Outdoor Activities for 3 Year Olds: 20 Ideas That Work

Three is where outdoor play gets properly good, and slightly exhausting. The best outdoor activities for 3 year olds take advantage of a child who has just discovered three things at once: they can run, they can talk, and they have opinions about all of it.

Our eldest is three and loves puddle jumping, watching any bird or insect, and kicking through big autumn leaves, so a lot of this list has been tested on a small person with strong views about wellies. Twenty ideas, sorted by what a three-year-old is suddenly able to do.

What changes at three

If you have a two-year-old, our outdoor activities for 2 year olds is built around handling, pouring and carrying, and most of it still works at three. The difference is that a three-year-old can now follow a simple instruction, wait for a turn (briefly) and join in a pretend game with a plot. If yours is heading towards four, the 4 year olds list picks up where this one leaves off.

The NHS says pre-schoolers aged three and four should spend at least 180 minutes a day doing a variety of physical activities, and that the 180 minutes should include at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity. That is three hours across the whole day, not three hours at the park. Nursery, the walk there, the garden and the stairs all count. The moderate-to-vigorous hour is the running, jumping and puffing bit, and the games below are heavy on it. The full page is the NHS physical activity guidelines for under 5s.

Running, jumping and puffing

1. Puddle jumping with scoring. Two feet, as big a splash as possible, judged by you out of ten. Puddle jumping is our eldest's favourite thing, and it needs nothing but wellies and rain.
2. Run like a… Shout an animal and everyone crosses the garden or field as that animal. Cheetah, frog, crab, a wasp at a picnic. Three-year-olds enjoy a good animal and have no shame at all.
3. Traffic lights. Green run, amber walk, red freeze. Add a colour once they have the hang of it. Purple means spin. Nobody is going to argue.
4. Hill rolling. Any grassy slope. Lie down, roll, climb up, repeat. Check the bottom for dog mess before you start, because once it begins nobody is slowing down.
5. Chase the grown-up. You run, they chase, you get caught and fall over, and the roles switch. Hugely tiring for you. They will want to go again.
6. Leaf kicking. A big dry pile of autumn leaves, wellies on, kick. It is the sound and the swoosh. Our eldest loves it, and it costs nothing.

Games with a rule (short ones)

Three-year-olds can hold one simple rule in their head, as long as it is only one. Anything with two rules gets quietly dropped. That makes these a good fit.

7. Stop and go. The simplest game there is. They run, you shout stop, they freeze, you shout go. Tell them to stop in silly positions and the game lasts twice as long.
8. Follow the leader. They lead, you copy, and you have to do everything exactly as they do it. A three-year-old in charge of a route will take you over a log, round a bin and straight through a puddle.
9. Shadow stamping. On a sunny day, stamp on each other's shadows. If it is overcast, stamp on your own and call it practice.
10. Ready, steady, go. Races to a tree, a gate or a lamp-post. Three-year-olds love racing and are largely indifferent to winning, so you can lose with enormous drama and the race will be rerun at once.
11. The welly toss. A basket or a bucket, a pair of wellies, a line on the ground. Throw, retrieve, repeat. Most of the activity is the retrieving.

Noticing and collecting

Three is the age when the world gets properly interesting. Ours loves watching any bird or insect, and a walk with a three-year-old who likes looking is a slow walk, which is the whole point.

12. The bird count. Count every bird you see on the way to the park. Pigeons count. A tally in the dirt with a stick is plenty of record keeping.
13. Bug hunting. Lift a stone or a log very gently and see who lives there. Put it back the way it was. Woodlice, worms and the odd beetle are standard.
14. Five treasures. Something round, something rough, something that smells, something a bird would like, something beautiful. Our toddler scavenger hunt ideas has the full spoken version, no printing needed.
15. The sound map. Stand still with eyes shut and listen. Count how many different sounds you can hear. Three is a good number. Seven is a triumph.
16. Leaf sorting. Collect a handful of leaves and sort them by size, shape or colour. Line them up on a wall. It is surprisingly absorbing, and the pile makes a very satisfying mess at the end.

Pretend and mission games

17. The fairy shopping list. The fairies need a soft leaf, an acorn cup and a tiny stick. Deliver them to a tree hollow and knock. Reliably effective.
18. The mud kitchen. A saucepan, a stick, earth and water. Today's special is worm soup with petal garnish. Wash hands before tea, and give the chef a tip in daisies.
19. Bear hunt. You do not need the book. Wade through the long grass, squelch through the mud, and then run home when you meet the bear. Repeat as required.
20. Delivering a letter. Give them a real envelope, or a leaf, and a destination: the postbox, a neighbour's gate, a particular tree. A three-year-old with a job is a three-year-old who walks to the end of the road.

When three goes sideways

Three can also be a negotiation. If the problem is getting out of the door in the first place, it is almost never the activity. Give it a mission or a job, and the answer tends to change. We have collected the tricks that work in toddler won't go outside.

For the full library sorted by garden, park, street and woods, the big guide is outdoor activities for toddlers. And if you only have the garden, garden games for toddlers has twenty more that work for two and three year olds alike.

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