I’m a toy maniac! I love toys! And if you are just a little bit like me, you’re probably a dad (or mom) who’s always looking out for great toys for his or her child. I certainly am!

At the time I am writing this blog post it is early Spring 2018, and our son Benni is about to turn three years old in just a couple of weeks from now, and I am already excited and looking forward to his birthday (and buying new toys for him (and me 🙂 ), obviously). With that being said I want to give you the top 10 toys for 3 year olds that I would recommend any Mom and Dad getting for their kids.

Why I chose exactly THESE toys?

Let’s be clear about one thing: There are thousands of great toys out there, and a top 10 list can only cover so much. The toys I selected below are either toys that we already own and that Benni and I LOVE, or they are toys I am planning to get for me and my son as soon as possible. Either way: They are toys I am super excited about and I want to share with you why. They all have one thing in common: They are, in my opinion, the best toys to connect with your kid!

So, without further ado let’s get started…

#10 – SmartMax Magnetic Toys

Let me put it plain and simple: SmartMax Magnetic Toys are pretty cool. And here’s why:

• They are totally different from most of the other construction toys you may be aware of.
• They have a great size: Benni got his first set when he was about 18 months old. And we could play with it right away. The individual elements automatically align and snap together. They don’t require any force or alignment to put together. That’s a huge benefit for young kids!
• Your existing SmartMax collection grows as your kid grows: Just like Lego (or Duplo, which we’ll discuss below 🙂 ) you can buy expansion sets, and all SmartMax elements work together.

What’s pretty cool is that you can start with a very low priced starter set, see if you and your kid like it and then expand on it with an expansion set. Or you go all in and get SmartMax Build XXL Set right away. Your call!

#9 – Play Workbench

This one is kind of a must-have, I believe. Especially for dads and who want something they enjoy playing together with their sons (but I would totally suggest this for girls and moms as well; read more about this down below on #3, where I’m gonna tell you a bit more about Benni’s kitchen).

Workbenches to play with come in all different colors, shapes, sizes and materials. Benni’s workbench is a wooden one that we just recently picked up from a yard sale. It came with tons of accessories: Wooden screws, nuts, tools etc. and that adds tons of value.

So far, Benni’s room mainly was his bedroom. During daytime, Benni would usually join us in the living room and we would play here. But since we have added a toy workbench to his room we spend a lot more time there playing.

I have pre-selected a variety of different workbenches below you can get for your kid. It’s completely up to you: They are all great and differ in style, material and size. Get the one YOU like, and your enthusiasm will carry over to your child. He/she will love it. Trust me!

• Hape Master Workbench
• Joyin Toy 58 Pieces Kids Workbench
• Black + Decker Junior Power Workbench
• Melissa & Doug Solid Wood Workbench

No matter which one you get, make sure to get a wooden construction set like the Melissa & Doug Wooden Construction Building Set or this beautiful tool set, that also comes with construction elements.

#8 – Fisher-Price RC Car

The Fisher-Price RC Car is a real classic. And also an absolute must have. What Benni and I do every now and then is build a race track out of our puzzle mats and then let the RC car race along. For a 3-year-old it’s still a bit tricky to make the car go left and right as intended. But we play together, and then it’s a lot of fun; and Benni gets better at it every single day 🙂

The only improvement I’d love to see Fisher-Price implement would be a higher range. It’s a bit limited. But at the end of the day, we don’t run into it too often, and we have tons of fun playing with it. And even though this is more of a daddy

Oh, and don’t forget to also purchase a set of batteries: You’ll need 6 AA batteries. I always suggest getting a Panasonic Eneloop 8-Pack. They perform as good as regular batteries, but you can recharge them and use them over and over again. Oh, and they come pre-charged, so you can use them out of the box. If you don’t have a charger already, you can get one bundled with the Eneloops.

#7 – BRIO Railway Sets

Name two things that every boy loves! Wooden toys and trains, maybe!? No, totally! BRIO Railway Sets are total winners, and there is no way around it.

Benni was 18 months old when I turned the BRIO Farm Railway Set into his first advent calendar. And even though I’m pretty sure that back then I enjoyed it more than he did, today he really loves his BRIO trains. He takes them out multiple times a week, and just today he built a huge track together with his grandpa. It’s really a toy that connects generations!

The wooden tracks, trains and accessories are of very high quality and are highly durable. The size is so that kids under three cannot swallow them, yet still detailed enough to please us as moms and dads as well.

And if you’re like me, you quickly want to add some electricity, right? No problem: BRIO offers electric locomotives as well. And there are many third-party suppliers that provide accessories (like tracks, trains, buildings and the like) that can easily be combined with any BRIO set.

#6 – Carrera Race Tracks

Okay, I get it! That sounds strange and may come to your surprise. But hear me out: Benni loves our Carrera Race Track!

Yeah, well! It’s expensive. I get that! And it’s probably not a toy that you buy exclusively for your 3-year-old. Probably not. For me personally, it’s a toy I wanted to own for my entire life (and didn’t get as a kid) so my (back then six months old) son was a very welcome excuse to finally buy a slot car track 🙂

Here’s the thing: Kids love toy cars. At the age of three, it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or girl (just like boys can play with dolls), they simply enjoy them. And if they move by themselves, that makes them just more exciting.

Now you may say: Yes, but how can my 3-year-old drive a slot car? It’s way to fast! I’ll elaborate on that on a separate blog post, but the short answer is: If you get the right system, this works out very well: We own a Carrera 132 Digital, which allows you to reduce the car’s speed to an extent where they simply won’t “deslot” (or fly out of corners). It works very well. Now, with almost three years, Benni knows the system so well that he goes into the room where our race track is installed, turns it on by himself and just drives. That’s pretty impressive, isn’t it?

If the 300-Dollar digital version is too much for me, there are much cheaper sets like the Mario Kart Set, for example. You may consider them more appealing to kids but bear in mind that they do not offer that “slow down” feature I explained above. Hence, I suggest paying a bit more, get the more “adult” set: It works better for small kids!

Just know that you will need some space for this toy! For some people that’s a show stopper for sure.

If you want to learn more, please read my full review of Carrera Slot Car Sets here!

#5 – Orchard Board Game

At the age of three, kids are at a stage where they are capable of understanding and playing basic “rule-based” games, like simple board or card games.

Orchard is an amazing, super fun game for the entire family to familiarize your kid with rules in games. And it’s cooperative, which helps your kid get a feeling for winning and losing TOGETHER, rather than being better or worse than other players.

You, the players, throw a dice to collect fruit from the orchard before the crow comes and takes it away. If the players collect all the fruit, the entire family wins. If not, the crow wins and you start all over.

The game is beautifully illustrated and the game material is high quality painted wood. I highly recommend Orchard if you want to start playing games by rules together with your kid. Benni LOVES it!

If your kid is younger than two, you may consider getting First Orchard, which is a bit easier and faster to play. Also, the material is bigger, hence easier to hold and harder to swallow and therefore much safer!

#4 – Lego Duplo Sets

Lego Duplo Sets are great for three years old and I cannot think of a single set that would not be a winner when given to a child!

The plastic is high quality and the possibilities are endless. When starting out I would probably recommend getting the LEGO DUPLO Town Truck & Tracked Excavator. I yet have to meet a single child that is not totally excited about excavators at that age, and hence I am absolutely certain that your kid will love this set.

The only downside I noticed after an entire year of heavy usage is that the excavator’s joints tend to get a bit loose. But taking into account that this set is less than 15 bucks, we had (and are still having) tons of playtime (and fun) with this toy. I’d recommend it without a doubt.

If you want to invest a bit more, I’d recommend to either get the Airport-With-Airplane Set or the My First Train Set. They are both amazing and a lot of fun. Recommended for ages 2 to 99 🙂

#3 – Play Kitchen

When I was writing about the Workbench above I already tried to get those old role models out of the way: That boys play with cars and tools, and girls play with dolls and wear all pink clothes. That may be true for your kids and that’s fine. And while Benni definitely prefers cars over dolls, I don’t believe that it’s our job as parents to push our kids in one direction or the other.

With that being out of the way, I want to point out that we gave Benni his very own play kitchen for his second birthday.

He loves it to this very day because we placed inside our real kitchen. Now when mommy is preparing food in the kitchen he can either help her for real (which he loves to do) or he can prepare his own fantasy-food in his own kitchen.

We decided to get IKEA’s Duktik Mini Kitchen for him. It’s made of high-quality wood and comes with battery-powered cooking plates (led lights only, obviously), “microwave” and even a plastic sink. It’s really cool and I’m sure it will last for years to come!

If you’re not the IKEA guy or just want to get something else, here’s a hand-picked play kitchen selection for you to check out:

• KidKraft Ultimate Corner Play Kitchen with Lights & Sounds
• KidKraft Vintage Kitchen
• Little Chef Wooden Toy Play Kitchen with Accessories
• Step2 Little Bakers Kitchen Playset

However, make sure to also get some accessories like pans, pots and plastic food.

#2 – Lego Minecraft

Just like the Carrera Set I mentioned earlier, this one might surprise you. You may wonder why Lego, with all those small parts, should be something to give to a 3-year-old. So, let me put a small disclaimer here: I am NOT suggesting to give one of these sets to your kid to play with on his own. I suggest building these sets and playing with them TOGETHER with your kid. That’s where they shine!

Benni and I really love Lego’s Minecraft Sets. And there are quite a few reasons. Let me give you the three most important ones:

1. Lego Minecraft Sets aren’t designed as “collectibles” (like other sets, e.g. Lego’s Saturn V and many other Ideas sets). They are designed as PLAY sets! It doesn’t hurt when your child grabs them and takes them apart! Not a bit. Instead, it’s fun, because you know you may now put them back together.
2. Lego Minecraft Sets consist of many of the classic 2 x 4 and 2 x 2 bricks. Where many modern Lego City or Ideas sets heavily rely on 1 x X, very “thin” bricks, Lego Minecraft Sets remind me of the Lego Sets that I had when I was a kid. They are really made for kids.
3. They usually consist of individual “modules”. What I mean by that is that if you want to change something, you do not have to take it apart and rebuild it from scratch, but instead you can take apart the modules and then rearrange them to get a completely different experience. That’s fun! And even a 3-year-old can do that easily!

Personally, we own these sets, which I would 100% recommend. They are all great and not too expensive to give them a try:

• LEGO Minecraft the Farm Cottage
• LEGO Minecraft the Zombie Cave (Yes, there are Zombies. But let’s not overcomplicate things: For your kid, it’s just a figure with a green head. Just name them “green guy”, or “Joe” or whatever you like and you’re kid won’t even care! Or take them out of the set, if you really don’t like them…)
• LEGO Minecraft the Chicken Coop
• LEGO Minecraft the Polar Igloo

And if you are like me and also play Minecraft on your computer, that’s an even bigger plus. Hey, why not set Minecraft to “peaceful”, put your kid on your lap and also build something on your computer!? Benni and I do that every once in a while. But that’s a different story; I’ll write a blog post soon why we enjoy it and why I think it’s a great idea! 🙂

#1 – Hubelino

So here we go: My #1 favorite toy for 3 year olds. I PROMISE you: You’re kids will love it. And you, as a parent, will love it too.

Hubelino is a Duplo-compatible marble run system. That sounds complicated, but let me explain the basics: You start by building a “base construction” with Lego Duplo bricks or the Duplo-compatible, white “construction-bricks” that you’ll get with the starter set. And then you’ll put the included marble run elements on top of that. As a result, you’ll get a highly stable, yet very versatile marble run that you can change, rebuild and extend as much as you like.

Benni and I love it and we play with it almost daily! It’s really incredible and until this very day, I have no clue why Lego themselves did never release a system like that.

And here’s the kicker: If you love it as much as we do, you can buy several extension sets like the 50-Piece Run Elements Expansion Set or 22-Piece Twister Expansion Set that allow you to build even longer and crazier marble runs.

Here are the top five reasons why I would prefer Hubelino over EVERY other marble run system I came across so far:

1. Once built, the marble run is super stable. If you’ve ever played with Lego Duplo bricks, you know what I am talking about. Your kid cannot simply push it over… And if your kid is a three-year-old, you know that THIS is the number 1 issue with any construction toy at that age, right?
2. The individual bricks and marble run elements are highly durable. They are pretty much indestructible! And they are 100% Made in Germany: The plastic is high quality and free of any kind of toxic materials!
3. The marble run is very easy to build. Your 3 year old won’t be able to build it on his own. But together with YOU he or she will be able to build amazing marble runs in no time. And if you’re out of ideas there are manuals offered for free by Hubelino where they will show you step by step how to build amazing runs!
4. Do you already own Duplo bricks? Great! Then you’re all set! You do not even have to buy the starter set. We just bought the 50 pieces extension set and combined that with our existing Duplo brick collection. And it’s so much fun! Don’t own Duplo bricks? NO PROBLEMO: Just get the starter set as it comes with everything you need: Marble run elements AND construction bricks.
5. The entire system is expandable. Just buy more (and probably different) marble run elements and build even bigger runs.

Give it a try, especially if you already own an existing Duplo collection. It’s really special: I promise you HOURS of fun for your kids and yourself – most likely for years to come!

Are you hooked? Then make sure to read my FULL REVIEW of the Hubelino Marble Run System here!!!

Have Something To Add To This Story?

Do you have something to add to this story? I am always eager to learn. What is your favorite toy, age recommendation, play style when playing with your kid etc? Please drop a comment below or holla at me at chris@ThatToyDad.com – I’m looking forward to your feedback!