Age 3 · hands and fingers · 11 activities
Hands and Fingers activities for 3 year olds
Eleven activities for a three year old's hands, running from the squeeze-and-drop work that started at two to the first proper tools.
The step at three is the tool. Up to now the hand has been the tool: squeeze the sponge, push the lid, drop the peg. At three a thing goes in between. Tweezers pick up a chickpea, a lace goes through a bead, a nut turns down a bolt, and the interesting end of the job is suddenly a few centimetres from the fingers doing it. That is a harder trick than it looks, and it is what three of these eleven are for.
Seven of the eleven started on the two year old shelf and are still here. That is the shelf working rather than standing still. The same bowl of pegs, done faster, neater, with a commentary, and finished. A three year old who wants the pegs is not behind the tweezers, they are warming up the same hand.
The three written for three are worth knowing apart. The bolts teach the turn that later opens a door and a tap. The bead lacing is the first time the hands have to follow a plan drawn on a card rather than just do the next thing. The tweezers are simply the tongs made finer: smaller item, tighter target, less room for a wobble.
The argument underneath all of this, including why we leave pencil grips alone, is in the guide to hands, pencils and the grip question. If something lands too easy or too hard, too easy, too hard, or just right is how to move a rung either way.
The eleven
Ordered by the age each one suits best, so the carried-over two year old work comes first and the tool work follows. The list is built from the whole range an activity suits rather than its single best age, which is why eleven of them fit three. Every line gives the setup, the play time and whether anything has to be bought.
- Cardboard Slotting and Coin Drop Your child turns a disc until it lines up with the slot, posts it, and listens for it landing. 15 min, once · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Clothespin Pinching Your child squeezes a wooden clothes peg open and clips it onto the rim of a bowl, and then does it forty more times. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Kitchen Tongs and Ice Tray Transfer Your child picks up a cotton wool ball with kitchen tongs, carries it across the table and drops it into an ice cube tray, twelve cups in a row. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Peg and Hole Matching Your child picks up a fat peg, lines it up over a hole that just fits it, and pushes it home. none once made · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Posting and Slotting Your child pushes a plastic lid through a slot cut in a tub, hears it land, and then takes the tub lid off and finds it again. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Sponge Squeezing Your child soaks a sponge in one bowl, carries it dripping to the other, and squeezes it out with both hands until the first bowl is empty. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Water Pouring and Transfer Your child pours water from one small jug into another, and then back again, and again, until the table is wet. 3 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Nuts and Bolts Screwing Your child holds a bolt still in one hand and winds a nut all the way down it with the other, and then winds it off again. no setup · 5 to 10 min · five pairs, or the jar shelf
- Pattern Card Bead Lacing Your child looks at a row of beads drawn on a card and threads the same order onto a lace, one bead at a time. 2 min · 10 to 20 min · beads, a lace, a drawn card
- Tweezer Transfer Challenge Your child lifts dried chickpeas one at a time with a pair of tweezers and puts each one into its own small well. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Egg Carton Counting Grid Your child reads the number written in the bottom of an egg carton cup and drops in exactly that many beans, one at a time, twelve cups in a row. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
None of these has to be bought. Where a page names a material you do not keep, wooden beads for instance, it gives the household stand-in on the same page, and penne coloured with felt tips laces just as well.