Julia Deering - The Playful Parent - 7 ways to happier, calmer, more creative days with your under-fives

Below, I’ve listed the main household chores. I’ve grouped them according to how frequently they might need to be carried out, but, of course, this varies in every home.

Everyday – or most frequent – chores:

Laundry Dusting Vacuuming Sweeping Washing up Dishwasher loading/unloading Setting and clearing the table Making beds Changing sheets Cleaning the bathroom Tidying up Putting rubbish in the bin Picking up after oneself Putting groceries away Cooking

Less-frequent chores:

Cleaning the car Defrosting the freezer Washing windows Garden upkeep Sorting out clothes – outgrown and worn-out

The Mary Poppins Approach

What better way to explain chores as a way to play than to refer to the wonderful cleaning queen and playful governess, Mary Poppins. Her take on how to get the chores done is brilliantly illustrated in the song ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ in which she tells us, ‘In every job that must be done, there’s an element of fun. You find the fun and – SNAP – the job’s a game. And every task you undertake becomes a piece of cake, a lark and a spree.’

So here are some adult-led spoonfuls of sugar – or rather, playful ideas – to help any household chore become a way to play for you and your little one. Remember to change the nature of the game or challenge every so often to keep it fresh for you and irresistible to your child. Of course, this is not a finite list – I hope these ideas will inspire you to think up your own playful ways to make chores less of a bore.

Laundry

Complete the laundry chores, with your child helping as best they can alongside, in the manner of robots or fairies, magicians or spies.

Make a game of dividing the laundry into piles of different types – colourful, whites and pales – ready for the machine.

Play the colour game – as you sort the laundry, give your child one particular colour to search for and collect.

Set playful challenges for you and your child – how fast can we sort the washing or load the machine? Can we do it faster than last time?

Play ‘What am I?’ – a great describing game as you sort, hang out or fold the clean laundry. ‘I am blue. I have buttons. I have long sleeves. I have cuffs. I belong to Daddy. What am I?’

Try the match the socks game. You could add to the challenge by seeing how quickly your child can complete the task, or by playing a song from a favourite CD or listening to a song on the radio to see how many clean and dry socks they can match before it finishes.

Sing a laundry-themed song to ‘move the job along’ like Mary Poppins does. You could sing ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’, but here are a couple of other suggestions to get you started and add some variety!

On a cold and frosty morning

(To the tune of Here we go round the Mulberry Bush)

This is the way we sort the clothes, sort the clothes, sort the clothes *

This is the way we sort the clothes

On a cold and frosty morning.

See them go round in the washing machine, the washing machine, the washing machine

See them go round in the washing machine

On a cold and frosty morning.

To be washed

Mummy’s found some blue trousers, blue trousers, blue trousers

Mummy’s found some blue trousers – to be washed.

Daisy’s found a white towel, white towel, white towel

Daisy’s found a white towel – to be washed

Set up a mini laundrette in the kitchen while the washing machine does its thing. Most small children will love to handwash dolls’ clothes in a bowl of warm soapy water. Put an old towel down underneath to prevent slips.

Let them have fun folding things – small towels, pillowcases and tea towels are great items with which to practise. Just don’t expect precision corners.

Secure a length of string at each end, to two chairs perhaps, at your child’s shoulder height and let them peg out the socks.

Get to know some laundry-themed stories to recount to each other while doing the laundry. Or your little one could ‘read’ you the story from the book itself.

Laundry-themed picture books

Here are a few of our favourites:

M rs Mopple’s Washing Line – Anita Hewett

B are Bear – Miriam Moss and Mary McQuillan

P ants – Giles Andreae and Nick Sharratt

T he Queen’s Knickers – Nicholas Allan

T he Smartest Giant in Town – Julia Donaldson

P addington: Trouble at the Laundrette – Michael Bond

M rs Lather’s Laundry – Allan Ahlberg

Dusting

Children, armed with their own cloth or feather duster, will love following you around, copying you while you dust. Best not to put any cleaning product on their cloth though.

Pop on a motivational tune and see if you can finish the room by the end of the song. Here are a few of our favourites:

‘Heroes’ – David Bowie

‘Take on Me’ – a-ha

‘Jump Around’ – House of Pain

‘Give it Up’ – KC and the Sunshine Band

‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ – Queen

Try singing this song while dusting a room; it’s adapted from the Disney film Peter Pan:

We’re following the leader

We’re following the leader, the leader, the leader