Independent activities for 3 & 6 year old

[MomN]

I am looking for ideas for coloring books/mazes/scissor books/sticker book type activities for my 3 and 6 year old to do completely independently while I work with my older son.  They love these types of activities but I need stuff that again can be done completely without my help and that takes more than a minute.  Any specific books you can suggest?  I'm looking for quite a few so I can rotate them.  TY!

[wendyroo]

I've never had a ton of luck keeping my 3-4 year olds engaged in activity books for long.  It is hard since they can't read directions.

My kids do love hidden picture books.  My 3 and 4 year olds start with easy ones like this.  Then they level up to harder ones.

A recent obsession is Wonderbooks from the library.  They are books with an audio player mounted inside the cover so the kids can start them and flip through the pages as they listen (the audio signals when to turn the page).

My kids like Water Wow books.

Not a book/table activity, but I often set my 4 and 6 year olds up with a set of dominoes and challenge them to string them into a long train with all matching connections.

I print a lot of mazes and other activities here and here.

My 6 year olds have all loved the series of Star Wars math books.

For my preschoolers, I often just buy them any stray workbooks I find at the thrift store.  Since they can't/won't follow the instructions independently anyway, then it doesn't really matter what the workbook is actually teaching as long as it feels like big kid school.

Cutting pictures out of magazines is always fun and good scissor practice.

My 3 year olds like opening junk mail.

Mostly, once my 6 year old is done with school, I send him and the preschooler off to play.

[Lori D.]

Not books/workbooks for the 3yo, but additional ideas for keeping them busy:

For the 3yo:
Tub of water with bubbles on the tile floor or back porch, with kitchen utensils to play and wash -- or make it a "car wash" or a "toy wash".
Leap Frog videos
stickers -- Dollar Store pack of stickers with hundreds of stickers, and let child stick them onto a big sheet of construction paper
bingo markers and making "dot pictures" on paper
magnetic drawing board
set of wooden blocks for building
using bowls, pots and pans, kitchen utensils: mixing and stirring, stacking, putting in and dumping out
Big Pre-School Workbook (ages 3-5)
busy bag activities at the old Paula's Archives website -- these are Wayback Machine snapshots of the website, since it no longer exists.

possibly for both 3yo and 6yo simultaneously:
- listen to an audio book
- watch Zaboomafoo or other young children's show on PBS
- work with clay or play-doh

For the 6yo:
- Big Mazes and More
- sticker books
- Dover little stained glass coloring books and markers
- dot to dot activity books
- paint with water activity books
- hidden picture puzzles
- 30 minute turn with an educational computer game or app
 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Lori D.

[Zoo Keeper]

I print off mazes from this site https://krazydad.com/mazes/

and there are other puzzles free for the printing as well...https://krazydad.com/

and this site has enough coloring pages to please lots of ages and abilities.  http://www.supercoloring.com/

Edited April 17, 2020 by Zoo Keeper

[Rachel]

Fill the sink with water, give them a couple cups and maybe a strainer.  When you dry up your floor, it will be cleaner than it’s been in a long time. 😊  You may just want one kid doing this at a time.

[Rachel]

Kuman has good maze books. Instead of writing in the books, I have my kids a button to push through the maze. 

[drjuliadc]

The following are all three year old things.

Another vote for Water wow. Wooden puzzles. Sensory bins or black beans in a container on top of a cookie sheet (to contain overflow) and measuring spoons and cups worked for one of my kids. It wasn’t independent for the other three.  Two of my boys would watch the washing machine work for 20 minutes through the window on the top if I set them up with a step stool to reach. Our washing machine has a child lock.

I was able to get two of my three year olds to do readingbear.org independently.  I only tried with three of them though. One had figured out phonics before I got around to it. One wasn’t interested. I would use that AFTER they know their letter sounds though. I taught letter sounds very, very early with preschool prep letter sounds dvd and leapfrog letter factory and leapfrog phonics farm.

[MomN]

These are all great ideas!  Thank you!  I am going to make a list and rotate these activities each day.  

[sweet2ndchance]

When I had littles that age, we had several tubs of toys that only came out during school time. I rotated which tub came out so they stayed fresh and new. You don't have to go out and buy new toys, just quietly put some of the toys they already have in a tub. Then bring them out a few weeks later and they will be like new toys to them.

I also wasn't above putting on some NickJr or PBS kids for them at that age. Leapfrog videos were good too.

[Sarah0000]

My 2.5yo will cut and color or draw for an hour. Kumon, paper dolls, various types of pens and markers, and coloring and tracing books are best for him. My 5yo likes paper dolls, coloring books, and drawing instruction books.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

The things that kept my kids busiest the longest at that age were not books, though we did like the Kumon cutting books.  They were:

A big, relatively shallow rubbermaid container filled with rice.  I'm realizing now might not be the best time to buy 10lbs of rice, but if you can, it stays surprisingly "clean".  I had the same box of rice for 10 years with no issue.  Throw some little sandbox type toys in there, and put the fear of God into them about throwing or intentionally spilling rice.  Set the box in the center of a king size sheet, and let them play.  So much easier to clean up than sand.  

Play dough of some kind on a safe surface

water color on a safe surface.  Don't use cups for the water, use something like a baking dish that cannot be spilled by accident.

Mosaic art- Pre-tear little bits of construction paper from the scrap bin into pretty small pieces, then print out some very basic coloring pages or just blank paper.  Kids use the torn paper scraps and a glue stick to fill in the coloring page or to make their own design.  

3 and 6 year olds can also be trained to do quiet time in their beds with a few books of their choice.  Set timers, use stickers as rewards, but be absolutely consistent with the "quiet time" and you will be rewarded with peace and quiet.  

 

 

[2_girls_mommy]

Haven't read all of the answers, but just on the books- look at the Dollar Tree. They had several series with stickers that go in the right places and others that my ydd loved from the age of two and up. there are so many fun learning books there  with all kinds of stuff. Most they won't need you much. 

[Bronze]

We got a bunch of coloring books at the dollar store and got several cheap watercolor paint sets; my kids seem to like painting better than coloring. The novelty may wear off eventually but we've been doing this several times a week for about a month.