Awesome Activity Books for 3-year-olds

I homeschool my 3-year-old twins and I am excited to share some of the activity books that we love and are using every day.

Pre-COVID, I would go to the library to get the girls some information books and storybooks for their thematic learning. Ever since the libraries are closed as part of the measures under the Circuit Breaker, we gradually ran out of new thematic books to read. And with the two elder ones staying at home for their Home-based Learning in April, my entire homeschool routine was disrupted. There were simply too many things going on at the same time.

But it was also this challenging period that forced me to look at other prep-free options. And I found excellent activity books from Amazon Singapore that provided me with some structure in our homeschooling experience. At least I have ready materials to work with the twins in small blocks of time amidst helping out the older ones with their HBL.

A quick note on Amazon Singapore – As a member, I get to purchase items at competitive prices, frequently cheaper than local online shopping platforms. Just click for international products and accumulate more than $60 for free shipping. Sign up for free membership during the first month, and you can be able to tell the substantial price differences for certain international items. The bulk of my online shopping for homeschooling products is now from Amazon.

These activity books will build the twins’ foundation in their pencil skill, thinking skills, and ability to follow and focus. These are all critical skill sets that in my opinion, little children can spend some time on during their early childhood days.

Having gone through preschool with my older children who are now in primary school, I have the benefit of hindsight to work on what I had previously omitted.

Schooling the little kids is not about just learning alphabets, numbers, nor their mother tongue. It is not about the ability to spell as early as possible, nor adding numbers at three years old. Not unless the child is keen to learn knowledge that is beyond their age to grasp.

In my opinion, early childhood is all about getting their bodies ready for school, especially the three and four years old. They need lots of crafts, drawing, puzzles, playgrounds and experiences. This is the time to build strong core muscles to sustain long hours of sitting in class; finger and wrist strength and agility for long hours of writing; healthy eyes for their ability to focus, follow and copy accurately from the whiteboard. And a healthy vestibular system for a sense of balance and spatial awareness gives them confidence in making friends and joining in to play.

By the way, I am not an occupational therapist. I am just a mother speaking from my personal experience.

We work in blocks of 10 to 15 minutes

Just like our thematic readings, we often go through our activity books in blocks of 10 to 15 mins, once or twice a day, sometimes thrice depending on their mood. We work on the bed where they can snuggle with me. They love their time spent on these books. To them, it is bonding time with mummy. For me, it is a terrific opportunity to rest my sore back.

Introducing Our Favourite Activity books for 3-year-olds

Kumon Thinking Skills Workbooks

I love the Kumon Series. The activities are always in increasing difficulty, so gradual that the little ones don’t even notice that they are taking little steps uphill to sharpen their skills.

My girls enjoy working on Kumon books. Once they attain some level of proficiency, they would go through the books repeatedly on their own. So over time, they mastered a set of skills without much frustration.

I have the entire series of the Kumon Thinking Skills Workbooks that includes Spatial Reasoning*, Logic, Differentiation and Creativity. We are using the first three books heavily.

We started with Differentiation* which is all about identifying the differences, including categorising items into different groups. As it takes a few practices for the twins to grasp some of the higher-level skill sets, we merely use our fingers to point to the answers to ensure reusability.

Moving on to Logic* with the twins, I felt rather unsure, especially when we approached the section on Patterns and Rotations. I was not expecting much because I didn’t think that three-year-olds can think logically. But they have surprised me. With some practices starting from the simplest pattern, they proved me wrong.

As for the Creativity* book, it focuses on the child’s ability to draw creatively. Since my girls are still developing their drawing skills, we are putting less focus on this book. The Creativity Book is also the only Thinking Skills Workbooks that I cut out and laminate the pages so that they can practice drawing repeatedly.

We will be getting another set of Kumon Thinking Set Workbook for Kindergarten whenever the twins are ready.

More Kumons

We commenced on Kumon about a year ago, as I found their activity book on Scissor Skills* superb in building up the twin’s scissor skills. There are so many reasons why young children should develop scissor skills. You can read more about our experience here.

We subsequently move on to Tracing and Mazes* to build on their pencil skills, tracking and visual interpretation. All the pages are cut out and laminated* so that we can use them repeatedly. It was effort well spent. We probably used each page more than ten times per child.

Highlights Series

I became a Highlights fanatic during this Circuit-Breaker period. I find Highlights produces awesome activity books for 3-year-olds. We spent our nights on the bed playing with Highlights Hidden Picture Puzzles*. While the little ones went ga-ga over the stickers in their puzzle books (they have completed 2 books by now), the elder ones worked on another more challenging one under the same series.

Looking for hidden pictures is a fabulous way to develop their figure-ground perception, i.e. locating things from a busy background. Imagine a child pulling his hair out while answering a comprehension paper because he cannot find the information he needs from a lengthy passage. Or a child who makes mistakes in his tricky problem sum because there is too many information in the question and he is unable to pull out what he needs. Or a boy who is lost while copying from the busy whiteboard.

Now, my girls love to ‘read’ these puzzle books before bedtime. Whenever they resist bedtime, I pull out these books for them to work through on their own until they are sleepy enough to go to bed.

Highlight Thinking Skills

Highlight Thinking Skills* Practice Pad covers skill sets such as visual discrimination, attention to details, comparison, figure-ground perception, logic and differentiating fantasy from reality. Another excellent and fun book that my twins love. But it is a pity that this practice pad is rather small and expensive for the number of activities it carries.

Logic Puzzles for Clever Kids

Logic Puzzles for Clever Kids* is my most recent purchase from Amazon. I would have never bought this book in the past if not for the progress I have seen in the twins. It didn’t disappoint. I initially thought that the book would be too complicated for the twins. But it seems that their earlier Kumon exercises have helped.

There are more inferencing activities in this book, coupled with sequencing that is not covered by Kumon nor Highlights. We are still working on many activities in the book. With consistent practice, I think the twins will get it.