day 3 – chalk the floor

Your kitchen floor will look like a crime scene but kids love this one, and clean-up is easy. You need a stick of chalk.

Get down on the floor with the kids. Draw around the child’s body, moving carefully around fingers and toes, and taking your tickly time with armpits and other sensitive spots. Although tickling usually eventuates, learning to keep still is an outcome of this activity. Enjoy the opportunity to be close to your child, and name body parts as you make your way around: wrist, waist, cheek, chin – new words for younger kids.

Then it’s time to hand over the chalk so kids can add facial features and clothing, even wings, horns, etc. if the figure turns into a butterfly, dragon, Viking, Superman or something else. Children will soon want to arrange their bodies into different, or specific, shapes. They’ll also want to draw around you – embrace it, you get to lie down.

Cleaning up is fun too: kids wear socks or put rags or paper towels under their feet, and shuffle around. For extra fun, pull up some shuffle music on your phone. This activity works best on timber floors. Outside on terracotta tiles or concrete, clean up with a hose or just let the outlines fade.