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Sorting washing with toddlers

Household jobs like sorting out laundry can be a great conversation starter with your little one.

By chatting and interacting with your child, you might even make these chores more enjoyable.

Why chat to your child when sorting washing?

  • Naming items of clothing helps your child build their vocabulary.
  • Talking about who owns what clothes teaches your child about possession and sharing.
  • Describing the clothes together helps children build their knowledge of adjectives.
  • Chatting them through the steps allows them to practise following simple instructions.
  • Encouraging your child to sort clothes gives them a sense of responsibility.
Mum and daughter looking into a laundry basket.
Make a game out of what you're doing, like seeing who can match two socks quickest.

How to build learning into sorting laundry

Try letting your child take the lead in this activity.

Ask them to find certain items of clothing, like "mummy's dress" or "daddy's jumper". This not only challenges their problem-solving skills and helps their cognitive development, but also makes the activity more fun.

When you find the clothes, why not describe them together? You can talk about what colour the item is, whether it's rough, soft, thick or thin. There are lots of new descriptive words you can introduce during this period.

Ask them simple questions about some of the items of clothing in the laundry. For example, "when do we wear this hat?".

Why not ask your child to help with sorting the clothes?

An easy way to do this is to pick out socks and see if they can find the matching one. Or they could make piles depending on who the clothes belong to.

The more you repeat this activity, the more steps or instructions you can add. You could try adding a timer and see how many clothes they can sort in a time limit, or play a colour treasure hunt in your laundry basket.

If you get creative, there are loads of ways to turn this household chore into a really fun activity to play together.

Mum and daughter looking into a laundry basket.
Make a game out of what you're doing, like seeing who can match two socks quickest.

Language learning through everyday routines

Your everyday routine is the perfect opportunity to help build your toddler's language skills. Check out the list below for more inspiration on how to make magic out of your mundane tasks:

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