What does your 3 year old like to play with?

[haribo89]

DDs birthday isn't until July but we have a lot going on before then so want to be organised. I'm finding it hard to think of things to get her and offer as suggestions when asked. These are most of the things she already has -
Kitchen (cut up food sets, tea set)
Easel /desk (paint, play doh, moon dough, craft box)
Cozy coupe car
Scooter
Bike
Wooden blocks, stickle bricks, mega blocks
CD player and microphone
Elc farm
Toot toot train set and garage.
Dress up box
Loads of puzzles and orchard games
Cleaning sets (Hoover, brush etc)
Tent
Dolls pram, cot, high hair.
Rocking horse
Leapfrog laptop, phonics
Ben and holly castle, cave, elf truck
Peppa pig house, car, park etc etc
Interactive dinosaurs
Minnie Mouse dressing up thing
Vtech camera
Styling head and hairdressing things
Loads of bath toys (numbers, letters, boats, mermaid)
Read with me violet
Tag jr and books
Guitar, drums, harmonica, shaking things
Magnetic dress up dolls
Loads of books
Threading beads
Shopping till, trolley, basket
Outside she's got a trampoline, playhouse, sand and water table, rocker, climbing frame with slide, swing, monkey bars. 

I think that's about it, she seems so spoilt when it's written all down :-O
We have already bought a dolls house (barbie size) I was looking into Duplo but don't know if she would play with it much with the other construction type toys she has? There's so many sets its hard to know what to buy. Other than that I've no ideas. What do your 3 year olds like playing with?

[creations]

marble run
sweetie shop (we didn't choose this but turned out to be a winner. We use coloured stones and dry pasta for different 'sweets' and have added paper bags, price labels and other bits and bobs to make it into a big role play game)
Duplo - The big hospital DS got for his 3rd birthday, big hit. Very versatile to be turned into other pretend buildings etc too
Magazines
More dress up stuff (I know DS is always happy to get more)
kid safe knife to do real cooking with you (kinderkitchen dog knife or pampered chef, both good), apron and chef hat to go with
sticker activity books
more books
hama beads
megasketcher

[Aishi]

That does sound like a lot! I would struggle to find something too! What about things you could do together? board games? Connect 4 etc mosaic sticker kits? Quite fiddly but I love doing them with my 3yo...

[creations]

ooh yes! mosaic stickers and board games were a massive hit for my 3yo

[haribo89]

Some nice ideas thank you.
The sweetie shop sounds like great fun and can include a lot of learning into it too.
I did see the Duplo hospital and thought she would love that, so would i, it's priced at £121 which I thought seemed a lot for it though?
We haven't done mosaic stickers so that would be a nice change, she likes activity books and things like that.
Hama beads look great, they also do a maxi size which may be better to start I think?
She has 8 different orchard board games and hungry hippos, I was looking at snakes and ladders to buy and twister, I wasn't really sure what age a lot of board games are from, you can never go off the box. What ones were hits with your LOs?
I also liked the look of this and I know it does get put on half price. http://www.elc.co.uk/Build-It-Construction-Starter-Set/115621,default,pd.html#q=Build
And this. -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Melissa-Doug-Basic-Skills-Board/dp/B0015XWTW8 But unsure if it will be a little young.

[Hedgehog17]

If she's into treasure hunts, GoTrovo is a brilliant game, and it can be played indoors or out 

[creations]

I always planned getting snakes and ladders but in the end realised that most of DS's magazines have little games in, throw a dice take a turn type things, simple but so many of them. In the end we did without snakes and ladders.
Busy Town is a great board game
We also like Frustration and (perhaps not right at 3 but during that year) Junior Monopoly. labyrinth.

DS would have loved that construction set, we did have something similar(ish) but it was a second hand thing with a couple of bits missing, he still had fun, it was smaller scale.
Make-do set if she likes construction?

I don't think we (well, Granny!) paid quite that much for the hospital but perhaps it was on a special offer at the time. Duplo seems to get more expensive when the new sets are no longer being made... until they are old enough to be second hand. We got used cargo areoplane set for a great price used, someone on here (HH was it you??) suggested used Duplo often has more options, and they were right!  We've also had a bit set of used train/track this year. Brilliant stuff.

The sweetie shop does offer loads of play opportunities if you set certain things up, like drawing or collage for price lists, making a shop front from card box and painting it, with open/closed sign etc, even making doh sweets which can be baked or air dried to later sell in the shop. Heaps of roll play. DS's has a weighing scale and our only grumble is that it is not accurate and actually he has such an interest in maths that a proper scale would have been better for him.
This is the shop DS was given
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Casdon-519-Pick-Sweet-Shop/dp/B000296LKM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425030683&sr=8-1&keywords=sweet+shop
We bought a few lollipops for play use only, as he never eats lollipops he was very accepting that they are just for play.

There are some nice post offices too, we've made our own from various bits, painted it, put his cash till in etc but the ones you can buy might be worth a look too.

[cath~]

What about a kids' gardening set and some seeds? Or getting something other than a toy?
Eg bag, umbrella, beanbag, swimming kit, lamp/night light for bedroom, apron and baking set?

[haribo89]

Thank you all, there is quite a lot of things I've not heard of or not thought of before, I'll have to have a look at the gotrovo, busy town and make-do sets as I've not heard of them before. Her favorite thing is imagination but she enjoys everything which is nice because it means we can buy/play with a lot of variety. I just want to make sure i'm not going to clutter the house with things that she will grow out of soon enough or be a passing fad, so far everything she has she has good use out of and will do for a few more years i hope.

creations - I think the hospital is a rare set from what i have had a look into, so probably why its so much, it does look lovely though, i'll have to keep an eye on ebay to see if it comes up 2nd hand, im not 100% about paying so much for one set of duplo because shes never used it, it may not even be something she takes much interest in. Are there any other duplo sets you would recommend? or just maybe start with a mixed box of bricks? i was never into lego as a child so unsure which route is more fun.

[creations]

I wouldn't buy the hospital at that price either. We were just lucky when we got it.
I look for things that have lots of playability in building and making them into different things rather than a set that makes 'one thing' iyswim. I do think the special pieces help, both in getting something built in an exciting way and in firing off the imagination for role play and imaginative play.
I just searched ebay for 'duplo bundle' (which is what I've done for other duplo stuff, and then just browsed what was around, a decent price, what ws in my area for collection only because this tends to be a way of getting more ££ worth for a lower bid) and this is literally the thing that came up top of the list, I didn't even look further
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lego-Duplo-Bundle-Joblot-3-Kg-Bricks-plates-Figures-Animals-Etc-/221702684989?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item339e82813d
It looks like a good bundle to me because it has a range of nice/special bricks. The wall/door/window pieces are great for any building, a few people, a few picture blocks (I see animals and workshop tools, veg, books and some others), and really just a range of things to rummage through and for you to build together all sorts of different things.
You may think that particular bundle a bit boyish, there's a digger, police, race cars, but the girls I know would like those things too.
You could get a new box of bricks of course, but I feel with the used bundles you get so much more.  Maybe just browse a bit?
My DS would love this shop
http://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-DUPLO-Ville-10546-First/dp/B00F3B2OQE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425112172&sr=8-1&keywords=duplo+girl
but it's all kind of special pieces without a bulk of other pieces so it's sort of limited what you can build
This play house is brilliant if you want something roughly the size of the hospital (shame it's so pink!)

[michaeljacknnugg]

I'd struggle with that list, too!

I don't know if it's older kids or just my DS, but he much prefers something new to investigate than an expensive toy that he has to get a certain amount of use from. Ditto big 'fixture' toys eg kitchen, he just walked past it once the initial enthusiasm wore off. He's just turned seven and was most pleased with an electronics set that was around £30, a pack of pencils and a hatching dinosaur. For Christmas he was delighted with a sleeping bag!

I guess what I am trying to say is that as they get older, you may want to buy less of the 'investment' toys and just go with something silly that she likes.

Gardening and cooking tools are a great idea at this age, and will allow her to join in your 'games'.

[Hedgehog17]

A large base plate is essential for duplo - DS uses his all the time to build houses, playgrounds, shops, towers etc on. Gran gave him the largest base plate as a present - it was £9.99 

[haribo89]

Thank you all, we were very lucky today and were given a huge bundle of duplo train, they paid £250 for it and my nephews used it a handful of times. So will see how she likes that and can add on maybe a fire station, construction site, houses etc around the train set if she enjoys it..and a base plate, id of forgotten that. I will defiantly look into cooking and gardening things too! thanks

[creations]

ooh We got duplo train track and loads of Thomas and friends trains for DS at Xmas.
If you're interested there is a kidiloop battery operated train which works on the duplo track, DS is enjoying both push-along trains and the battery train. I love the battery train!
And I also love this film clip, I posted this on another thread not so long back, just goes to show duplo is not just for little kids. We don't have enough to make this but we have done a small multi-level and under/overs. It's too exciting!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG6CKSRkMnI

[haribo89]

oh wow!! that is amazing, all of his videos are. Me and DH just spent 45min looking through duplo videos on youtube, there is some very skillful ones, some of these people must spend thousands though.