Raising a toddler can be both challenging and rewarding. With the right tools it can also be a lot of fun! Montessori toys are a great way to foster a 3 year old's natural curiosity and learning. But with so many different types of Montessori toys on the market, it can be hard to know which ones your 3 year old needs the most. That's why we've put together a list of 20+ must-have Montessori toys for 3 year olds! Keep reading to learn more.
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The Best Overall Montessori Toys For 3-Year-Olds
Riding a balance bike is a great exercise to work on ground principles of Montessori education: balance and coordination of movements. Although not a common Montessori toy, the balance bike aligns with the Montessori approach.
Riding a balance bike helps children focus on one particular skill at a time, allowing for a gradual progression in their abilities. With this method, kids slowly learn how to balance the bike by walking it first and then gradually progressing to riding with their feet lifted. Therefore, kids feel responsible for their success.
From the beginning, kids grasp that they must keep moving to make the bike stay upright when using a balance bike. With training wheels, children only learn how to pedal but not how to balance; however, being able to balance is a crucial skill for biking.
Furthermore, a 3-year-old is in a sweet spot, or a sensitive period, when they learn to ride a bike effortlessly, whereas older kids learn the same skill much harder. So save time and order a balance bike for your 3-year-old today.
P.S. Strider bikes are the best, they have adjustable seats and handlebars so that they "grow" with your kid, which makes them an excellent investment for anyone with children ages 1.5 - 5.
Montessori Toys By Skills They Improve
Practical life
Introducing dressing frames with various types of fasteners is a great way to develop fine motor skills in 3-year-olds and teach them essential self-care skills. Dressing frames bear the most widespread fasteners, like snaps, buttons, buckles, zippers, hooks and eyes, bows, shoe laces, safety pins, boot laces, etc. Playing with wooden frames improves hand-eye coordination, fine motor coordination, manual dexterity, sense of order, concentration, functional independence, and self-care skills.
Sensory Skills
Three-year-olds love building with blocks, so pink tower comes naturally to them. Three-year-olds improve their visual discrimination and spatial thinking skills by playing with the pink tower. Also, kids refine their fine motor skills and build critical pre-math skills. Adults can enrich 3-year-olds play by introducing comparative words like smaller and larger, the smallest, the tallest, etc. Also, kids can build various structures with pink tower blocks and incorporate them into their pretend play.
Movement (gross motor skills)
Movement activities are crucial for little kids, and Dr. Montessori acknowledged this need in her curriculum. Movement activities are always present in Montessori schools, most of which kids practice outdoors. For example, throwing, catching, kicking, crawling, climbing, jumping, rolling, running, skipping and standing on one leg, hopping, and tip-toeing. Many of these motor skills require practice with balls. We have a fantastic blog post where you can find a list of gross motor skills that your 3-year-olds should master and various activities that improve them: "Gross Motor Skills: How to Teach Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers."
However, there are several Montessori tools that you can use with kids in winter or on a rainy day at home; for example, balance boards, balance beams, stepping stones, etc. But the jungle gym is the best prop that supports kids gross motor skills at home. Therefore, we highly recommend this buy to help your child's motor development!
The highly-rated Jungle Gym on Etsy is just what you need for your 3-year-old, but be sure to check out their website for more information and products!
Language Development
Three-year-olds usually speak in whole sentences and have a large vocabulary. Thus, this is the best time to introduce the classification concept to improve their categorial thinking. Activities like matching objects to pictures on cards children master quickly, but you cannot teach many words through this activity. Therefore, Montessori schools use a set of cards on various topics, like body parts or wild animals from specific continents, to help children learn new words and categories. You should get as many cards as possible for your home to enrich your child's vocabulary.
In the Montessori approach, three-period lessons introduce new words with such cards. In short, an adult points to a picture and names an object, then asks a child to manipulate it, for example, give the fox, put a yellow bird on their head, etc. A teacher only asks a child to name a card after the child has mastered the manipulation part.
Math Skills
In the Montessori approach, early math skills are built through hands-on experience, and number recognition and counting skills are then built on this basis. Therefore, red and blue rods are some of the best Montessori math toys because of their versatility.
Three-year-olds can compare the rods by length and distance, sequence them and learn quantities. To introduce a number language to your 3-year-old, use the three-period lesson approach we described earlier. You can introduce number cards to represent quantity later on, but it's best to wait until next year or up for this activity.
Arts and Music
We love clay for little kids for its relaxing and sensory-enriching features. We've described many benefits of playing with clay in our post "Creative Children: The Best Ways to Raise Innovative and Anti-fragile Kids" which we highly recommend for reading. Children can use clay in many ways, from learning to open-ended play, making clay a must-have in every home. Clay offers a different experience than play dough, especially if you choose raw clay that artists use. It is not air-dry, so children cannot keep their masterpieces, but this type of clay is irreplaceable material to boost kids' sensory development.
Rhythm and music have a tremendous impact on children's language skills and help develop speech, memory, and other cognitive skills. We've written a fantastic post on how to raise smart kids, discussing in detail the benefits of playing music for kids, which we highly recommend you to read: "How to Raise Smart Kids? The Ultimate Guide You Must Read."
For 3-year-olds, exploring various instruments and sounds they make and creating simple rhythms with them can boost their auditory awareness and sound recognition skills.
Scientific Exploration
Magnetism is one of the most impressive phenomena that children adore exploring. One of the options to explore the principles of magnetism is to mix several magnetic and non-magnetic objects and let the child sort them. You can support the child's interest by reading them books about magnetism. Also, your child could set on an adventure around the house to find magnetic objects in your household.
Culture
In the Montessori approach, children learn about things starting from a general idea and narrowing it down to specific facts. This same principle applies to how Montessori kids learn about the world and their place in it. Therefore, for the youngest kids, Montessori globes would be the most beneficial for learning about our planet.
These globes provide kids with sensorial experience, so they feel the difference between land and water, continents and parts of the world. Children can then understand where they live and where their home country is and better understand the world around them. These Montessori globes can spark an interest and a discussion about Space, the place of our Earth in the Solar System, oceans and lands, nature, races, nationalities, etc. Also, the Montessori globe is usually used for Birthday celebrations, so that this item will last for many years at your home.
Montessori Puzzles For 3-Year-Olds
Montessori classrooms are usually full of puzzles on various topics, from leaf shapes to turtle anatomy. These puzzles help children develop visual attention and spatial thinking and teach essential lessons on many real-life issues. In our opinion, the most crucial thing that 3-year-olds must learn is their anatomy.
Understanding their bodies help kids develop a sense of self, understand physical boundaries and body parts, and create better and more detailed body map inside their brains. A clear understanding of the body map is essential for children to succeed in school and lay the groundwork for proper sex education.
Montessori Gift Ideas For 3-Year-Old
Little kids are generally fascinated with adult things, so they love to have them in a child's size. Therefore, we highly encourage you to buy toys for your children that are small copies or resemble real-life ones. Children will love these Montessori toys and proudly use them in everyday life. Here are some ideas that may help you find the perfect gift for your toddler.
- Kitchen utensils
- Mop, dust and sweep set
- Child-sized sofa
- Small gardening tools
- Table and chair set
- Light table
- Scale
- Wobble board
Montessori Toys For 3-Year-Old Boys
This screwdriver set is perfect for your 3-year-old son (or daughter). It allows them to indulge in their curiosity by twisting and screwing, all while fostering the development of fine motor skills, focus, problem-solving, and attention.
Montessori Toys For 3-Year-Old Girls
This Melissa & Dough set is an excellent choice for both girls and boys. We chose this toy set because it is visually appealing and creative, typically attracting girls to toys. However, every child is different, so your child may not necessarily share these same interests. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend these pattern blocks set for 3-year-olds as it is a fantastic educational toy for all children that improves spatial awareness, problem-solving, concentration, and hand-eye coordination.
Affordable Montessori Toys for 3-Year-Olds
Affordable toys can mean a million different things to different people. In our understanding, affordable is a relatively inexpensive toy with decent quality and long shelf life. Ideally, kids should be able to use these toys for several years and still promote several skills with them.
We consider a pegboard one of such versatile, affordable toys. Parents can introduce this toy to their one-year-olds and still have them use it until they are seven when kids use geoboards to create pictures and engage in open-ended play.
DIY Montessori Toys For 3-Year-Olds
We have two options for you here. Depending on your child's ability to focus and fine motor skills, you could easily make a braiding board or a clothespin activity at home.
Braiding Board
Cut a rectangle out of cardboard paper. To the top of the paper triangle, glue three strings of different colors at a significant distance from each other. Show your child how to make a braid and untangle the three strings. This activity is fantastic for developing fine motor skills, sequential movements, impulse control, and planning. Also, girls (and boys) can practice braiding skills on dolls. Kids love this fun activity when their motor skills are mature enough.
If you think the above activity is still too challenging for your 3-year-old, here is another fantastic idea to hone the pinching grip of your little one.
Pinching Clothespins
Take several sizes of clothespins from the smallest to the biggest you can find. Put them in a bowl or a bucket, and ask your child to clip clothespins on the rim. This activity encourages fine motor skills and concentration and trains the pinch grip. Also, you can incorporate this activity into your everyday life, for example, by asking your child to hang up laundry.
What are the best educational toys for 3 year olds?
Top Non-Montessori Educational Toys
STEM Toys
Magnetic tiles are an absolute hit among most children. These building tiles thrill children thanks to their magnetic features and translucent material. Kids love to watch the tiles shine and create colorful shadows in the sunlight and can't get enough of playing with them. These toys are so rich in play potential that we consider them one of the best investments in toys that are made to last. Magnetic tiles are a 100% must-have for every child, so we cannot recommend this buy highly enough.
Board Games
"Dragon's Breath" is a gorgeous game with simple rules that even 3-year-olds can understand and follow. This game improves hand-eye coordination, color recognition, and impulse control. "Dragon's Breath" is one of a few games that both kids and parents will enjoy playing together thanks to its beautiful design and fast pace. If you are interested in other decent board games for 3-year-olds, we welcome you to read our excellent blog post "100% Best Board Games for 3 Year Olds Your Family Will Love."
Puzzles
Depending on your child's skills, they might be able to do the 30-50 piece puzzle or be stuck on 15 pieces. That shouldn't bother you much as every child has their own significant skills and weaknesses. However, it would be a great idea to encourage puzzle skills even if your child dislikes this activity due to its substantial benefits.
Brainteasers
"Day and Night" is a perfect developing toy for toddlers that improves their visual attention, problem-solving, logic and sequence thinking, spatial awareness, motor skills, etc. There are 48 challenges perfect for 3-year-olds. The "day" tasks are easier, and "night" ones are more challenging, but after finishing the "day" part, their brains are ready for such challenges.
We highly recommend it!
Educational Gifts For A 3-Year-Old Boy
This drill set is a great STEM learning toy that immediately draws kids' attention and encourages their building skills, creativity, motor skills, and spatial thinking. This toy keeps 3 year old busy for hours; both boys and girls absolutely love it.
Best Educational Toys For 3 Year Old Girls
Snap beads are so much fun with the little one; adults love this activity as much as their kids. Even though these beads can be a bit stiff at the beginning, after several play rounds, they become easier to put together, so your 3-year-old can enjoy making necklaces without help. This toy boosts fine motor skills and creativity, so we highly recommend this product!
So, whether you're just starting to explore Montessori for your toddler or you're a seasoned pro, this list of 20+ must-have Montessori toys for 3-year-olds is sure to include perfect toys your child will love! What are your favorite Montessori toys? Let us know in the comments below! And don't forget to share this post with all of your friends who have toddlers - they'll definitely want to check out this list.