50 Best Toys for 3-Year-Olds, Tested by Experts and Real Kids
Unique, educational and —most importantly — entertaining gift ideas for 3-year-old boys and girls.
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Three is a tremendous year, and when it comes time to get gifts for kids this age, you might start looking beyond the toddler toys and into the next phase. "Around age 3, children start showing more interest in playing with others, instead of just playing next to each other," says Jacque Bogdanov, PsyD, child psychologist and founder of ChildBehaviorClinic.com. "It’s a great time to introduce easy games that encourage cooperation and turn-taking, like simple board games or matching and memory games. Their imagination is also growing, so they tend to enjoy toys that encourage pretend and dramatic play like play food and kitchens, dolls, and so on."
Don't forget those preschool energy levels, either! "Three-year-olds have a high need for physical activity and movement too," Dr. Bogdanov says. "Give them something to pedal or jump on that encourages gross motor development like bikes, trikes and scooters." With all that factored in, these were our favorite toys and gifts for 3-year-olds in 2025. These include current and previous Good Housekeeping Best Toy Award winners, which were vetted by Good Housekeeping Institute experts and tested with real families, plus editor's picks and best-sellers. And there are plenty more suggestions to go with them!
This audio player is designed for preschoolers to be able to use by themselves; they just have to put a card in to start a story, song or podcast, and take it out when they want it to stop. Good Housekeeping testers appreciated its long battery life and ease of use. This comes with a make-your-own audio card, but then you can explore cards with Disney themes, bedtime music, and many more. Ages 3+
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Disney Junior Splash & Glow Ariel
Mermaid fans will thrill to this toy, which sings and has color-changing lights on her tail, which also acts like a fountain to make a ballgown-skirt-like cascade of water. One tester even said Ariel held up well at the beach, despite the sand and salt water. "The battery and singing continues to function great, and shows no signs of wear," the tester said. Ages 3+
VTech Storytime With Sunny
Testers were taken in by the expression on this light's face, which moves when it talks and tells stories. It comes with four disks that are packed with stories, songs, games, jokes, tongue twisters and more. It also works as a nightlight and an alarm clock, so testers appreciated that they could use it for bedtime and wake-up routines. It also comes in pink. Ages 3+
Little Tikes T-Ball Set
Batter up! This height-adjustable T-ball set is designed to grow with kids until they're about 6 years old, and you'll be amazed at how much their strength, skill and coordination improve in that time. If you have a real sports star on your hand, you can also get the basketball hoop and golf set to go with it. Ages 18 months+
Good Housekeeping testers were amazed at the way these semi-solid paints didn't drip, slosh or spill (though they did notice that if kids got the paint on their hands, they could make smudges that way). This set makes tapping into their creative sides even easier with eight paint colors, three brushes and activity sheets to paint on. Ages 3+
LeapFrog Rainbow Learning Lights Mixer
Kids really got into the pretend play with this one. “My son loved pulling apart the pretend butter and eggs and adding stuff to the bowl,” one parent tester said. But in addition to pretend baking, kids can use this to follow a recipe card, listen to instructions, press the buttons to make the paddle spin, practice counting (pressing the buttons from one to five) or practice colors (the mixer lights up in different ones). Ages 2+
Number Train
Good Housekeeping Institute testers said this book had a huge "wow" factor, since it unfolds so that each number from 1 to 10 is on its own train car. There are also flaps to lift and other cool features to explore. Ages 2–5
Get them to work on their balance and coordination with this curved board, which kids can sit on or stand on and rock back and forth. The fun part is that the bottom is covered in suction cups, so it makes a popping sound. It comes in pink, green and blue. Ages 3+
GraviTrax Junior Starter Set
Marble runs are often the domains of older kids, but this set brings it down to preschool level. It comes with 100 sturdy pieces that are easy to align and arrange into a track, plus jungle-themed elements they can use just to make the design a little splashy. (You can also get sets with desert, polar and ocean themes, plus expansion packs.) Testers said that 3-year-old did need some help with the setup, but kids loved creating their own little worlds out of the pieces. Ages 3+
Step2 Waterfall Discovery Wall
What set this water table apart from all the others was its space-saving design: Most of the features are aligned vertically to keep it to a smaller footprint. Kids can scoop and pour water and watch it cascade through the different features. It's also two-sided, so siblings can use it at the same time. Ages 18 months+
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Fisher-Price Rockin’ Record Player
Music-loving kids and their vinyl-collecting parents will both get a kick out of this one. It comes with five records in different musical styles, and it's designed so kids can choose a record, remove it from its sleeve, place it on the turntable and put the arm into the grove all by themselves. Testers confirmed that the kids indeed played the records themselves — sometimes over and over again! Ages 3+
Camping Outdoors Memory Matching Card Game
Test their matching, retention and strategy skills with this classic memory game. The illustrations in the deck have a camping motif, so they're great to keep in a backpack and use in the park or on the go. Ages 3+
LeapFrog Interactive Learning Easel
There are so many different ways to use this easel: There's a chalkboard on one side, a whiteboard on the other and the top even has clips to hold up paper for drawing with crayons or markers. But what kid testers really loved the most was the interactive elements, which offer guided drawing activities that kids can follow along with. There's also traceable magnets that help them practice letters and shapes. Ages 3+
Magna-Tiles 32-Piece Space Construction Set
Kids who love to build will always appreciate having more Magna-Tiles added to their collection. This set is especially great for kids who love space, since it gives them the pieces they need to make their own launch site, including a space shuttle, a space capsule, a capsule window, a space figure and a wheeled chassis. Parent testers said their kids liked building the spaceship and then re-using the pieces for open-ended play. Ages 3+
LEGO DUPLO Buildable People With Big Emotions
Kids get 10 faces, five wigs and enough big building pieces to make different bodies, which could be a bridge to conversations about how people look different or have different emotions. One parent tester said her DUPLO-loving kid found the characters refreshing compared to the ones in other sets, which can't move their limbs or be repositioned, and they loved filling out their DUPLO world with all the different people. Ages 3+
This scooter was designed with preschoolers in mind: It has three wheels to help keep them balanced, and the handlebars are height adjustable to keep up with them as they grow to age 5. Plus, it comes in half a dozen colors, so you can choose their favorites. Ages 2+
Melissa & Doug Top & Bake Wooden Pizza Counter Play Set
Order up! This set gets their imaginations firing as they add their favorite topping and pretend to cook the pizza in the oven. But they'll also practice sorting and counting — it comes with fake money — as they run their own pizza shop. Ages 3+
'Once Upon a World' Board Book Collection
Get lost in the illustrations in this beautiful board book set, which imagines classic fairy tales unfolding in different countries around the world. Rapunzel takes place in India, Cinderella is in Mexico, Snow White is in Japan and The Princess and the Pea takes place in Russia. Ages 0+
The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game
At age 3, kids might start to have the attention and comprehension needed to play a family game. This one challenges players to get one of each acorn — and they have to use a squirrel-shaped tweezer to pick them up, too. Bonus: This set comes with a board book to read after the game is over. Ages 3+
There are dinosaur toys, There are train sets. What this BRIO offering asks is: Why not both? The set comes with two Brachiosauruses figures (that can pick up dino eggs using the power of magnets), a pteranodon, a lava cave a wagon and plenty of tracks to send them around. One tester said her child loved the dinosaurs so much, he'd carry them around even when he wasn't playing with the train. Ages 3+
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; previously, she wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her toy-collecting husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found helping out her team at bar trivia or posting about movies on Twitter and Bluesky.
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