Ideas for Sahm to Do with 3Yo Boy

Bring daddy to work and keep the car. That's what we did when we shared. That way the kids and I didn't run each other up the wall.

S.

I'm in the same boat with the one car. My husband is in grad school and my son decided he wanted to do school, too. I held off until he turned three in April. Now we do preschool activities.

We learn a letter a week and now halfway through the year he's reading three letter words. He loves it and wants to do more.

I've got a book called Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready. It's got lots of age appropriate activities. My son loves doing them. I've got an 8 month old and my son loves doing the activities for her age with her.

We count money. Only one kind of coin at a time, by ones, fives, tens, and twenty-fives.

This week we colored pumpkins with sharpies. I wasn't ready for carving yet.

We have a calendar and talk about days and months. We color each month with a different pattern. Every day we color that day appropriately. I use this time to use uncommon colors like tan, gray, etc. I also did lt. blue, dk. blue last month. It's fun to get creative and see him learn new color concepts every day.

My son loves to read every page in a book, so I'm teaching him about indexes in the science books we get from the library (only the short ones with bigger words). I know it sounds crazy, but better to use it right than read every word in the index. We get a different topic every two weeks. This week we're on frogs/swamps. We've done owls, apples, rabbits, guinea pigs, vegetables. We love any science book by Gail Gibbons.

This week one of our vocabulary words is leap so he's learning to play leap frog.

I got a book of finger plays and action rhymes. I think it's called the Eentsy, Weentsy Spider and other Action Rhymes. We do a new one a week.

I know we do so much more as we don't do much in the way of tv, but I can't think of more off the top of my head.

If you go to Michaels they have a ton of things for arts & crafts. I'm going to pick up some thing to make personalized ornaments for Christmas. You could do things like that during the holidays and make things for the relatives.

I also take my 3year old and go walking around the neighbor hood and we have a near by park so we'll walk to that in the mornings. It gets their energy out and I get the exercise.

Google honey, there are tons of websites with suggestions for age-appropriate activities. One thing I did before the summer was buy a bunch of those foam things from Wal-Mart. The kids can make pictures, frames, many are self-adhesive so there isn't even any glue.

Also something that is easy is get a tension rod and a cafe curtain from wal-mart and any doorway in your home becomes a puppet theater. Puppets are available all over the place, Christian stores, teacher's stores, even in the toy sections of many retailers. Or you can make your own, again, many suggestions for the puppets would be found on the net.

Age-appropriate activity books are also available and not particularly expensive.

We've spent most of our married life with one car. It is challenging but not impossible. When we wanted to get out we would 1) walk, 2) take DART or 3) drop DH off at work.
We also got to know the neighbors. Found other moms with small kids who maybe had a car and could come visit. Otherwise, we go about the business of living. You've already gotten some great activity ideas. You could add in chores. At this age you are going to have to work with him but it will be extremely valuable later. I wish now that I had let my oldest do more work when he was little. Also, alone time. He needs to learn to entertain himself and to let you have some time to entertain yourself.

Now is a great time to start your christmas home made gifts. The craft items are fun and save a lto of money for the relatives. Plus who doesn't love a something made from a child.

You need to subscribe to Family Fun Magazine! It is a cheap mag, about $10-12 for 10 issues. It is PACKED with fun things to do, make and cook WITH your children. You can sit down and read it with your son and plan your week(s) with his participation. Tons of activities. Really worth your money, it is my favorite mag (and my 3 boys as well) and I've gotten it for 3 years.

VickiS

I agree with one of the previous responses! Take Daddy to work and you get the car. At least a couple of days a week! You could also look for a local MOMS Club chapter in your area. I joined the one in Weatherford in July and have made several friends already. Once you get some friends estabished, you could probably catch a ride to things with people, or just work it out so you have the car that day. There are a couple of Moms in our chapter that do that. We have about 2-3 activities on the calendar each week to do. Its great b/c my daughter gets to socialize with other kids and I get to socialize with other adults! There are children and moms of all ages in our group and most of the things we do are local and free or really inexpensive. Dues are pretty cheap as well! Here is the website for the National MOMs Club. If you don't see a chapter listed near you, email them and they will get you in contact with the one in your area. Many don't have their own websites yet! http://www.momsclub.org/index.html. If you live in the Weatherford area, contact me and I will get you more info on our group!

My 3yo Son and I love to do all kinds of crafts and we love to read books and make up great stories.

He loves to do what we call a "sleepover". We cover the living room floor in blankets and pillows and pick a movie and get a couple of snacks he doesn't get often like chips, popcorn, candy, popsicles, etc. and get a cozy and eat our snacks and watch the movie and sometimes fall asleep together.

I'll make pancakes and give him fruit slices or gogurts or small packets of honey or syrup and let him draw faces or build towers or whatever he would like on his pancakes then he has fun eating it while he makes it. it makes breakfast fun and last a little longer.

Chalk on the driveway is fun or if it is a rainy day we will do chalk on the garage floor.

If we are watching something on tv and he asks what is that we will go into the computer and explore the internet answering all his questions and watching funny videos or playing games on pbs.com.

We send e-mails or text messages to family and friends. he tells me what to say and I type. My husband 9and others) will even text me and tell me not to answer so they can return his message and he gets excited waiting for his voice mail or other responses.

I will mail out little color pages or fun $1 activity books to him every so often, he gets to check the mail and get an activity.

I know this is long, but I also know how hard it can be sometimes to enetertain a 3yo. HTH

Hi R.,

If you could take Daddy to work, maybe you do by now, we have a Lil Legends class where I work at Legends Martial Arts. It is a 30 min class Tues, Thurs, and Saturday. Its something for him to learn respect, responsibility and self esteem. We are located in Hurst. www.legendsmartialarts.com Let me know if we can help.

J. T.

We have bikes. My son likes to ride his bike, and I have one (with a trailer to pull my 15 month old in) and we go for bike rides. The trailer pulls two, so if I want, I can pop both of them in there and go for a ride to the park that's about 1 to 1 1/2 miles away. We have to cross a busy street, but if we go during slow times it's no problem. My son can ride his bike to the park, but he is usually too tired to ride home afterward, so I Find it's just easier to cart him down there myself. I find that certain areas are more conducive to bike riding than others, but you can almost always find a way to do fun things on bikes, even if it's just riding around the neighborhood.

When it's yucky outside, mine play games on the computer. There are a ton of websites, but we use pbskids.com and nickjr.com.

When the weather is nice, like it is right now, why don't you go for a walk around your neighborhood, or he could ride his bike or tricycle, or the neighborhood park? My kids love to be outside so we let them out as long as it is over 45 degrees and not raining, or less than 90 degrees in the summer.

Walks outside are always fun. Add a little scavanger hunt with it and make a list of things to find on your way.

My kids love to build "forts" inside. Just use chairs with blankets draped over them. My kids love to have "picnics" inside and bring their flashlights and pretend to be camping.

We also play "hide and seek" inside. Also, there are some age-appropriate games out there that are made more active (Candyland for example) that get them into the game. Look for them on the game aisle in Target or Walmart.

This never worked for my older son, but my younger son loves to "help" me clean. He helps with laundry, sweeping (ok he makes more of a mess, but loves it), etc. Three is such a great age, they are excited about EVERYTHING!! So just because it doesn't seem fun to you it probably does to him.

Oh yeah, my kids love to play in the tub. I'll let them play while I clean the bathroom. To my just turned 4 year old it's as fun as a pool in the backyard!!

We recently found rocks of all sizes, shapes and colors. I bought some orange, black and white paints at the craft store and we will be turning the rocks into jack-o-lanterns, ghosts & tombstones. You can do the same at Thanksgiving (make turkeys) and Christmas (make Christmas ornaments).

Also, on nice warm days like today, we still play in the sprinkler.