Clean the stairs

About this visual support

Say tidy the hall and the task spills out in every direction. Say sweep the stairs and it has a beginning, an end and a direction. The staircase is an unusually rewarding chore for children who need to see how much is left, because each step is a small surface that gets finished on its own. At the same time it asks something of the body: standing steadily on a step, holding the broom with both hands and not treading in what was just swept together.

The picture shows a boy with curly hair sweeping the stairs with a long broom, with the dustpan placed at the top. The visual support makes the order clear without you having to explain it every time. Start at the top, sweep each step towards the edge and gather everything at the bottom. With the picture on the fridge or among the week's chores, your child knows what the task involves before the broom is even out.

A tip is to count the steps together the first time, so your child knows the stairs have, say, twelve steps and can follow how many are done. That turns an otherwise vague chore into something concrete and measurable. In Routined you can add Clean the stairs to the week's chores with a picture and a tick, and the app can be tried for 14 days at no cost.