Situation · different jobs in the same game · 8 activities
Two Children at Once
Eight activities with two roles in them, so a four year old and a seven year old can play the same thing without playing against each other.
Right now, with tape and a rope: lay a rope along the floor in a few curves, blindfold one child and let the other talk her along it. That is the Blindfold Rope Path Walk, and it has the role split built in. Two minutes to set up, five to ten minutes of play, then they swap and it runs again.
The principle behind the whole shelf is this: the same job at two ages ends in a comparison, and two different jobs do not. So the younger one walks the tape track while the older calls out what to carry. One builds the floor maze and the other draws it as a plan in the maze blueprint. One reads the three instructions aloud and the other runs them in the instruction hunt.
There is exactly one head to head here, the straw blow race, and it works because it is over in under a minute and anybody can win a ball across a table. Keep it to that. Mirror Feelings Copycat goes the other way entirely: two children copying each other's faces, with nothing to win at all, and it suits a two year old sitting next to a five year old.
For the pair that keeps ending in tears, the useful reading is cooperation and empathy, both of which are built out of turns rather than talks.
The eight
Ordered by the age of the child they suit best, which in a pair is usually the younger one. The older child takes the harder role in the same activity rather than a different activity.
- Mirror Feelings Copycat Your child pulls the face on the card, sees it in the mirror next to yours, and hears you name the feeling that goes with it. 2 min · under 5 min · cards you draw
- Straw Blow Ping Pong Race Your child blows a ping pong ball across the table through a straw, and races it to a strip of tape at the far end. no setup · under 5 min · household only
- Three-Step Instruction Hunt You give three instructions in one breath, and your child goes and does all three, in order, without help. no setup · 3 to 5 min · nothing at all
- Blindfold Rope Path Walk Your child follows a rope laid along the floor with her eyes closed, finding the turns with her feet while your voice tells her what is coming. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- 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. 4 min · 10 to 20 min · one substitute needed
- Balance Beam Coin Carry Your child walks a taped line heel to toe carrying a small stack of coins on a saucer, and discovers that the only way across is slowly. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Bucket Stilts Balance Track Your child stands on two upturned tins, holds a rope in each hand to keep them under her feet, and walks a taped line across the garden. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
- Maze Blueprint Mapping Your child tapes a maze onto the floor and then draws it on paper as a plan, or draws the plan first and builds to it. 2 min · 20 min or more · household only
Six of the eight are floor or garden games, so they want a cleared space more than they want materials.