Real kitchen knife so she can help you make dinner? Kinderkitchen dog knife is brilliant (cuts vegies and bread etc, doesn't cut little hands or fingers). Pampered Chef do one too (although not as nice IMO).
Board games my 3yo loves are Guess Who, Junior Monopoly, Frustration, Crazy Chefs, snakes and ladders (or any other basic throw dice and move game) and Busy Town.
What about a water table or water toys for outside? Plus watering can to water the plants as the weather gets better.
Some of the play doh tools are lovely (if you just have cutters there are tons of other tools which make play more fun), we have the fun factory which is an extruder with several different shapes, we have cake making sessions (I provide paper cup cake cakes and a muffin tin to put them all in or a cake stand) and chocolate making sessions (use old choc boxes and copy the pictures but in whacky colours, then present them to Daddy when he arrives
). There's a nice sandwich set from play doh too which makes all sorts of fruits and veg etc.
DS got the duplo hospital for his 3rd birthday, I think it suits boys or girls, it's such fun, he loves to follow the instructions to build the various hospitals and we also throw together all his duplo stuff to build off plan. He also loves to play small world and use his imagination to come up with stories for all the little characters and combines it with his happy land village people etc.
