4 Fun Activities That Help With Your
Child’s Brain Development
You might think that once your kid starts going to kindergarten or school, most of the work needed for their brain development will be done by the teachers there. However, this is a misconception, and actually, you still should play the main role.
As a parent, you know your kid the best, and you know what they need or what motivates them the best. Also, you shouldn’t wait till your kid is old enough to go to kindergarten to start with some activities that will help with their brain development.
You might think that this is a very hard task that will be unpleasant for you and your child, but we are here to help you by coming up with four fun activities that will make this process entertaining for both of you.
1. Communicate with your child
And when we say this, we don’t mean only simply asking them how they are doing, what they would like for dinner, or what they should or shouldn’t do. We mean to engage in deeper communication that in the beginning might be a bit hard since your kid is not used to it, but this is the wait to learn and help with their brain development.
Try to explain what you are doing when cooking or shopping, ask them what they think about certain topics, express feelings and emotions when watching a movie, talk about their favorite heroes and books, etc. Don’t limit yourself by looking for appropriate topics that will be easy enough. Challenge your kid, and like that, they will learn to think faster and express themselves better.
2. Help them learn new words
When talking about communication, we should definitely mention learning new words with your kids is another activity you should practice. This can happen in conversation, and when your kid cannot explain something, you help them, or you learn at the same time synonyms of some words.
You can also make it a game and try to practice coming up with words using different letters. For older kids, this can be perfect for also training to spell. If your kid has trouble in the beginning, you can allow them to use different helping tools like a word maker with letters. Like this, they can find many other words they haven’t thought about and enrich their vocabulary.
3. Read books and stories together
Kids love stories where they can let their imagination loose. So, find books that your kid will enjoy and try to make this activity more interactive. For little kids, this can be the first experience of learning to read, and if they are very interested in the story, they will be more than willing to put in the effort to find out what happens next. But also books can give you many topics of conversation. If you find a character that your kid adores, ask them why, what they admire in this character, what they would like to see what will happen next to them, etc.
The same goes for the heroes they don’t love. Use the stories as examples of what is good and bad, how they should act, and what they should do, and give them pointers on what they should learn from the book. Don’t use reading just as a means of helping your child to fall asleep. Use it as a way to stimulate their brain and imagination. This will be very fun for you because you won’t believe half of the things your little one will be able to come up with.
4. Play memory games
Stimulating your kid's memory is a great way to help them develop their brain. There are many different ones you can try out, and for some, you won’t even need any equipment. If you allow your kid to have some screen time, you can find many very fun games on your phone or tablet and play them together. It can be something like finding the matching pictures, memorizing the sequence of colors, finding the differences in two pictures, etc.
Or you can go even simpler and use things around you to train your child’s memory. For example, ask them to look around your living room at the beginning of the day, then make some changes around the room and ask them to spot what is different a bit later. Another option is to stimulate their brain development with photos of your extended family and ask your kid if they remember the people in the picture, who they are, to tell one memory with them, etc.
Conclusion
As you can see, those activities are enjoyable and will help your kid train their brain and develop at even a faster pace. You can spend a couple of hours a day or not even every day trying to practice new words, discussing exciting topics, or reading books. This will pay off in the long run because your kid will learn how to express themselves better, use their imagination, improve their memory, and much more.