It is essential to keep children involved in right activities to boost their brain development. Here are 5 activities that can help to improve child’s brain development.Most of the brain development of a child happens between the first 3 to 36 months which is why this is the most crucial phase in the life of a child. As a parent there is a lot you can do to ensure that the
brain development of your kid happens at an optimum level and this guide will help you implement certain activities which will help towards that end.
Make Believe Games
Children are usually high on imagination and creativity and as they grow older they start losing out on these qualities. Take advantage of the fertile imagination of your toddler to introduce him or her to the exciting world of make believe. Camp with your children in the bedroom pretending that you are in a forest and there are stars in the sky.
When you indulge in such activities you unconsciously provoke your kids to conjure up different images, sights and sounds. This helps their
brains form millions of new connections and brain development is boosted automatically. The functions of planning, using working
memory, controlling impulses and focusing attention are four of the most important elements of brain power and the make believe games stimulate most of them.
Reading
Reading to kids even to unborn foetuses helps boost the
brain power. This because reading exposes the child’s brain to different sounds and with time the child learns to connect it with images and meanings.
In early childhood this word-to-image and meaning association happens really fast. The more you read to your child the faster the brain development happens and your child’s vocabulary will grow stronger. With slightly older kids you can try
reading and then making them explain what you have just read. This will encourage their power of comprehension and explanatory abilities to develop.
Mental Mathematics
It has been scientifically proven that mental mathematics has the amazing power to boost brain power up to 60% in adults provided that it is done regularly. Mathematics as a subject has tremendous importance in life and the best phase to introduce it is in childhood.
Ask your toddler to mentally add up numbers, solve simple numeric questions etc as this will boost their power of dealing with figures. Slightly older children can be asked to help with the supermarket bill checking, reading labels on the food packets (there are a lot of numbers there) and counting out fruits and vegetables. These simple activities will help your kids get proficient in numerical functions fast.
Blindfold Games
A good way to help the sensory functions of your children to develop is to play blindfold games with them. A simple game like putting in various objects like apples, spoons, cubes, pencils etc in a bag and then make the child recognize them just by feeling their outlines is a great way to boost the sensory function of the brain. Another game you can play is to ask your kid to close his or her eyes and then feed them various food groups which he or she has to recognize.
Cooking
Cooking is one activity which requires a lot of brain power and intelligence. Measuring out ingredients, determining what to put in when and then cooking things to a specific time requires specific skills like time management, numerical ability and prioritizing etc. ask your kid to spend time with you in the kitchen and give them tasks commensurate to their age and skill level. For very small kids it could be counting out vegetables while older ones can assist in baking, kneading and cooking.
With a little patience and perseverance and this guide it will be very simple for you to make sure that your child’s brain development happens at an optimum rate.
How do games help to improve brain development of children? Which games are beneficial for improving brain development of children? Which activities other than games help to boost brain development of children? Discuss here.
