What a lovely age and a fun little one you have on your hands. Above all, please let your mantra be to follow the child. In terms of stimulation and nurturing interests, it's difficult to go wrong with interest-led activities.
That being said, a prepared environment or an enthusiastic parent-playmate can be a tremendous boon to an inquiring little mind.
You may be surprised at the degree to which physical and mental stimulation are interchangeable. Puffin suggests physical activities. I second this. With my DS, a good 2-3 hours of active, energetic physical play or exploration each day helps take the edge off some of the more insistent behaviors.
For activities, the sky is really the limit. Disregard age-norms on most activities or interests--except maybe the physical restraints, which tend to move more closely to lockstep with age. I'd suggest:
- Keeping a steady rotation of new reading material on hand, both fiction and non-fiction. If you have accessible shelving or bins in which to display the books, your child can guide the exploration and delve into new interests. Your library card will quickly become (if it hasn't already) more valuable than your credit card!
- Exploring museums, plays, musical performances, restaurants, cultural festivals, etc. as a way to explore new topics and new people. Being active in the community is a wonderful segue to friendships and passion projects as children get older.
- Encourage sport, for several reasons. Obviously health and team-spirit are two offshoots of sports involvement (and it doesn't have to be formal--it can be just a few neighbourhood children running around with a ball). But, for your child, combating perfectionism will be key. Sports are a great equalizer--there is always a new technique to be learned, even the most gifted natural athletes need to train to achieve elite status. It's great for humility and perspective. Cultivate that early and often. I'm convinced that resilience is more important than intelligence in terms of determining long-term outcomes for gifted children as they mature. (But that's anecdata, not data!)
- Music, for an interested child, can be an avenue to self-expression. You'll know from your child's cues whether this is appropriate now. Even if it's just singing and dancing together as a family, or your LO watching mum or dad play an instrument, it opens the mind to the possibility of musical expression.
- Languages, for the same reason as above.
- Building and disassembly. For mechanically inclined children, this might tend toward an engineering bent, a curiosity about life sciences, what have you... There are lots of great toys that foster fine motor skills and encourage creative thought. Some favourites for us at that age were Lego (just starting, still fiddly with fine motor until early 4ish), Magformers (there are now many me-too knock-off products that are much cheaper), Tinker Toys, straws and connectors, and Bunch'ems. Random collections of authentic tools and construction pieces can be fun for children to explore building with. DS LOVED helping his grandpa with designing and building a fence this summer.
- We recently bought a subscription to the Kiwi Crate/Tinker Crate products. They have a wide variety of age ranges. It's been a hit.
- Leverage YouTube and documentaries to the extent that interest dictates. Depending on where you live, I'd consult the website of your local public broadcaster. Their content tends to be more educational, and there are often online games/extension activities that further motivate interest.
- Incorporate learning into games you play. As you're walking through your neighbourhood, play games that involve word play, observation, hypothesis testing, observation, etc. On a brief walk around town you could:
1. Do a running count of a certain mark of car
2. Estimate the number of steps it takes to get from X to Y
3. Discuss why different features of bridges/buildings are chosen from a structural perspective, and the build your own models at home out of food to test different shapes/structures.
4. Track animals and observe evolutionary differences between different species.
5. Listen to a street busker and learn about a new instrument.
6. Talk about how a bicycle works as someone cycles by.
7. Make a running story where you alternate one word at a time to add to the plot.
8. Make up imaginary back stories to the activities of the people you pass.
As I said, the sky is the limit. My opinion is that the intellectual side takes care of itself in a gifted child exposed to a stimulating environment. What's important is to accentuate the "soft" life skills--humour, resilience, social graces, curiosity--that will stand your child in good stead as time goes on.
Celebrate failures as learning opportunities. I saw perfectionism's ugly head with DS when he was 3ish and consciously started to ratchet up the difficulty of some things we were doing so that failure was inevitable. Then we'd gleefully celebrate a failure as the best way to learn. Better to learn how to fail and persevere at 3 than at 15...or later!
And, most of all, have FUN! These years and children are precious and a real gift to their parents.
