Painters Tape Floor Balance Track

Your child walks a line of tape stuck to the floor without stepping off it, then does it again carrying something.

Age: 3 to 6, best at 4
Setup: 4 min
Play: 10 to 20 min
Materials: One substitute needed
Mess: None
You: Stay in the room

Activity KG-A055

Four metres of floor, one roll of low-tack tape, and a cup with an inch of water in it

4 year olds Balance and Whole Body Movement Balance and Coordination Body Awareness and Position Sense Confidence Persistence Following Instructions Burn Off Energy Rainy Day Indoors Two Children at Once Costs Nothing No Mess Tape, String and Rope Jars, Boxes and Containers

What you need

One thing here is not in every house, and the substitutes below are real ones rather than consolation prizes. Ribbon works. Chalk, if you are outside, works better.

A roll of painters tapex1 Or: masking tape. Or a length of ribbon or wool, taped down at both ends only. Or chalk, if you are outside. Painters tape is the low-tack blue kind. It lifts off a wooden or laminate floor cleanly after several days. Parcel tape does not, and that is the one mistake on this page that costs money.
Something light to carryx1 Or: a beanbag, a book on a flat palm, or a spoon with a satsuma on it. A cup with an inch of water in it is the best version, because the water reports the wobble before you do. It has to be light enough that the arms do not become the activity.
Two cushions or an upturned boxx2 Or: two folded towels. These are the obstacle on the third rung. Anything softer than the child will do.

How to set it up

Clear a strip of floor about four metres long and move everything off it.60 sec
Lay one straight line of tape down the middle, pressing it flat as you go.90 sec
Add one curve and one zigzag at the far end, so the line does not just stop.60 sec
Walk it once yourself, heel to toe, then step off and sit at the far end.30 sec

What to say and what to do

Say

Get to the other end without touching the floor beside it.
That was a wobble, not a fall.
You went the whole way. At the end, once.

Walk it once yourself, slowly, heel to toe, and then stop demonstrating.
Sit at the far end rather than beside him, so he walks towards you instead of past you.
Let him invent his own rule. Backwards, sideways, on one foot. It will be a better rung than anything you would have picked.

Do not

Do not hold his hand along the line. The arms are how he balances, and you have just taken one of them.
Do not count out loud. It turns a balance activity into a race against you.
Do not re-stick the tape when he peels a bit up. Leave the gap and watch what he does with it.

What it looks like when it is working

The arms come out sideways without being told.
He slows down at the curve rather than at the start.
She is looking at the end of the line instead of at her own feet. That is the single change worth watching for, and it usually arrives around five.
He reaches the end, turns round, and does it again without being asked.

What to expect at each age

At three

Walks the straight line with feet either side of it about as often as on it, arms out, at speed. The curve gets walked over rather than along.

Will not do heel to toe. Do not ask for it at three, and do not read anything into it.

Lasts 5 to 8 minutes

At four

Stays on the line most of the way, slows for the curve, and turns round and does it again. Starts carrying something without being asked to.

Will not manage heel to toe and a carried object at the same time. One or the other.

Lasts 10 to 15 minutes

At five

Heel to toe along the straight, and can carry a cup of water down it without watching the cup the whole way.

Will not go backwards through the curve without stepping off it.

Lasts 15 to 20 minutes

At six

Backwards, sideways, eyes fixed on a point, and inventing rules faster than you can add them.

Not much is out of reach. At six the interest runs out before the difficulty does, so hand the tape over and let him design the track.

Lasts 15 to 20 minutes, in bursts across a day

When it goes wrong

He just runs down it

A straight line on the floor is a runway, and running it is more fun than walking it. He is not ignoring the instruction, he has found a better game.

Give him something to carry. A cup with an inch of water in it slows a four year old down more effectively than any sentence you could say.

She keeps stepping off and does not care

The line is too easy, too long, or both, so there is nothing lost by stepping off it.

Shorten it to two metres and narrow the task instead: heel to toe, or a beanbag balanced on the head. Length is the wrong axis to push on here.

The tape peels up off the carpet

Painters tape does not grip a deep pile and will not survive a second run across it.

Use ribbon or wool with a strip of tape at each end only, or move the whole thing onto a hard floor. Carpet is the one surface this activity does not like.

The two of them fight over who goes first

One line, two children, one start point. The argument is built into the layout.

Lay a second line parallel to the first, half a metre away. It costs another minute of tape and removes the entire problem.

Making it harder

Four rungs. Change one thing at a time. The most common mistake here is lengthening the track, which changes nothing except how long it takes.

Rung 1 · typically 3

A straight line, short

Ready when: This is the base activity. Start here.
What changes: One straight strip of tape, about two metres, on a hard floor.
New difficulty: None. This rung exists so the first walk gets finished rather than abandoned in the middle.

Rung 2 · typically 3 to 4

Add a curve and a zigzag

Ready when: He walks the straight line end to end without stepping off, twice running.
What changes: One change only. Extend the same line with one curve and one zigzag.
New difficulty: The curve is where the feet have to cross over, and crossing over is where children stop and look down. Say nothing while they do.

Rung 3 · typically 4 to 5

Carry something

Ready when: She walks the whole track, curve included, with her eyes up rather than on her feet.
What changes: Add one object to carry. A beanbag first, then a cup with an inch of water in it.
New difficulty: The hands are busy, so the arms cannot help. Expect the wobbles to come back for a week and do not shorten the track to compensate.

Rung 4 · typically 5 to 6

Heel to toe, and then backwards

Ready when: He carries the cup the whole way without stopping to steady it.
What changes: The same track walked heel to toe. Once that is easy, the same track walked backwards.
New difficulty: Backwards takes the eyes out of it, so the feet have to work alone. Everybody steps off at the curve for the first few tries.

Stop while he is still asking for another go, and leave the tape down. Almost every child comes back to a line on the floor by themselves later in the day, and that unasked version is the one that works best.

Is it safe

The line is not the risk. What is beside the line is the risk.

Clear the strip properly. The falls on this one are sideways and unplanned, and a coffee table corner at head height is the actual hazard here.
Socks on a wooden floor are a bad combination. Bare feet, or shoes with grip.
Do not raise the line onto a beam, a plank or a kerb. That is a different activity with a different risk, and this one gains nothing from height.

No small parts Adult stays in the room

Why this helps

From the guide The one developmental claim on this page, that the age range is very wide, is inherited from our guide on hands, pencils and the grip question, which carries the evidence on how wide motor ranges actually are.

Walking a line is one of the few whole-body activities where the child can tell whether it worked without being told. The tape is under the foot or it is not, and there is nothing for you to judge.

A four year old who cannot walk heel to toe is not behind. Heel to toe is a five year old's move in most children, and plenty of them arrive at six. The range here is far wider than most parents expect: in the study built specifically to measure how variable early motor milestones are, even the narrowest window of achievement ran more than five months across.

Skill practised: dynamic balance and foot placement

What it gives him is a line, a rule, and something to carry across it. He wants to do it, and that is reason enough. Handwriting and sitting still at the table are a different job on a different day.

One a week, at your child's age

We publish one new four year old activity a week, in exactly this format. This one is easier to watch than to read: the twenty seconds where a child crosses the curve, wobbles, and does not step off, is the whole thing, and a page cannot show it.

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Questions parents ask

Does this work in a flat with neighbours downstairs?

Better than most things at this age. Walking a line is quiet, and it is one of the few ways to use up a four year old indoors that does not involve jumping. Keep the track a foot away from the wall and it is close to silent.

Will the tape mark the floor?

Painters tape, the low-tack blue kind, comes off wood, laminate and lino cleanly, including after a few days down. Parcel tape and ordinary masking tape are both riskier. Test one strip in a corner first if the floor is old or freshly oiled.

Can I leave the track down?

Yes, and it is the best thing about this one. A line on the floor gets walked several times a day by a child nobody asked. Take it up when it stops being noticed, which is usually about a week.

My three year old wants to do it too

Let her, on the straight section, and expect feet either side of the line as often as on it. Do not ask a three year old for heel to toe. That is a five year old's move in most children.