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Brain Development Activities that Fuel Your Child’s Growth
Playing might seem like it’s all just fun and games, but it’s actually learning in disguise! Certain activities can help your child discover things about themselves and the world around them. In fact, playing with your children can actually help them gain developmental skills as well as confidence, and even contribute to your child’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional wellbeing.
So without further ado, let’s play! Check out this list of activities that will boost your child’s brain development, secretly teaching them things while having fun. Some of them may surprise you.
Everyday Activities that Help Child Brain Development
Mealtime Talk
Sure we’ve all been scolded not to play with our food, but toddler-aged children love to explore their world through taste, touch, and smell! Discussing what’s sour or sweet or crunchy or smooth helps your child build skills in identification and categorization.
Doing Things for Themselves
Letting your children try to hold their own cups or spoons, brush their teeth, get dressed, and put on their shoes are everyday routines that help to not only build motor skills, but also confidence and a sense of independence.
Child Brain Development Activities That Make Learning Fun
Climbing on Things
Young children love to scale everything from staircases to coffee tables, and while there are plenty of places you’d rather them not hone their climbing skills, allowing supervised, safe climbing on soft furniture or playground equipment is a great way to help them develop balance and coordination.
Getting Dirty
Children and dirt are like peanut butter and jelly — they just seem to go together! Though you might have to give extra baths and do additional laundry, letting your kids play in dirt and mud — digging and dumping and unearthing rocks and bugs — can actually be quite beneficial in supporting their curiosity and helping them to learn about the natural world. Just watch them light up when you hand them a magnifying glass to see their discoveries up close!
Finger Painting
Talk about a sensory experience! Finger painting promotes creativity, allows your child to explore the world of art, and lets them see for themselves how mixing two colors together can make another. Adding sand or rice to the paint even helps them learn about textures. Best of all, you end up with a keepsake work of art you can frame and cherish forever!
Blowing Bubbles
If you have a young child, you can never have enough bubble solution! How in the world does blowing bubbles boost brainpower? Believe it or not, creating a bubble mixture and using it to make bubbles gets children thinking about science, creativity, and even math! Haven’t we all wondered how it works?
Whether you use a plain bubble solution, or you pump up the fun by adding color or glitter, grab a wand and let the brain development begin!
Dancing and Singing to Music
Besides being a great physical activity, dancing to music promotes motor skills, balance, and coordination, and with any luck, uses up some of your child’s endless energy! Singing along with the songs also stimulates the brain and aids in listening and language skills.
Building Forts
There may be nothing more irresistible to young children (and frustrating to parents) than the gathering of every pillows and blanket in the house to build a fort. Don’t be too quick to invade their castle to retrieve your items, though. Building forts help children develop spatial awareness, as well as planning and problem-solving skills.
Scribbling
Obviously, you don’t want your child to take a crayon to your walls, but giving them the chance to scribble on a piece of paper or coloring book helps to build fine-motor skills and the hand-eye coordination it takes to write and draw.
Interactive Games
Guessing and memory games, as well as games like Follow the Leader and Simon Says, help children build listening, concentration, and communication skills. Games can also stimulate the thinking process, as well as build association skills. Even better — let your child decide which game to play. Decision-making stimulates the brain, too!
Reading Books Together
Even before your child learns to read, holding a book and turning pages helps to develop gross motor skills, and reading to your child promotes language, communication, identifying, and listening skills, not to mention introducing them to a world of knowledge and information.
Early Intervention Can Help with Child Brain Development, Too!
There are so many ways to fuel your child’s growth and development. If you’ve tried these fun brain-boosting activities, but are noticing your child is not hitting milestones or seems to be progressing slower than expected, we’re here to help!
About Play offers early intervention services to help children with developmental delays learn and grow, while also providing families with the tools and resources to keep that learning and growth going strong. For more information, give us a call or contact us online today.
If you live in South Carolina and think your infant or child is experiencing developmental delays, we can help.
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