Ask HN: STEM toy for a 3 years old?

The three my daughter likes the most are:

+ Trains. Especially bridges and self-moving trains.

+ Cups. Water, sand, playdough, etc.

+ A robot that takes a series of instructions, and then you hit go. This is the most advanced, but she's worked out how to make it spin on the spot, and that is apparently hilarious.

Shrug my head. Be a responsible parent and let your kid enjoy their childhood. Play sports with him instead

This is actually a question I’m asking myself at the moment as well. I taught older kids (8-16) robotics for a while, and found the younger they were the more harmful failure scenarios were. If they failed, they would get frustrated and gradually disinterested. The more there was a defined success criteria that could be measurably achieved (or not achieved) the more obvious it was to them that they had no succeeded. The more it was just about play the better. Ideally failure states should be learning opportunities and kinda fun.

Littlecodr is awesome for that. It’s just a set of cards with instructions like move forward, turn left etc. get him to program you. It’s funny when the instructions lead you into a wall instead of between the door frame. Failure is fund

Some of the best stuff is also just dumb hands on stuff. Playing with cardboard glue and string. Making spaghetti towers. Folding paper planes. Magnets are awesome. Basically they learn from you, so the more time you spend together the better.

If your looking for low energy investment check out primo (primotoys.com). It’s little wheeled bot you program with simple physical tokens.

Osmo is also cool but I find the iPad platform derails their attention.

Littlebits is also cool, but the parts are a bit small for unsupervised play at that age.

Makeymakey is also rad.

Adafruits circuit python is awesome as well, but the play sessions would have to be quite curated. You could preprepare stuff and just do the wiring together with crocodile clips etc, but in all honesty maybe just a battery would be fine ;)

Looking forward to what pops up here :)

Wooden train set, blocks, those magnetic shapes that stick together, a sandpit, k'nex / duplo, an activity board (switches, hinges, moving/sliding bits etc. fastened to a piece of board), a water table with some buckets and things, play doh (home made is fine).

Also let him join in with things you do around the house (cooking? cleaning up the yard?) - just giving them something to carry so they can be part of it will make them so happy sometimes.

We got this one for our son when he was 3:

https://www.robotshop.com/en/code--go-robot-mouse-activity-s...

It's a great introduction to programming. You have to put in all instructions on the mouse to solve the maze. There's also cards with instructions that you can place on the board to make it even easier.

We also bought an IoT kit from from https://littlebits.com/ when he got older that we started to work on together.

The key here is to do it at a 3-year old level and that you do it together, it's not about finding the right solution or not. Be open to your kid's creativity and don't just follow the instructions.

Also, Magna-Tiles! https://www.lakeshorelearning.com/products/blocks-manipulati...

We bought a starter kit (pretty expensive I know) but my son has been playing with it for at least 1-2hrs a day for a year. They are part of every game he plays, whether it's a car race or playing with dolls.