A Sweeping Lesson

Sweeping is one skill I have struggled to teach my children. Recently I told Dash that his job was to sweep around the table. He was quite distressed: "I can't do it!" Fortunately, a stray roll of blue painters tape was in the kitchen. I taped a blue square around one laminate "tile" on the floor. "Sweep into the square," I told him. With only a little more coaching, he swept some crumbs into the square, then into the dustpan. Hurray! Another chore option in the making!

Follow-up: I'm afraid the square made more of an impact than the experience. Silly me for leaving that tape in children's reach. Now we have a whole hopscotch design on the kitchen floor. How am I supposed to tell them to sweep into that?