Three-Step Instruction Hunt

You give three instructions in one breath, and your child goes and does all three, in order, without help.

Age: 3 to 6, best at 4
Setup: 0 min
Play: 3 to 5 min
Materials: Nothing at all
Mess: None
You: You run it

Activity KG-A016

Nothing has been bought, prepared or laid out. The room is the material

3 year olds Talking, Reading and Writing Feelings, Focus and Getting Along Focus and Self Regulation Following Instructions Memory Calm and Self Control Start Right Now, No Preparation Five Minutes or Less Travel and Waiting Rooms Two Children at Once Burn Off Energy No Mess Nothing at All

What you need

Nothing at all. Your voice, and a room with things already in it. One of only two activities in the whole library that needs no object of any kind. This is the one to remember on a train, in a waiting room, and on the fourth straight day of rain.

How to set it up

Pick three things that are already in the room. A cushion, a shoe, the door.20 sec
Get down to her eye level and say all three, in one breath, once. 10 sec
Do not repeat it. Wait, and let her start. 5 sec
When she comes back, say what she did, in order, and stop there. 15 sec

What to say and what to do

Say

Put the shoe by the door, close the door, then come back and sit down.
Say it back to me. Only if she asks for it again.
You did all three. Afterwards, once, and then nothing.

Say the whole sequence once, at her eye level, then close your mouth.
Count the three on your fingers as you say them, then put your hand down.
Let her do them in the wrong order and finish. Correct nothing until the end, and then only by saying what happened.

Do not

Do not repeat the instruction when she hesitates. The gap is the activity.
Do not follow her round the room.
Do not add a fourth step because the first three went well. Add it next time.

What it looks like when it is working

She repeats the list under her breath as she walks.
He stops halfway, stands still for a second, then carries on. That pause is him retrieving step three, and interrupting it is the one thing that ends the round.
She comes back and reports what she did without being asked.
He asks for a harder one.

What to expect at each age

At three

Holds two of the three. Usually the first and the last, and the middle one goes. Does them in the order she remembers rather than the order you said.

Will not hold three unrelated steps reliably. Two is the honest expectation at three, and a three year old who manages three is not ahead of anything, she has just had an easy list.

Lasts 2 to 4 minutes, three or four rounds

At four

Holds all three most times if they are all in one room. Starts saying the list out loud on the way, which is worth noticing and not worth commenting on.

Will not reliably hold three steps that need her to leave the room and come back.

Lasts 4 to 6 minutes

At five

Three steps across two rooms, and can tell you afterwards what he did in the right order.

Will not yet hold a step with a condition inside it, such as bring the blue one if there are two.

Lasts 5 to 8 minutes

At six

Four and five steps, and much more interested if one of them is deliberately silly.

Very little is out of reach. At six the limit is interest rather than memory, so make the list funnier rather than longer.

Lasts 8 to 10 minutes, and he will want to give you one back

When it goes wrong

She only ever does the first thing

Three is at or just past the edge at three years old, and the first item is the only one that got stored before her legs started moving.

Drop to two for a fortnight. Then go back to three, with the third item within sight of the first, so the room does the remembering for her.

He asks me to say it again every single time

He has worked out that asking is cheaper than remembering, which is a sensible thing to have worked out.

Say it once more, then tell him that from now on you say it one time. Then hold to that. The next two rounds will be worse and the third will be better.

It turns into running and shouting

It is a hunt and the room is big. Mostly this is the design working rather than failing.

Keep it, but make the last instruction a slow one. Come back and sit down, or put it in my hand, ends the round instead of launching another lap.

She gets upset when she forgets one

She noticed that she failed. That is a good sign and an uncomfortable one, and both at the same time.

Say the two she got, in order, out loud. Do not name the missing one. Then give an easier round straight away and stop after it.

Making it harder

Four rungs. This activity has four in it and not ten, so there are four. Change one thing at a time: the number of steps, or the distance, or the condition, never two of them in the same week.

Rung 1 · typically 3

Two steps, one room

Ready when: This is the base activity. Start here.
What changes: Two instructions, both about things she can see from where she is standing.
New difficulty: None. This rung exists so she finishes the first one she is ever given.

Rung 2 · typically 3 to 4

Three steps, one room

Ready when: She does two in the right order, twice running, without you repeating them.
What changes: One change only. Add a third instruction, with everything still in sight.
New difficulty: The middle step is the one that goes. Expect first and last for several weeks and do not treat it as a failure.

Rung 3 · typically 4 to 5

Three steps, two rooms

Ready when: He gets all three in one room, in order, and stops asking you to repeat them.
What changes: One of the three is in another room, so the list has to survive a doorway.
New difficulty: Doorways cost a step. He will arrive in the kitchen and stand there looking at nothing. Do not call out the answer.

Rung 4 · typically 5 to 6

A step with a condition in it

Ready when: She crosses a doorway and comes back with the right thing on most rounds.
What changes: One instruction gets a condition. Bring the big spoon, not the little one.
New difficulty: Now the list has to be held and something checked against it at the same time. Wrong-object returns go up before they come down.

Stop after a round she got right, not after one she got wrong. Three or four rounds is plenty, and the fifth is usually the one that goes badly.

Is it safe

You run this one, and the only real job you have besides talking is choosing the route.

Look at the route before you start. A three year old running a list is not looking at the floor.
Do not put a step at the top of the stairs, on a worktop, or anywhere that needs climbing to reach.
Outdoors, keep all three items inside your line of sight.

No small parts Adult chooses the route

Why this helps

From the guide Claims on this page are inherited from our guide on how patience actually develops.

Holding three unrelated things in mind while your body walks across a room is the whole activity. There is nothing to buy, nothing to prepare and nothing to tidy up, which is why it is the one to remember when you have none of those.

Here is what you will actually see. A three year old holds about two. A five year old holds three and can tell you afterwards, in the right order, what they did. That is a description of children in general rather than a promise about yours, and nobody has tested whether this particular game changes anything at nursery.

Skill practised: auditory sequential memory

What it gives you is a free way to find out how many steps she can hold right now, which is genuinely worth knowing on its own. Saying the list once and then holding to it is the same advice as in the patience guide, for the same reason: what you do reliably matters more than anything a child is drilled on.

One a week, at your child's age

We publish one new three year old activity a week, in exactly this format. Several of them, like this one, need nothing at all. The one thing a written page cannot show is the twenty seconds where the adult says the list and then says nothing, which is the part everybody finds hard.

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Questions parents ask

Is two too young for this?

Usually. Most two year olds hold one instruction and lose the second on the way. Give one, let her succeed at it, and try two around her third birthday. Nothing is gained by running it early.

Can I do this in the car?

Yes, with one change. Swap fetching for touching: touch the window, then your knee, then say your name. Same three steps, nothing to unbuckle, and it works in a waiting room too.

Does it work with two children?

Well, and it is one of the few here that does. Give each child a different three-step list at the same time. Give them the same list and it becomes a race, which is fine but is no longer about remembering.

How often should we do it?

Three or four rounds, once or twice a day, for a week or two. It is a five minute activity and it goes stale faster than a tray does, so stop before it becomes a routine.