- Think of the brain as a muscle – use it and it remains strong and nimble, but ignore it and it atrophies.
Here are some activities to help your kids stay mentally sharp8:
Exercise Perception: While eating dinner, challenge your kids to use their senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. For example, what ingredients are in the food? Or perhaps ask them to describe the room around them with their eyes closed.
Exercise Visuospatial Abilities: When you walk in an unfamiliar room with your child, ask them to take a mental snapshot and later try counting the number of people and where objects were placed throughout the room.
Exercise Structuralization: Time your kids as they put together a jigsaw puzzle as fast as possible and see if they can improve on their times week to week.
Exercise Logic: Play a variety of brain-challenging games with them – like checkers, chess, crossword puzzles and word games. Switch games regularly so you stay interested and the brain remains activated.
Exercise Verbal Abilities: See if your kids can make an anagram of the names of people they meet or think of a word that starts with the same two letters of a word they’ve just seen (e.g. material and magnet).
Easy, everyday mental exercises strengthen the brain, opening up receptors to improve learning. Make up your own brain games – just don’t forget to make them fun so your kids don’t get bored!
Resources
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LePoncin, M. (1990). Brain Fitness. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. |
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