Cleaning has never been so much fun as kids push their “Pick Up and ‘Count Vacuum,” while learning colors, counting and pretend play. My little three year-old friend loved running the vacuum over the colored dust pieces as her machine recognized the colors and called out, “Green, like a lime, yellow like a banana, Let’s clean. Keep going.” Switch from color to number mode for three games that teach number identification, counting dust pieces, and even some early subtraction. The third mode, pretend play, offers vacuuming sound effects and “Yay” and “Hooray,” to encourage our little clean-up pal. The colored lights and whirling balls add to the fun and animate the canister to make cleaning a delight. Kids get practice in following directions, as the vacuum, counts the dust pieces picked up, and an early introduction to subtraction, “Good, only 2 to go!” This smart vacuum blinked one of its colored lights and asked the child to pick up the matching colored dust piece. Following directions is such an important skill for entering school, according to many kindergarten teachers. After a wonderful clean up session learning number play, colors and following directions, our little friend finished the job singing the clean up songs lead by her vacuum cleaner.

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