How Can I Teach My Three-Year-Old At Home?

Written by Rebecca in Toddlers

Teaching your child at home at the age of three can be fun for both adult and child and I’m going to give you some ideas of how to do this in the best possible way for your child. Teaching a three-year-old isn’t like being in a formal school situation. It’s not about setting up a home-school with a desk and worksheets. Teaching a three-year-old is about providing activities and opportunities for your child to learn through playing as this is how children of this age learn.

A three-year-old’s attention span is not long enough to have them listening to you for extended amounts of time, expected to take in information told to them and retain that information. The muscles in their hands are not ready yet for writing with a pencil. They cannot be expected to act like children older than them as they are still so young and have so much growing up to do yet.

Some parents have the ability to be at home full-time and that can be so beneficial for little ones. It is not always possible for parents to stay at home with their young children and that’s ok too but if you have any days where you are the primary care-giver on that day, then do take some ideas from this page.

If you want to set your child up for a great start at school or to their home education journey then help them out by taking an active part in their early education at home.

What Are The Seven Areas Of Learning in the EYFS?

There are seven areas of learning in the UK’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). These are: communication and language; personal, social and emotional development; physical development; literacy; mathematics; understanding the world; and expressive arts and design.

All schools, nurseries and childminders who look after three-year-olds must follow the EYFS. Parents do not have to but I feel that it’s important to take guidance from there to best set your child up for their future education.

How Can I Teach My Three-Year-Old Communication & Language Skills At Home?

To teach your three-year-old communication and language skills at home, keep talking to them, include them in your conversations, model to them how to speak with calmness and politeness and support them.

  • While you’re going about your daily chores, talk to your toddler. Tell them what you’re doing. Invite them to help out. Our daughters love folding towels and flannels. They make more work but they love doing it and they feel like they are contributing to our household.
  • Narrate what you’re doing such as, “Mummy is just washing up. I’m squirting the washing-up liquid into the bowl and I’m going to wash this plate first. What should I wash next?” Try to get them to tell you or point to what should be next and include them in the job. Some parents have wooden learning towers which helps the toddler get to a height where they can see what’s going or and can join in if it’s safe to do so.

  • Echo what your child says to you and add more words. For example if you ask them what they are playing with and they tell you “a car”, repeat it back, “I am playing with a blue car,” or simply, “a blue car”. This allows them to hear more vocabulary and to either internalise it or to repeat it back to you. Don’t force them to repeat it but just allow them the chance to hear the new words.
  • Provide your child with play equipment for role-play. In our house, this looks like a wooden play kitchen with a whole load of accessories like tea sets and tea pots, a toaster and a lot of different play foods. We also have a play shop which can be turned into a theatre for puppet shows. Outdoors, we also have a mud kitchen with pots and pans and utensils. Providing your child with role play toys will let them re-enact conversations which they’ve seen adults have and it will allow them the chance to use all the new words which they’re absorbing.

  • Listen to what your child is interested in. If they love dinosaurs, see whether there’s a local museum which has a dinosaur exhibit that you could go and visit. If they like different vehicles, is there a transport museum near you? If they like fairies, is there a fairy trail you could walk to find the fairy’s houses? Children will want to learn more when they’re finding out about something they’re interested in. If there’s an area of their learning which needs a bit more practice, incorporate this interest into it too. For example, if they need a bit more help with their gross motor skills and love princesses, design an obstacle course along the theme of princesses. Maybe the tunnel could be going underground to rescue the princess.
  • Discuss any books you read with your three-year-old. Why did that character do that? What happened in the story? When you’re doing other things and something happens that also happened in the story you read, remind them e.g. “Oh look, it’s raining, Peppa loves to jump in muddy puddles, do you want to do that too?”
  • Sing nursery rhymes with your toddler. At any point in the day, start singing. We have a nursery rhyme bag with laminated pictures of nursery rhymes, which our daughters can pick from and we’ll just start singing that song. Add actions to make them more fun, use soft toys to re-enact them. Repeat them and come back to them on different days so they become something that your child loves and is used to and asks you to sing. Find a list of nursery rhymes here which your toddler will love.

How Can I Teach My Three-Year-Old Personal, Social & Emotional Development Skills At Home?

Many children will be going to school in the UK when they are four-years-old so three is really the last year for parents to have a really good input at preparing them for their school life interacting with a wide variety of other children and adults.

  • Potty training – Talk to your child about potty training. Tell them what you’re doing while you’re on the toilet. Read them books on potty training to make them more open to the idea. Buy them a special potty – there are lots on the market these days in the form of animals or with different designs on them. Buy them pants with their favourite characters on. And just take their lead. Some children take to it straightaway, while others need a few goes before they’re fully trained.
  • Model teeth brushing and encourage independence. Can they get their own brush and toothpaste out of the cupboard? Some children may even be able to open the toothpaste. Set a timer for 2 minutes and let them brush. Once they’ve finished, brush their teeth for them too as little hands can’t quite reach all the teeth until they’re much older. For apprehensive toothbrushers, we’ve used Youtube 2 minute toothbrushing timers and character toothbrushes to help bring them back to allowing us to brush their teeth. Give them reasons why we brush our teeth every day and take them to the dentist to get a check up every six months.
  • Discuss the foods we eat and the drinks we drink. Talk about why we have some foods like chocolates and sweets less regularly than we have fruit or vegetables. This conversation can be held over the dinner table. Make healthy foods with your child.
  • Encourage play with other children. Have play dates at your house or the park or go to playgroups to allow your child the opportunity to interact with other children their own age, if they wish to. It can be enough to just have them playing next to another child. They can see how others play, how others talk, how others interact with each other.
  • Provide a safe and warm home for your child. Keep company with adults and children who you trust around your children and who will be good role models. Ask for help if you can’t pay your bills or purchase essentials for your family.
  • Support your child if they get upset. Show your child kindness and compassion when they act out or cry. A cuddle can help so much more than shouting at them. Be consistent in your treatment of your child.
  • Teach your child manners. Teach them to say please and thank you. Our daughters also like to say, “You’re welcome!” Moana has managed to help with that one!
  • Play games with your child which involve turn taking. Being a toddler is all about number one. But as we grow up and meet more people and interact more with society, we need to be more open to respecting that sometimes other people get to go first, or sometimes we lose in games or sometimes others aren’t nice to us.
  • Teach them what to do if they get lost when out and about. We have little wristbands for our girls to wear whenever we go somewhere busy. It has our phone numbers on and we repeatedly tell them to show someone if they can’t find us. I also tell them to call my name rather than, “Mummy!” as it’ll be easier for me to spot them if they do that.
  • Talk to them about road safety. About how we hold an adult’s hand when we’re near a road or crossing a road. Something I learnt as a teacher is to walk with the adult nearest to the road as it keeps the child away from the kerb.
  • Allow your child to take some risks. Try not to helicopter aroudn them all the time but equally risk-assess each situation for your child.
  • Provide dolls and accessories for your child to look after the doll.
  • Discuss when your child was born. What is their birthday? How old are they? Do they have any brothers or sisters?
  • Sing songs which teach body parts such as Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.
  • Encourage your child to be more independent at getting themselves dressed and putting shoes and coats on. The Montessori way of putting a coat is easy to learn and will give your child a great sense of achievement every time they do it.
  • Teach your child how to play independently. It’s not just a a case of giving them a toy and saying, “Go and play with that toy.” It is a skill that has to be learnt over time. I have a whole blog post here about how to teach toddlers to play independently.

How Can I Teach My Three-Year-Old Physical Development At Home?

You will often hear the terms ‘gross motor skills’ and ‘fine motor skills’. Gross motor refers to movements which use your whole body or the larger muscles in your body. Fine motor refers to movements which use the muscles in your hands and wrists in order to aid pencil holding and mark making which leads onto writing.

  • Provide outdoor free play time each day. This could be in a garden or park and will give your child that much needed Vitamin D but also build their stamina. (If you don’t get free Vitamin D drops from your nearest children’s centre, Amazon also sell it.)
  • Set up an obstacle course involving tunnels, things to jump off or over or onto, lines to follow, balls to throw.
  • Tape down lines on the floor using washi tape or masking tape and invite your child to walk along the line and practise their balancing.
  • Take your child to soft play or a gymnastics class.
  • Take your child to swimming classes. Local swimming pools run classes and there are private lessons in some school pools. Research what’s on in your local area. Swimming is such a valuable skill to learn and could save their life.
  • Play Simon Says using different movements as the instructions. E.g. Simon Says jump up and down. If you don’t know what Simon Says is, it’s a game where one person leads and says either, “Simon says (+ an instruction),” or they say, “(Instruction)”. Children are supposed to do the things Simon says but not the things he doesn’t say. If they do the other ones, they are out of the game . The winner is the last player in the game.
  • Play music that your child likes and dance along to it.
  • Create pictures by ripping coloured paper into smaller pieces.
  • Finger painting.
  • Provide child-friendly scissors and practise cutting lines and wiggles in paper. You can move onto cutting round things if they’re confident enough.
  • Play board games where you need to move small pieces.
  • Sort coloured dinosaurs into different pots using fingers or child-friendly tweezers.
  • Mix potions up in their mud kitchen.
  • Use pipettes to suck up coloured water and mix it with other coloured water or create pictures on cotton wool with it.
  • Play with sand in a sand pit or on the beach if you’re lucky enough to visit.
  • Show them how to grip a pencil correctly and if they’re ready, teach them how to form the letters of their name.
  • Provide jigsaws. First ones with a hole on a board and then jigsaws with 2, 3, 4 or 5 pieces. They can work up to 20 or morep pieecs from there.
  • Build towers using wooden blocks like from Jenga or paper cups.
  • Play with bubbles. Blowing and catching them.

How Can I Teach My Three-Year-Old Literacy At Home?

Children at the age of three are in the main not yet ready to write letter. There are many skills which go into forming letters correctly . Instead, use this time to help your child strengthen the muscles used to hold a pencil, improve their vocabulary and instill a love of reading and leave letter formation for when they are at least four or five years old.

  • Read every day with your child. Bedtime is the perfect time but provide time during the day when your child can access books if they wish. They can either look at the pictures themselves or ask you to read to them. We read two books a night to our girls and amany more throughout the day. Have a bookshelf or book basket within easy reach for them to just help themselves.
  • Purchase an audio player. Our favourite is a Yoto Mini. Take a look at my review here. They are great for widening your child’s world. There are hundreds of stories to choose from, kids’ radio stations to listen to as well as many podcasts so that you will never run out of content. There is also the option to record our own audio either music or stories and link them to a card for your child to play. This doesn’t replace reading to your child but instead is an additional tool to open them up to more and more vocabulary.
  • Talk to your child about their day. What do you have planned? What did you do today? Discuss the day with your partner in front of your child and include them in the conversation.
  • Provide sensory trays with alphabet letters in them. Invite your child to spot letters. Start with s,a,t,p,i,n and letters from their own name.
  • Write their name on their things so they see it every day. Can they spot their name in amongst other names? What sound does their name start with?
  • Sing the alphabet song with them as much as possible.
  • Watch Alphablocks on iPlayer or Youtube
  • Teach them how to spell their own name. Use a capital letter and lower case letters as well as using the letter sounds.
  • Visit the local library to read books, take books out, discuss books, and join in groups and crafts.
  • Show your child that you love reading. Read books in front of them. Make them see that reading is a good skill to have and it will help them when they get bigger.
  • Provide bath books for in the bath.
  • Purchase some sound flashcards. These are ideally lower case and will have some kind of ditty or rhyme along with the sound to help aid recall. Follow guidance as to which sounds to teach first, as there is a better order than the alphabet to teach in starting with the sounds s,a,t,p,i,n. Teach yourself what a grapheme and phoneme are and what a digraph and trigraph are. These will help you in the coming years when your little one starts to learn to read.

How Can I Teach My Three-Year-Old Mathematics At Home?

Teaching Mathematics at home is about finding five minutes to introduce an activity and then allowing your child to practise and experiment and try it out for themselves. They may require support but the more often they have access to the activity, the more independent they should become.

  • Count everything with your toddler. You’re walking down the stairs, count for every step you go down. Try to get them to join in. How many blue cars are there in the car park? How many books have we got? How many fingers is this? I can see one, two, three houses.
  • Watch Numberblocks on iPlayer or Youtube.
  • Read books with numbers in and let them have free access to these books.
  • Sing number nursery rhymes such as 1,2,3,4,5, Once I Caught a Fish Alive, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on a Bed, Hickory Dickory Dock and Three Little Speckled Frogs.
  • Use the words first, next and then often so they become part of their vocabulary.
  • Have toys with shapes which slot into certain parts of them. Say the shame names as your child slots them into the toy.
  • Teach touch counting which is where your child confidently counts a set of objects by touching an object and saying one number and then moving onto the next number and next object.
  • Match numbers. Write numbers – this could be just 1 and 2 or numbers 1-5 – on post-its and dot them around the playroom. Provide a large sheet with the numbers written on. Your child has to go round finding the post-its and sticking them on the correct part of the sheet to match them.
  • Do a jigsaw with numbers or shapes in it.

Toddler Books With Numbers & Shapes:

How Can I Teach My Three-Year-Old Understanding The World At Home?

Understanding the world can be taught by parents at home by taking trips out to visit places in your local area, speaking to others in your community and celebrating different times of year.

  • Teach your child about the seasons – Go for walks in each season and see the differences. Create artwork to go with their findings. It could be an adult drawing a tree and then the child painting the leaves seasonal colours.
  • Discuss the date – Discuss their birthday, days of the week, months of the year. Other useful words are: yesterday, today, tomorrow.
  • Include children in decorating for different family events, these could be: Christmas, Diwali, Eid, Bonfire Night, Halloween. Create themed play around these celebrations.
  • Visit local libraries and museums to learn about different places, cultures and about the past.
  • Make friends within the wider community to expose your child to different cultures and home lives.
  • Carry out charity work with your child. Let them see how their help can enrich other people’s lives.
  • Read books about people with different jobs such as police office, fire fighter or about people from other cultures.

How Can I Teach My Three-Year-Old Expressive Arts & Design At Home?

Expressive arts incorporates music, art, theatre, dancing and imaginative play.

  • Provide opportunities to use paints, watercolours, chalks, crayons, felt tips, wax crayons.
  • Make and decorate birthday cards and Christmas cards for family and friends.
  • Take inspiration from Pinterest for art ideas based on themes that are of-the-moment such as Halloween or Bonfire Night or along themes which are evergreen such as dinosaurs.
  • Use cotton buds to do dot paintings.
  • Listen to different genres of music and create dances to go with them.
  • Dress up in a variety of dressing up clothes.
  • Use playdough to create models and picutres using loose parts.
  • Allow imaginative play through providing costumes, props and a toy theatre.
  • Create a masterpiece from junk.
  • Paint with different kitchen utensils or with natural items suhc as leaves and twigs.
  • Learn the words to songs – nursery rhymes or pop songs or traditional songs.

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