Table of Contents
- 1 What’s The Best Tablet For A 3 Year Old – Our Overall Top Pick
- 2 Other Great Tablets For 3 Year Olds
- 3 Best LeapFrog Tablet For A 3 Year Old – The LeapPad Epic
- 4 Runner Up For The Best Kindle For A 3 Year Old – The Fire 7 Kids’ Edition
- 5 What’s Going On With Your 3 Year Old – Tablet Buying Guide
- 6 Final Thoughts
With all the choices available to you on the market, finding the best tablet for a 3 year old can be really overwhelming. From prices, to educational ability, you want to find the best one out there without breaking the bank. Below, you can find our top picks for the best tablets for three year olds currently available.
Having a three-year-old at home is both a fun and challenging time as a parent. From finishing up with potty training, to preparing your child for preschool, 3 is a very important age for growth and development. With that in mind, we’ve selected what we believe to be the top tablets for 3 year olds available based on educational goals, affordability, durability, and developmental goals.
What’s The Best Tablet For A 3 Year Old – Our Overall Top Pick
After trying out multiple tablets for 3 year olds, we’ve chosen the Kindle Fire HD 8 Kids’ Edition as the best tablet for 3 year olds in 2017. There are actually quite a few reasons for this choice.
Educational Content
First, you have access to a huge selection of free educational apps, games, videos, and books, thanks to the free year of Amazon Freetime Unlimited.
There are literally thousands of things to choose from, which means that your child will not quickly become bored, and thanks to the increased amount of memory available in the HD 8 Kids’ Edition, you won’t find yourself constantly deleting games and apps as many parents have in the past with previous Kids’ Edition Fire models.
Also, you can add a microSD card for additional photo and video storage in case you find the tablet running low on memory, or you’re wanting to have some entertainment available for your child on longer road trips.
On top of the educational content available inside of the Freetime App for free, you also have a massive selection of content available on the Amazon App Store under parent mode. Our top recommended educational app for younger children, ABC Mouse, is available on the Amazon App Store, and can quickly be added to your child’s account by assigning permission to it from your own account.
Video Entertainment
If your 3 year old is not going to be entertained by the tablet, then it will probably end up in the pile of never-used toys somewhere in the recesses of their room. Thankfully, you’ll never have to worry about that happening with this tablet.
With access to hundreds of age-appropriate videos inside of Amazon Freetime Unlimited, your child will be able to watch hours of shows featuring their favorite characters such as Mickey Mouse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Caillou, My Little Pony, and much more.
On top of the video content inside of Freetime Unlimited, you can also access streaming video apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. I really wish that this tablet had been available when my kids were younger as I know that Netflix alone would have entertained them for hours.
One downside to note with the Amazon Prime Video service however, is that it is only available while in parent mode and access can not be given to children inside of Freetime. Hopefully this will be changed in a future update to the Amazon Freetime software.
Apps & Games
Once again, thanks to Amazon Freetime Unlimited, your 3 year old is not going to become bored as they have hundreds of apps and games available to them for free. Many of these titles are specifically geared toward the developmental goals of preschoolers which will help your child be more prepared for preschool, and as they grow older, kindergarten.
Once again, having access to the Amazon App Store in parent mode will allow you to add on even more popular games and apps such as Minecraft and ABC Mouse. Thanks to the impressive quad-core processor inside of the HD 8, your child will have no problem playing the titles they really want.
It’s important to note that apps and games can only be accessed from the internal memory of the tablet. This is where the HD 8 Kids’ Edition really shines as it has an impressive 32GB of memory on the tablet itself.
With that much memory, you won’t have to worry about constantly dumping apps as many parents, myself included, have in the past. In previous models, the maximum amount of available memory was only 16GB.
Durability
Let’s face it, most three year olds are pretty rough with their toys. Thankfully, this isn’t an issue with the Kindle Fire HD 8 Kids’ Edition.
First, you have the sturdy design of the Kindle Fire HD 8. These tablets are fairly durable on their own, and I speak from personal experience in saying that I’ve dropped my non-kids’ edition several times on carpeted floors without a protective case, and thankfully haven’t had any issues.
There’s even a little bit more protection when it comes to possible breaks and damages because the Kid’s Edition of the Kindle Fire HD 8 has an included rubber foam case,. Even with all of this protection however, accidents do still happen, and thankfully, this is where Amazon has really made their Kids’ tablet lineup shine above the rest.
This is because they have a 2 year worry free guarantee that literally states that they will replace the tablet if anything happens to it for any reason whatsoever.
If your 3 year old leaves the tablet outside or spills milk on it, you’re covered. If it gets stepped on in the middle of the night because it was left in the floor, you’re covered. Honestly, this warranty was the final tipping point for making the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids’ Edition not only my pick for the best tablet for 3 year olds, but also the overall best tablet for kids.
Parental Controls
This becomes an issue with apps such as YouTube, as your child can click on any video that they choose and watch it, so long as their isn’t any “mature themed” content inside of the video. Honestly, if this is a concern that you have, as I did, you can quickly disable the internet browser altogether, and simply not install the YouTube app.
By doing this, you can limit your child to only having access to the content inside of Amazon Freetime, which will limit any unapproved videos and websites from their access.
Also, with the new generation of Kindle Fire Kids’ tablets, a new service has been launched by Amazon called the Amazon Parent Dashboard. Inside of the dashboard, you can create child profiles, and see exactly what your child has been doing on their tablet.
If you have multiple children at home, you can set profiles up for each child and quickly switch between them inside of the Parent Dashboard.
Another great feature of the dashboard is included interactive cards that provide you with questions relating to the content that your 3 year old has been consuming. In my opinion, this is a great way to allow for engagement with your child while also teaching them how to recall information that they have consumed from content on the tablet.
Other Great Tablets For 3 Year Olds
As previously mentioned above, I’ve actually tested many other great tablets for three year olds while choosing the Kindle Fire Kids’ Edition as my top pick. The tablets listed below are all worth taking into consideration if you’ve decided that the Kindle Fire Kids’ Edition just isn’t your cup of tea.
Best LeapFrog Tablet For A 3 Year Old – The LeapPad Epic
This tablet features a very impressive library of age appropriate titles that any 3 year old is sure to enjoy. Also, just like the Kindle Fire Kids’ Edition, you can access the Amazon App Store inside of parent mode and add many more games and apps.
It will also allow you to use services such as Amazon Prime Movies as well as Netflix for hours of entertaining and educational videos.
Why Did The LeapPad Epic Not Make The Top Spot?
Unfortunately, this tablet is fairly limited in the amount of available age-appropriate free content. If you’ve ever owned a LeapPad tablet in the past, then you’re most likely familiar with the average price tag of $20 per title when purchasing LeapPad cartridges.
Even though most titles for the LeapPad Epic are available online through LeapFrogs’ App Store, you don’t really see any discounts for the software, even though you no longer have to have specific physical cartridges in order to play many of the titles available for the tablet.
One other thing that really dropped this one out of the top spot as the best tablet for a 3 year old; was the fact that it only comes with a 1 year limited warranty. When compared to the Kindle Fire HD 8 Kids’ Edition, this was a deal breaker for me personally.
With that said however, the parental controls on the LeapPad Epic are second to none, and include a kid-friendly web browser that will allow your child to have a little bit of freedom browsing online while you can rest assured that they will not be accessing inappropriate content.
Runner Up For The Best Kindle For A 3 Year Old – The Fire 7 Kids’ Edition
This is because while all of the core features are the same in both tablets, the price difference of $30 is minor when compared to the two major differences in the tablets.
For starters, the HD 8 is a bit bigger than the 7 which will allow for an easier grip and interaction for your 3 year old. On top of that, the HD 8 Kids’ Edition has a true HD resolution screen while the Fire 7 Kids’ Edition does not.
Also, the Fire HD 8 Kids’ Edition has twice the memory over the Fire 7. This means that you can store twice as many games and apps on the HD 8 as you can on the Fire 7.
With that said, the Fire 7 Kids’ Edition is still a quality tablet that will give your 3 year old hours of entertainment through the Freetime Unlimited service, and also allow you to feel secure knowing that you have a 2 year worry free warranty should something happen to the tablet.
Best Nabi Tablet For A 3 Year Old – The Nabi Jr.
The Nabi Jr. is also a very impressive tablet when it comes to education. With the included Nabi Wings App, your 3 year old can progress through games that will help them develop reading, writing, and math skills as they’re ready. They’re also awarded with Nabi Coins as they meet different goals.
Why Did The Nabi Jr Not Make The Top Spot?
Unfortunately, even though the company continues to update the tablet, it still feels pretty dated. Back in 2015 when we first looked at this one, it was a very impressive model for what was offered. Now, sadly it feels very dated, and many of the original bugs that it had have never been corrected.
While I’ve personally never seen any issues, many users report that their Nabi Jr. tablets are faulty upon receipt. On top of that, there are numerous reports of the tablet failing to charge and the batteries overheating.
Also, this tablet has a very limited amount of memory. With only 8GB of onboard memory available, your child will quickly fill it up and be unable to install any additional games or apps.
The final straw for this one is the fact that there is very little free content available for it. After getting it all set up, you’ll find that you’re being charged small amounts for almost everything your child wants to do. All in all, while this one is the best Nabi tablet for a 3 year old, I’d personally recommend passing on it for one of the other tablets mentioned above.
What’s Going On With Your 3 Year Old – Tablet Buying Guide
Now that we’ve covered the top tablet picks for 3 year olds, let’s talk a bit about exactly what’s going on with your three year old as far as growth and development is concerned.
Personally, I absolutely love this age. I remember three being the curious age that my kiddos all asked some of the best questions, and said some of the funniest things that I’d ever heard. From asking the common stuff like why the sky’s blue and why I had to always go to work, to funny moments like the time I was told that the Lion King was a sad movie because of “stampeding cantaloupes.”
It’s a wonderful age, and you can really start to see the transition from toddler to preschooler in your child.
Educational Goals For 3 Year Olds
As your child begins to really prepare for preschool, there are several cognitive goals that they will begin meeting. According to Healthy Children, some of these milestones include:
- Correctly naming some colors
- Understanding the concept of counting and may even know a few numbers.
- Approaching problems from a single point of view
- Begins to understand time
- Can follow three part commands
- Can recall parts of a story
- Understands the concept of same/different
- Engages in fantasy play
As you can see, there are quite a few milestones to be met by 3 year olds. Thankfully you’re there to help guide them along the way to meeting all of them.
How Can A Tablet Help Your 3 Year Old Meet Their Milestones?
Thanks to all of the technology that we have at our disposals now as parents, meeting the milestones that are given to our three year olds has never been simpler. When it comes to tablets, what you need to be looking for are ones that will allow you to monitor your child’s level of success, and provide you with a way to interact with them on tasks as well.
One example of this is the way that you can access question and discussion cards from the Amazon Parent site. By doing this, you can ask common questions that relate to stories that your child can listen to inside of Freetime.
Also, you can take advantage of numerous different counting games and apps to help them meet milestones related to math and numbers. Of course there’s also many different color related games that will help your 3 year old begin to understand and recall different colors and shapes.
As far as fantasy play is concerned, this tablet will help your child begin to develop more imagination than you ever thought possible.
Final Thoughts
As you can see above, there are a lot of different tablets to choose from when you’re trying to find the best tablet for a 3 year old. Hopefully, you can now choose the best one possible for your little one.
If you still have any questions, or would like to leave a comment below, we truly do appreciate your feedback.