Crafts for 3 and 4 year olds

21+ Crafts & Activities for 3 Year Olds

ByMichelle McInerney | MollyMoo Updated onAugust 17, 2022

It’s a few years since my daughter was a 3 year old, but the memories of her enjoying independent play and my eavesdropping on her playroom chats are happily fresh in my mind. Being 3 is all about playing, being curious, having fun and ‘more’ playing! – watch them get busy with these 21 handpicked activities for 3 year olds, from easy art projects to pretend play.

Learning Activities for 3 Year Olds

A great quiet, calm-down activity to help engage little minds.
via kidsactivitiesblog

Making these creative little fishies is a really simple and fun craft “ perfect for home and the classroom.
via mollymoocrafts

Brace yourselves because this is the most awesome activity – wonderful for sensory learning and the kids can get involved in making too.
via laughingkidslearn

Keep the kids busy while encoring creativity learning.
via powerfulmothering

Practicing fine motor skills with beads.
via Mom

Preschool Activities for 3 Year Olds

Kids love seeing their doodles explode with color
Just draw with sharpie markers, spray, air dry and wear.
via kidsactivitiesblog

With fruit loops, paper bags, packing peanuts and pipe cleaners – Oh how I love the packing peanut teeth!!
via PinkStripeySocks

Suuuuuper easie peasie made with craft sticks and sharpie markers. Place your sticks in a plastic bag until you’re ready to play again, and again and again!
via PinkStripeySocks

Things To Do With 3 Year Olds Indoors

Salt dough is such a versatile and fun material. You can never run out of activities to do with it.
via  lifelessonplans

A simple way to create a pretend city for your child to act out their imaginative stories.
via kidsactivitiesblog

Fun for all with a roll of craft paper, a packet of crayons and the kitchen floor!
via mollymoocrafts

Crafts for 3 Year Olds with Glue

Doodle a bald family on a piece of paper and let the kids get creative with yarn and a glue stick. Oh what fun!
via PinkStripeySocks

Incredibly cute, and incredibly easy to make with just toilet rolls and scraps of fabric. Crafts that inspire play – my favorite type of crafts.
via danyabanya

With egg cartons, lollipop sticks and a glue gun make a sturdy raft with a mast and crows nest for hours of imaginative play.
via mollymoocrafts

Don’t stop at one – make a whole little owl family.
via kids activitiesblog

Painting Activities for 3 Year Olds

Kid painted sticks, decorated with yarn and a few beads and bells and your 3 year old will be making sweet music.
via Naturestore

Painting and science fun all in one.
via taminglittlemonsters

Painted card box box with button remote control – let teddy read the news!.
via mollymoocrafts

Fun Food Activities for Three Year Olds

This homemade play dough recipe can jumpstart that journey to owning their own ice cream shop, becoming an ice cream pastry chef.
via kidsactivitiesblog

With some potatoes, paint, googly eyes and a few cotton buds you have all the necessary ingredients for creating goofy, scary or pretty monsters ¦ potato printing is fun in the kitchen.
via mollymoocrafts

Mess-Free Fun Things To Do With 3 Year Olds

A simple cardboard bunny lacing card template to keep little hands busy and engaged.
via kidsactivitiesblog

Time to get your crafty pants on!
Michelle xx

Here Is More Learning Fun:

What fun activity for 3 year olds are you going to start with first?

Michelle McInerney | MollyMoo

Michelle McInerney, an Irish based graphic designer and mum of one, is the craft designer behind award winning blog MollyMooCrafts.com - a fun and colorful online world of unique and cute crafts for children and their parents.

Michelle can also be found on Facebook, Twitter,  Instagram  and Google+  and one of her favorite places to hang out is on Pinterest.

14 Craft Ideas for Preschoolers and Toddlers

By

Megan Graney

Megan Graney

Megan Graney is a crafting expert, art teacher, and writer who shares her knowledge of DIY painting, furniture refinishing, and sewing. She has almost a decade of hands-on experience and has been writing about crafts for five years. 

Learn more about The Spruce Crafts' Editorial Process

Updated on 09/18/22

Lengthen your little one's attention span and spur creativity with well-planned craft time. From squirt gun painting to sticker lettering, here you'll find a bunch of solid ideas to fill any afternoon.

• 01 of 14

  I Heart Crafty Things

  Preschoolers can finger paint paper plates, then add construction paper faces and limbs to create their own petting zoos. Paper plates provide the perfect canvas for kids–they're sturdy enough for paint and glue, and double as a convenient paint palette.

  Paper Plate Animals from I Heart Crafty Things

• 02 of 14

  Crystal and Co.

  Get a jump start on phonics for little ones with a fun weekly letter craft. Parents cut construction paper letters, then little ones can decorate to capture the spirit of an alliterated word. This handy tutorial provides free printables for less artistically-inclined grown ups.

  Letter of the Week from Crystal and Co.

• 03 of 14

  Busy Toddler

  Practice letters and fine motor skills with dot stickers and pre-written names. Preschoolers are bound to enjoy making a bit of personal art, and parents will love the mess-free, quiet concentration time this project requires.

  Sticker Name Activity from Busy Toddler

• 04 of 14

  Picklebums

  Rigatoni gets the Monet treatment with this tactile craft. Toddlers can channel their inner designers to create watercolor pasta jewelry that's as much fun to create as it is to wear.

  Painted Pasta Necklace from Picklebums

• 05 of 14

  Happiness is Homemade

  Stamp painting is perfect for little hands, and creating this firework stamp from a recycled cardboard tube is quick and easy. Kids will spend hours painting fireworks (or starbursts or sunflowers or puffy clouds!). Low on paint? Make your own using mostly on-hand ingredients.

  Firework Stamps from Happiness is Homemade

• 06 of 14

  Lessons Learnt Journal

  Flour and oil combine to make a highly malleable, and incredibly fun, sculpting material. Toddlers can help mix the moon sand, then have a tactile and creative play time. Be sure to line the play surface with plastic–the oily sand can leave residue behind.

  Moon Sand from Lessons Learnt Journal

• 07 of 14

  Megan Graney

  Upcycle empty egg cartons into cute crawling critters with this easy project. Kids paint the egg cups, transforming them into shells, then twist a pipe cleaner into the cute little crab claws. Grown-ups need to lend a hand to hot glue things together on this one.

  Egg Carton Crabs from The Spruce Crafts

• 08 of 14

  Fireflies and Mud Pies

  You'll need to wait for warmer months for this activity–it causes an outdoors-only kind of mess. Fill squirt guns with liquid watercolor paint, then let preschoolers go to town on sheets of construction paper clipped to a canvas or tacked to a tree.

  Squirt Gun Painting from Fireflies and Mud Pies

• 09 of 14

  Modern Parents Messy Kids

  Toddlers get a bit of chemistry with their art in this activity–a little whole milk, food coloring, and a dish soap-dipped toothpick provide a play surface that will keep little ones entertained for hours. Kids also get firsthand experience at color mixing with this one!

  Magic Milk Paint from Modern Parents Messy Kids

• 10 of 14

  Growing a Jeweled Rose

  Most preschoolers will jump at the chance to squirt liquids from plastic bottles–why not let them create beautiful temporary artwork while they're at it? Mix up a big batch of liquid chalk (cornstarch, vinegar, water, baking soda, and food coloring), then send kiddos out to the driveway to create.

  Liquid Sidewalk Chalk from Growing a Jeweled Rose

• 11 of 14

  Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

  Clip bright straws into segments to create inexpensive, recycled beads that toddlers can string onto yarn. Kids can practice color recognition and patterning with this easy and mess-free craft.

  Straw Bead Necklace from Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

• 12 of 14

  Fingerprint Flowers

  We Have Aars

  Bring the garden indoors with this painting activity. Preschoolers apply fingerprints, thumbprints, or handprints to pre-drawn leaves and stems, ultimately creating a lovely field of flowers.

  Fingerprint Flowers from We Have Aars

• 13 of 14

  Art Bar

  Take your toddlers out for a day of bird sighting with their homemade binoculars! This easy tutorial gives great ideas for decorating TP rolls, then attaching two together with yarn to form the special, individualized specs.

  DIY Binoculars from Art Bar

• 14 of 14

  Hands On As We Grow

  Kiddos forage for the decorations for these sun catchers, then assemble using clear contact paper and paper plates. Wild flowers and grasses stick to the contact paper like magic for kids, and with no messy cleanup, this medium may feel like magic for grown ups too.

  Natural Sun Catchers from Hands On As We Grow

Watch Now: Learn to Make Prints with Leaves

Crafts with children 3-4 years old

Activities with children 3-4 years old

Author admin Reading 2 min Views 4.7k. Posted by November 20, 2016

All small children are close to creativity, they will be happy to make crafts from any material. The task of an adult is to support the little artist, to guide him during work, but not to suppress the initiative. Encourage your child to be creative in every possible way. The creative process, like nothing else, perfectly develops artistic taste, imagination, fantasy, and also perfectly stimulates fine motor skills of the hands.

You can make from any material: paper, napkins, plasticine, covers, fabric, thread, yarn, cereals, as well as from natural and waste materials. For classes with children 3-4 years old, it is necessary to think in advance what will be needed for work, prepare the necessary material: the base, ready-made parts for the application, templates, glue.

A kid at this age does not yet use scissors, so an adult cuts out the details, and the child can place the image on the base, find the place of the part on a sheet of paper, smear the part with glue, stick it in the right place.

Despite the fact that the ideas for creativity with children 3-4 years old are quite simple, the result is interesting, so it will please both the kid and the adult. And the little artist, having seen his work, will be happy to continue creating.

Contents

Crafts from cotton pads

For work you will need: colored paper for the base, cotton pads, glue, additional blanks from colored paper or fabric, buttons.

APLICTIONS FROM NCOMS

will need colored cardboard, napkins of different colors, a felt -tip pen. Use a ready-made template or draw a figure or pattern yourself that you will stick with napkins. Glue the cut piece to the cardboard. Show your baby how to tear napkins into small pieces and roll them into balls with your fingers - this activity is useful for developing fine motor skills. When the multi-colored balls are ready, you can stick them on the picture. Be sure the kid will like this activity, especially since the crafts are bright and colorful.

Button applique

Button crafts are very popular now, especially since buttons can be found in different sizes, colors and shapes, in general, for every taste. Using buttons, you can make an original greeting card.

Applications using plasticine

The craft will turn out expressive if you use plasticine along with colored paper. A three-year-old child may well decorate the back of a ladybug with plasticine balls, stick peas on a paper cup or dress, make a flower from plasticine, rowan berries, come up with a pattern of multi-colored plasticine balls. For older children, plasticine drawing becomes more difficult.

95 photos of the best ideas for developing children's creativity

The importance of early childhood development cannot be underestimated. As soon as the child begins to move independently, an endless process of learning and cognition begins, in which it will not be superfluous to help him.

Today our topic will be crafts for children 3 years old. We will talk about how needlework should be at this age, what is better to do and much more.

The contents of the review:

• Office
• Kindergarten
• thematic crafts
• Crafts aged 3-4 years
• photos for 3 years

The situation is only in game form.

That's why crafts for 3-4 year olds should include an interesting workflow along with the right environment.

The preparation of the environment lies entirely with the parent, and it must be done in advance. The fact is that if you are distracted by various organizational details during the process itself, the child will be less focused on the lesson. As a result, we get a restless child, whose attention is also distracted by third-party things.

If you are planning to do appliqué, it is worth preparing all the necessary details in advance. At the same time, pay attention to scissors, paints and glue.

Scissors should be purchased with child protection. Paints should be natural, because we know how kids love to taste everything.

The same story applies to the adhesive base - bad adhesive can harm not only by direct contact, but also by airborne droplets.

If you want a child at the age of 3 to perceive children's crafts as a regular activity with their own rules, you need to allocate a specific place for this, which he will associate with the appropriate mood.

A small table in the nursery is fine for this, but you will find it more comfortable to do it in an armchair or sofa. A good choice would be a place on the floor, on a rug, especially if you do not want to stain the furniture.

If you are planning to work with paint, then it will not be superfluous to find or buy a simple film with which you will not constantly worry that the baby will now paint not only paper, but also his favorite carpet.

Let's go back to the moment where children love to try everything. If you want to make, for example, an application with different details, and you know that your child loves to put everything in his mouth, immediately make sure that small, especially hard objects, like buttons, are not involved in the workflow.

Kindergarten

Depending on the kindergarten, the school may start practicing creative activities, such as needlework, from an early age. Sometimes children try to make some of them at home, and then they bring them and show them to friends.

Since 3-4 years of age, when children are already quite active in talking, there is an advanced communication between children, which also concerns what they do.

If you are doing crafts with your child in kindergarten at 3 years old, do not forget that you should not expect very fast results, even if other children do everything a little faster.

In fact, at this age, not only the upbringing of the child takes place, but also the parents, because their behavior always leaves its mark on the development of the baby.

Thematic crafts

One way to get your child's attention is to make crafts that will be associated with upcoming holidays or the weather outside.

Therefore, many parents try to make crafts for the New Year with their children at the age of 3. Depending on what happens, they can decorate the New Year tree, which will be very important for the child.

In this way, the child will learn to do something with his own hands to please himself or make a gift to another person, including you.

Crafts at the age of 3-4 years

You already know that at this age the child learns in a playful manner. This applies to both mental development and physical development, because fine motor skills of the hands are very important in life.

Do not forget that if you do crafts with your child at the age of 3, you not only help him learn to do something, but also develop your relationships, including trust.

To do this, you must make sure that the child likes the activity, and if he does not like it, choose a new one.

At the same time, if the child sees that you rejoice in his success with him, he will also trust you more.

Choice of activity

If you don't know what crafts to do for kids 3 years old, then you should gradually try everything - applications, drawing, working with plasticine and much more.

Each lesson will have a positive effect on the development of the baby's memory, just like fine motor skills of the hands, but most importantly - you can find what he likes the most.

Another interesting activity that attracts almost any child is just finger painting.

Partly because the process turns out to be especially interactive, and the child immediately sees the result of his work, which is why there is a special involvement.

Photo crafts for 3 years old