By the age of 3, your pre-schooler is talking, walking, climbing, jumping, and absolutely bustling with energy, but you already know that! Their vocabulary is growing all the time and they are learning and using new words every day. Your little one is becoming more and more independent each day and is taking a growing interest in the world around them. Here we have 55 carefully chosen activities that are guaranteed to both educate and entertain even the busiest pre-schooler!
1. Button Tree
This is a great activity for helping your pre-schooler develop their fine motor control skills, and it’s really easily adaptable for children of all abilities as you can vary the size of the buttons you give them to thread. It’s a great discussion starter too as you begin to compare sizes and shapes of buttons.
Learn More: How Wee Learn
2. Pikler Triangles
Pikler triangles are great for whole body movement of the large muscles – the arms, legs, and torso. Two-year-olds naturally gravitate towards this type of movement because it’s what they feel their bodies need to be doing. They help your pre-schooler develop the full range of movement skills they will need every day.
Learn More: The Way We Play
3. Lines of Tape
It’s amazing what you can do with six lines of tape! This walk-the-line activity works on balancing and sets up a challenge that your pre-schooler could enjoy on their own or with friends. Mix up the colors and have them crisscrossing and going in different directions to make it extra fun.
Learn More: Hands On As We Grow
4. Read a book
Reading a book with your pre-schooler is essential, and should be a go-to part of your daily routine. Even providing books for them to look at is hugely beneficial, especially as they begin to understand how to hold books and how to turn the pages. Reading helps your little one develop their vocabulary and become familiar with different situations.
Learn More: Teaching Littles
5. Sort and drop the lego bricks
Sorting and dropping the lego bricks is easily adapted to meet the needs of your child. Your pre-schooler can start by matching colors, then matching pieces by size or shape. This activity is also great for developing hand-eye coordination as they manipulate the bricks into the holes in the boxes.
Learn More: Toddler Approved
6. Animal Walk
This is a great activity whether you are indoors or outdoors. Encourage your child to slither like a snake, hop like a frog or walk like a bear on all fours. You can even get them to make the same sounds as the animal! This is a great activity to match up with books about their favorite animals.
Learn More: Active For Life
7. Car Sensory Tray
Fill a deep tray with lentils, put some cars in, and away they go! This is a great activity for getting children to develop their narrative skills as they tell you what is going on in their small-world setup. For a maths angle, you could explore different patterns and trails that the car tires make.
Learn More: What Do We Do All Day
8. Pom Pom Push
This is a super easy game to set up, and a really fun game to play! Help your pre-schooler to develop their gross motor skills, as well as their hand-eye coordination, as they move the pom poms around with pool noodles. The kids will naturally talk about the size and colors of the pom poms as they move them.
Learn More: Toddler Approved
9. Popsicle Sticks and Clothespins
This is a great activity for strengthening little hands and developing their pincer grip (essential for good pencil control later on) as they manipulate the pegs around the popsicle sticks. It’s also a great way of discussing length and using the language of comparison as you make “snakes” of different lengths.
Learn More: How Wee Learn
10. Spinning Drums
Spinning drums are great for pre-schoolers who have just turned two. They will support your child’s natural interest in the rotational schema, and you can deepen their understanding of this by letting them play with other rotational toys, or by taking them to the park to play on the mini-roundabout.
Learn More: The Way We Play
11. Small World Play – the ocean!
Themed small world play is amazing for helping your pre-schooler to develop their vocabulary around specific topics. Depending on their interest, you could also deepen their understanding by finding age-appropriate, related videos on Youtube. Setting up a small world can be really quick and easy, and you only need the things you already have in the house!
Learn More: The Way We Play
12. Painting with Ice Chalks
Whether it is freezing cold out or there’s a heatwave, this activity will engage and inspire your pre-schooler to create their own amazing designs. It encourages your little ones to develop pre-writing skills as they use their gross motor and fine motor skills to manipulate the ice chalks to create pictures and patterns.
Learn More: Learn, Play, Imagine
13. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activity
This activity is fabulous for helping your two-year-old to practice the alphabet and their fine motor skills as they balance letters on top of the popsicle sticks. You can challenge your little one by asking them to only balance letters of a certain color, or by finding specific letters.
Learn More: Raising Dragons
14. Coloured Worms
Add food coloring to cooked spaghetti to make colored worms! This is a great, hands-on, messy activity and is sure to get your little one giggling with delight. It’s also a great way to help them develop their descriptive vocabulary, as they compare the sizes, colors, and textures of worms.
Learn More: Hands On As We Grow
15. Match Numbers
Did you know that your two-year-old starts to develop their understanding of maths concepts long before they step foot inside a classroom? This game is super easy to set up and helps your pre-schooler to develop their understanding of digits as they match numbers to each other. You could also help them sequence numbers into the correct order.
Learn More: Toddler Approved
16. Keep the Balloon Up
Two-year-olds love this activity! It’s especially fun on a slightly breezy day. Pre-schoolers develop their proprioceptive movement skills, as well as their gross motor and hand-eye coordination skills, as they race to keep their balloon up in the air the longest. You can use a timer to see who wins!
Learn More: Active For Life
17. Playdough
Playdough is easily one of the most easily adaptable activities for any pre-schooler. As well as just being a lot of fun, it’s great for imaginary play as they make food or playdough worms. You can use it to start discussions around maths concepts such as heavier and lighter, longer and shorter.
Learn More: What Do We Do All Day
18. Fizzy Drips
This is a really fun (and messy!) activity to help your child learn more about colors and color mixing. You can also use this activity to help them develop their prediction skills – what do they think will happen if they mix two colors together? What happens if you mix three together?
Learn More: Toddler Approved
19. Busy Bags with Straws
Whilst it sounds as though you need bags, for this activity you actually need plastic bottles and straws! Your pre-schooler will be completely immersed in this activity as they feed straws into the neck of the plastic bottle. You can get them to describe what they are doing to help them develop their understanding of sequencing.
Learn More: Powerful Mothering
20. Color surprise game
Your pre-schooler will love this activity as they carefully use their fine motor skills to open the eggs, revealing what color the object is inside. This game can be played a bit like Memory if you get them to seal the egg up again (help might be needed!) before trying to find the matching color.
Learn More: Still Playing School
21. Lentil Play
Lentil play is a brilliant, taste-safe, sensory activity for your little one and it doesn’t have to be messy! They can develop their gross and fine motor skills as they pour, scoop and mix lentils from one container to another, and you can introduce concepts such as more or less, heavier, and lighter.
Learn More: The Way We Play
22. Slimy gel bag
This is a great seasonal activity, particularly around Halloween! In sticking eyes to the bag, you can develop early maths concepts around counting and understanding more and less (especially if you use two or more gel bags with different numbers of eyes attached). Stick it onto the window and you also get a gorgeous sun-catcher.
Learn More: Hands On As We Grow
23. Play Kitchens
Play kitchens are the perfect role-play activity for your two-year-old! They get to immerse themselves, safely, into a familiar world of making food for themselves and others. You can role-play cafes, or simply enjoy eating the pretend food your little one makes for you. Apart from the fun, it’s a great way to help them develop vocabulary around food.
Learn More: Teaching Littles
24. Erase the ABCs
This is a really simple, fun alphabet activity which your pre-schooler will love, especially if they are just starting to learn letters. It can also be easily adapted so that you use colors instead, as two-year-olds often recognize color before they recognize numbers. As they progress, you can also make the game harder.
Learn More: Busy Toddler
25. Number Bug Sticky Wall
This is a great activity to help your pre-schooler develop their early maths skills. It can easily be made easier by just asking them to match colors or to say which bugs have more spots on them and which have fewer, as this is something that they may be more familiar with than counting objects.
Learn More: Toddler Approved
26. Puddle Jumping
A brilliant game to play outside on a rainy day! Get your waterproofs on and enjoy jumping in puddles. It’s a great activity to help little ones develop their prediction and investigation skills if you ask them how to make the biggest splash, and which puddle might be better – a larger, deeper puddle or a smaller, shallower one.
Learn More: Active For Life
27. Water Transfer
Playing with water is a great way to start developing those early maths and scientific skills around pouring and measuring. In transferring water, your little one will be making judgments around capacity, volume, more, less, greater than, and less than, all crucial mathematical concepts.
Learn More: What Do We Do All Day
28. Read books about numbers
Reading books about numbers is a great way to help your pre-schooler develop their understanding of numbers. It’s super easy to make activities that complement the book and which meet your child’s needs. It’s so much fun and so engaging that your two-year-old won’t even realize that they are learning!
Learn More: Amazon
29. Animal upon Animal
This is a game of strategy and skill, two things your pre-schooler will be developing in abundance! It’s based on a classic wooden stacking game and will help your two-year-old to develop their counting, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills. It’s a great game for playing alone or competitively with others.
Learn More: Amazon
30. KORXX
KORXX come in beautifully muted colors, has a natural scent, and makes quiet noises as they fall – before you even build with them, they are a great sensory and descriptive activity. Because of the way they are made, they can be used to make complex structures by even the youngest children.
Learn More: Fun-A-Day
31. The Crayon Colour Chant
This activity gives your pre-schooler a great opportunity to develop their phonological awareness as they focus on colors. Rhyming is a great activity because it doesn’t need to make sense, it can just be silly! You can challenge your pre-schooler by getting them to sing the chant rather than you.
Learn More: Growing Book by Book
32. Crate Play
Crates are a great resource to keep outside if you have the space. It’s better to have the ones that are specifically designed for educational use, but you could use any crates so long as they are safe. Crates can be used in construction or in role-play – they are a great versatile resource for your two-year-old.
Learn More: TTS
33. Fall Leaf Sun-Catchers
This is a great activity that pre-schoolers love. It celebrates all things Fall, especially if you make these after going leaf jumping or on a leaf hunt! It’s also a great activity to help your pre-schooler develop their fine motor control, especially if you let them cut the leaf shapes out.
Learn More: Crafts on Sea
34. Fall paper plate wreaths
This craft activity is perfect to do with your two-year-old! They can either stick on leaves that they have collected themselves, or they can color in the leaves you have provided. Your pre-schooler will love sticking them on the cardboard wreath before hanging them up. Great for developing that fine motor control!
Learn More: The Mad House
35. Sensory paper activity
Sensory activities play a crucial role in infant and child brain development, and this activity is great for encouraging your child to investigate what will happen when a paper is submerged in water. It’s a handy activity for helping your child to develop early scientific skills around prediction, investigation, and finding results.
Learn More: Tinker Lab
36. Cardboard beads threading activity
Threading beads is a wonderful activity for developing early maths skills around pattern making and color, as well as developing fine motor skills as your pre-schooler threads the beads. This activity is also great for encouraging your pre-schooler to develop their descriptive language skills as they tell you about what they are making.
Learn More: The Imagination Tree
37. Fall-themed scented playdough
There’s play dough, and then there’s scented playdough. Scented playdough provides your two-year-old with a sensory activity that can be both calming and stimulating, depending on the scents you use. This fall-scented playdough has a very calming effect, which is great as they develop their hand-eye coordination and fine motor control.
Learn More: Raising Up Wild Things
38. DIY Nature Ornaments
These ornaments happen to be Christmas themed, but you could easily make decorations for any time of the year. This is a great activity to help your little one develop not only their fine and gross motor control but also ideas around design and how objects can be presented. A fabulous conversation starter.
Learn More: Little Pine Learners
39. Nature Wristbands
Nature wristbands are a really lovely activity to make whilst on a nature walk. In collecting treasures to stick onto the wristband you are encouraging observation skills, as well as vocabulary around description and comparison as your pre-schooler decides what to stick on. A super-easy activity for a pre-schooler who likes to stop a lot on walks.
Learn More: The Way We Play
40. Nature Trees
This activity is a beautiful one to do with your two-year-old. Collecting the natural finds requires your pre-schooler to observe objects carefully to decide which objects are to be used and which are not, and to be aware of the movement of their bodies whilst they are collecting their finds (they don’t want to damage their treasures!)
Learn More: Susan
41. Safari Small World
Small world play doesn’t have to be small! Sometimes larger setups can be just as immersive and enjoyable for pre-schoolers as smaller setups. This activity is great for developing their use of specific vocabulary around animals, habitats, and shelters. It’s also handy for helping your little one to develop their story-telling abilities.
Learn More: Amy Little
42. Egg carton trains
Reusing and upcycling your recycling for toys not only helps to save the environment, but it helps to save money too! This is an engaging, hands-on activity for pre-schoolers as they use their fine motor skills to thread pipe cleaners through cut-out sections of egg cartons. It’s also great for developing symbolic thinking as they use what they have made as a train.
Learn More: Hands On As We Grow
43. Digging for Treasure
Kids adore digging in anything they can find – soil, sand, you name it! Digging provides a great opportunity for pre-schoolers to develop gross motor skills, particularly around their shoulder, which is an essential pre-requisite for writing. Digging also allows other skills to be developed, such as lifting and lowering objects and object manipulation.
Learn More: Active for Life
44. Make your own paintbrushes
This is a brilliant craft activity to do with pre-schoolers, as it encourages them to think about the effects that they want to create and the materials they will need to create that effect. This is the basis of early trial and error strategies, which are useful in maths and science.
Learn More: Apple Green Cottage
45. Climbing
Climbing, even if it’s just up and down chairs, is a really important skill for your pre-schooler to have as it helps them to develop their understanding of hazards and risks. As your pre-schooler climbs, they are developing their fine and gross motor control, their hand-eye coordination, and proprioceptive skills, all in one go!
Learn More: The Way We Play
46. Small world space tray
Space is fascinating to pre-schoolers! Fire up their imaginations with an interactive, immersive small world space set up. Space is a great way of introducing your child to early concepts around gravity, as you look at how astronauts float in space but walk on Earth. It’s also great for talking about night and day, and how both the moon and sun are in space but we see them at different times.
Learn More: The Imagination Tree
47. Pine cone and elastic band fine motor activity
Your pre-schooler needs lots of experiences and opportunities to help them develop their fine motor control in their fingers. Wrapping elastic bands around pine cones is a great way to help them manipulate their fingers around small objects, and can be easily adapted by giving larger or smaller cones and bands as necessary.
Learn More: The Imagination Tree
48. Bubble Wrap tree
This craft activity provides lots of opportunities for exploration around color. It also allows your two-year-old to develop the muscles in their hands as they squash up the bubble wrap to paint with it. If you have the paint and paper at right angles, they are also developing their proprioceptive skills as they maneuver their body around the space.
Learn More: Arty Crafty Kids
49. Leaf Man
This is a lovely activity that complements the book, Leaf Man. As children create their own transient art, they are developing their awareness of proportion and facial features. This can then be used as a springboard for conversation, using descriptive and comparative language. Using fresh, natural materials also adds a calming, tactile element to the activity.
Learn More: Bethany Houltby
50. Leaf Lanterns
Leaf Lanterns are a great process activity, and your child can be involved in every part as they go on a leaf hunt, before using their treasures in this lantern. This activity will help your child develop their turn-taking skills, as well as their fine and gross motor skills as they work with you to create the lantern.
Learn More: Little Pine Learners
51. Daily Routine activities
Many kids thrive on routine, and when they are two your pre-schooler will be able to participate in many of the tasks you do. In encouraging your child to help with real-world activities such as cleaning (age-appropriate tasks only!) you are helping them to develop their awareness of how the skills they practice in their play apply in real life.
Learn More: Because I Said So, Baby
52. Vinegar painting
This is a great sensory activity, but it can also get really messy! Your pre-schooler will love it. If you give your child different tools to use, such as pipettes, they will be able to develop their fine motor control and specifically their pincer grip, which is crucial when learning to write.
Learn More: Discovering Mommyhood
53. Water Bead sensory play
This sensory activity is great for helping your pre-schooler to develop their understanding of irreversible changes as the water beads change from pea size to marble size ball. You can then talk about other changes which are irreversible and changes that can be reversed. It’s an easy introduction to a key scientific concept.
Learn More: Everyday Above Dirt
54. Indoor ball games
Who says that ball games have to be played outside? Indoor ball games help children to develop their gross motor control as well as their hand-eye coordination as they throw small balls or bean bags into baskets. You can challenge them by adding a color matching challenge with different color targets.
Learn More: Frugal Fun 4 Boys
55. Shape Matching
Matching shapes requires your pre-schooler to develop their visual discrimination skills, in other words, can they see when a shape is the same and when it isn’t? When played on the floor, this game also helps your pre-schooler to develop the muscles and coordination in their upper bodies as they move around the space.
Learn More: The Realistic Mama
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