Skill shelf · feelings, focus and holding steady · 3 activities
Feelings, Focus and Getting Along
Three activities where the thing being practised is holding steady: naming a feeling, going slowly on purpose, and keeping three instructions in your head.
The mirror one takes about three minutes and is meant to. Six faces drawn with a marker, both of you in the same mirror at the same height, and the feeling named as a statement rather than a question, because a question turns it into a test in one line. Copy her face back before you do anything else. Being copied is the warm half of it.
The other two work by leaving a gap. Walking a tape line is a two year old deliberately choosing slow feet, and the thing that produces slow is carrying something, never the word slowly. The three-step hunt is three instructions said once, in one breath, at her eye level, and then your mouth closed. When she stops halfway and stands still, that pause is her retrieving the third step, and filling it is the one thing that ends the round.
So the common instruction across all three is the same, and it is a hard one: say it once and then be quiet. If you want the activities grouped by what they build instead, there are pages for patience, calm and self control and empathy that pull from the whole library.
The three
Ordered by the age each suits best. All three cost nothing, and one of them needs no object at all.
- Walking the Balance Line Your child walks the length of a strip of tape stuck to the floor, slowly, and then turns round and walks back. 2 min · under 5 min · household only
- 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
- 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
The instruction hunt is the one to remember on a train, in a waiting room, and on the fourth straight day of rain.
Where the waiting is built into something else
A lot of this work happens inside activities that look like something else entirely, and it happens better there, because the child's attention is on the interesting part. These five all ask for patience while something more appealing is going on: a whole body going quiet to keep a coin still, a partner's voice trusted with the eyes shut, a pair of tin stilts that asks for several goes before it goes anywhere, a jug that has to be refilled without comment, and ten pots that only give up their answer to somebody who keeps picking them up.
- Water Pouring and Transfer Your child pours water from one small jug into another, and then back again, and again, until the table is wet. 3 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Balance Board Coin Steady Your child stands on a board that rocks slightly and tries to keep a coin still on the back of her hand, which means the whole body has to go quiet. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household, or a bought set
- 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
- Weighted Pod Sorting Your child picks up two pots that look exactly alike, decides which one is heavier, and keeps going until all ten are in pairs. 15 min, once · 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