child’s development. This toy has elements of real life that will enhance her imagination as she takes on the role of a grown woman like mommy. The toys are all a bright, matching pink which keeps her visual interest. The camera has real sounds, and the smartphone toy makes different ringtones and plays music.
Why she’ll love it: It has all the things mommy’s purse has, including a phone that looks just like the iPhone.
Hape All Seasons Kid’s Wooden Doll House
Hape’s toys are well-made, classic wooden toy sets. The All Seasons Doll House is an open design which allows your child to play from many different angles or easily play with other children. Each room is decorated according to a different season.
It has three different levels, and the rooms can be changed with movable parts. It features the happy seasons family of dolls. The house can come furnished or unfurnished with each room set available separately. You can also purchase pet sets and different types of families.
Dollhouses encourage imagination and problem-solving in real-world scenarios. Any time your child can act out different versions of real life is a great learning experience.
Why she’ll love it: It’s a lovingly made, well-designed play house with visual interest and moveable, customizable parts.
Micro Mini Deluxe Kick Scooter
The Micro scooter is a great way to get your three-year-old outdoors on their very first wheeled accessory. It’s simple to balance and maneuver and won’t require much practice time to function well.
It’s one of the best-designed scooters for younger children. She can steer by using body weight to turn, which encourages bodily awareness as she leans into a turn and controls her balance and coordination. The wheels are smooth gliding for a variety of pavement types.
Why she’ll love it: It’s the perfect outdoor toy. She’ll practice crucial bodily awareness skills while having fun.
B. Pet Vet Toy Doctor Kit
This playset is a durable plastic carry case that comes with two small stuffed animals, vet’s tools, and keys that unlock the different color doors. It’s great for practicing color recognition, fine motor skills, and for dramatic play involving pet care.
B. toys are well crafted and come in visually pleasing, bright colors. They can create endless scenarios for pet and veterinarian situations. Everything folds up into one convenient carrying case.
Why she’ll love it: It’s the perfect kit for kids interested in pet medicine or just to allow for different dramatic play.
SmartMax My First Safari Animals
My First Safari Animals is part of the Smartmax engineering line. This kit comes with the pieces to create a lion, hippo, giraffe, rhino, crocodile, and elephant. Kids can also snap the pieces together to create entirely new, imaginative creatures.
The pieces are compatible with other Smartmax sets or can provide hours of fun strictly on their own. These playsets are designed for budding engineers and designed to provide lots of creative building options for curious kids. It’ll be her first experience creating her own toys.
Why she’ll love it: It’s all her favorite exotic animals in bright colors. She can also create a myriad of strange and wild creatures to satisfy her imagination.
Tell-A-Tale Game (Fairytale Edition)
This is a unique board game and storybook hybrid. Everyone plays together by taking turns rolling the dice and adding elements to the story. There are three picture dice, and one action die to propel the story forward.
She can tell a tale involving wizards, dragons, witches, and other sorts of heroes. The game board is a two-part, wooden base with a double-sided backdrop, 11 prop pieces, and 11 character pieces. As the story progresses, you can move the character and prop pieces in the slots of the base.
This can be her very first action role-playing game. It will develop crucial critical thinking skills as well as language skills.
Why she’ll love it: Each game is a new story as she stretches her imagination to the limit.
Spinmaster Luvabella Responsive Baby Doll with Realistic Expressions and Movement
The Spinmaster Luvabella isn’t just any doll. It’s an interactive doll with realistic expressions and movements. The more your three-year-old plays with her, the more she evolves. She’ll even go from baby babble to more than 100 words and phrases. She learns as your child learns.
Luvabella comes with interactive accessories, such as the spoon, bottle, pacifier and Lamby toy. She makes chewing and sucking noises with her spoon and bottle, and she may even ask for more. If your three-year-old puts her Lamby near her nose, she’ll make kissing and cooing noises. When she gets tired, your child can use the pacifier to help her go to sleep. Afterwards, listen to the heartbeat through her chest.
Why she’ll love it: Luvabella is an interactive doll toy that helps your child develop empathy and critical thinking skills. It adds a realistic element to dramatic home play.
VTech Cogsley Learning Robot
Cogsley is a fun robot designed to be a child’s first interaction with tech. You can feed him one of the 30 included chips to learn things like letters and counting. Your child can also participate in activities and games all with the robot.
He is full of personality and is interactive. Not only do the chips elicit a response, but so will her clapping, singing, and talking. There are six game modes for endless fun.
He is brightly colored and has an LCD screen all for visual interest. Manipulating all his features encourages hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
Why she’ll love it: It’s her first personal robot and one that can make the process of learning fun and simple.
Melissa and Doug Giant Unicorn Stuffed Animal
Unicorns are the stuff of dreams, and Melissa and Doug’s giant stuffed unicorn will be a magical addition to a stuffed animal collection. It has soft white fur with pink horn, mane, tale, and horn. It also has a sturdy wire frame and weighted hooves, so it stands on its own.
This will be a perfect comfort toy, and she can use it to play highly imaginative games with a magical creature. It’s a sturdy construction so it will last forever.
Why she’ll love it: It’s a giant, white and pink unicorn. There’s little else a princess would need.
Num Noms Lipgloss Truck Craft Kit
Num Noms are little, stackable figures in the shapes of desserts like ice cream. They’re collectible and matchable.
The Num Noms lipgloss kit allows your three-year-old to create her own lipgloss with the help of mommy. She can pretend to put on the make-up of her own creation and have hours of fun with the figures.
It features one special edition, scented Num and three containers shaped like a sundae. The rest of the kit contains one lip gloss base plus cherry and vanilla flavors to add, and a container of glitter sprinkles. She can make the gloss with the included cupcake making tool and the cherry spatula to top it all off.
She can pick her flavor, add sprinkles, and then dispense her creation out of the ice cream machine, just like a real ice cream stand. It’s endless fun creating and playing with age appropriate, safe makeup in the form of fun Num Noms.
Why she’ll love it: This is both a creative scene and a way for her to get creative with make-up just for her. She can also collect other Num Noms to add to the fun.
Just Play Puppy Surprise Plush Lexi Plush
Just Play Puppy Surprise is not only a soft dog toy, but each box comes with puppies. The fun part? You don’t know how many puppies you’re going to get. You could have three, four, or even five! One of the puppies even makes realistic barking sounds.
The puppies and mommy are brightly colored plush. Your child can groom them, play for hours, and then at the end of the day, snuggle them to sleep.
Why she’ll love it: The soft plush is comforting and brightly colored. The surprise number of puppies will be a great beginning to the play.
Whatever you choose, the toys for a three-year-old don’t have to be boring. There are so many things out there to capture her curiosity and help her practice much-needed skills.
Let us know in the comments which one you chose and tell us a little about how she reacted!
Looking for Gifts & Toys For Other Ages Of Children?
Do you have more than child to buy for who is at a different age? If that’s the case then you might want to check out our other guides of carefully curated and considered lists of gadgets, games, puzzles and toys that cater for all different ages and development stages of kids.
You’ll find that the guides below have toys that have been specifically designed and developed to match your child’s physical, emotional and cognitive abilities. I hope these guides provide you with all the inspiration you need to get your child gift idea spot on!
1 Year Old Girl / 1 Year Old Boy
2 Year Old Girl / 2 Year Old Boy
3 Year Old Girl / 3 Year Old Boy
4 Year Old Girl / 4 Year Old Boy
5 Year Old Girl / 5 Year Old Boy
6 Year Old Girl / 6 Year Old Boy
7 Year Old Girl / 7 Year Old Boy
8 Year Old Girl / 8 Year Old Boy
9 Year Old Girl / 9 Year Old Boy
1o Year Old Girl / 10 Year Old Boy
Other toy related buying guides you may want to check out….
Best Home Laser Tag Sets – Read more
Best Kids’ Scooters – Read more
Best Star Projectors for Kids & Teenagers – Read more