As a parent, it’s your goal to raise your children to be successful and well-rounded adults. One key to education and success later in life is the ability to be a sound critical thinker.
Of course, the skill to be a critical thinker doesn’t just happen automatically. Similarly, creativity needs to get nurtured to grow in kids.
Are you wondering how to do this as a parent? Hoping to find some brain games for kids to help nurture their creative and critical thinking? You might even be wondering, what are brain games?
Read to learn about the eight best brain games for kids and the many benefits of brain games when they play them.
1. Memory Games
The premise of this type of game is to build the skill of memory and focus. The basic idea is that kids turn over a card and see either a picture or a word.
Then they turn over another card, hoping to match their previous card. If they match, they collect the cards. If they don’t match, they turn them back face-down.
The key is to pay attention and work on their memory skills, so if they don’t make a match or other players don’t, they can remember the cards that were shown.
Another nice feature of this game is that it works from young preschoolers up to older school-aged kids.
2. Blocks
Blocks, like regular square blocks? Yes! Blocks are the most basic and great creative toy for kids.
Again, the beauty of blocks is that they work for the youngest learner right on up.
The youngest learner can stack and sort and even learn colors and shapes with blocks.
As kids grow older and mature, blocks are genius for nurturing creativity. Dump the container of blocks and let the kids start building.
3. I-Spy Games
The beauty of an I-Spy game is that, in many cases, you don’t have to buy anything. You can start a game of I-Spy nearly anywhere, and it gets your kids to focus on what’s around them.
Not only does an I-Spy game enhance their focus, but it also nurtures language skills and spatial awareness.
It can start with something as simple as colors. One player says I-Spy something that is: Fill in the blank with a color. Then the other players can look around and try to find the object in question.
They might say, is it a strawberry? Is it an apple?
More advanced players can use questions to narrow down what the object might be.
4. Pretend Dress-Up Kits
First and foremost, kids love to play dress-up. Besides the candy, that’s why Halloween is always such a hit.
Kids get to become something or someone else and nurture their experiences while doing it.
When a child plays dress-up, they foster:
- Language skills
- Social skills
- Emotional skills
- Nurture their imagination
- Improve their understanding of the world around them
When your child participates in pretend play, you can ask open-ended questions to facilitate their creative play and get them thinking about the role they’re playing while dressed up.
5. Improvisation Games
This type of improvisation game also combines the best parts of storytelling.
Start a story with a few words. Then each person adds to the story with a few words. You can even do this with single words. One person gives a sentence story starter, and the story continues one word at a time.
This fosters a child’s attention span, creativity, language skills, and social skills. They must pay attention to the story they’re hearing and, at the same time, be ready to add in their part.
This can be silly and outrageous as each player has different ideas about where the story should go, which might make it even more fun for kids.
6. Suduko
Suduko is a great game for any child who knows their numbers. Depending on the child playing, it can be as easy or as difficult as needed.
The idea is that you can’t repeat any number in a boxed grid of 9 squares or in the row that goes up and down or across.
This game can nurture analytical thinking as kids try to puzzle out what numbers go into each open box.
A nice feature of this game is that it can be made easier by having more numbers already filled in or more challenging by having fewer numbers filled in.
7. Count the Shapes
Need a game for a long car ride? This one will keep kids thinking as they puzzle out the number of shapes.
Start with either a large triangle or a large square shape on paper. Then imagine the shape’s interior divided, so there’s more of the shape present.
Children need to see the overall and individual shapes on the inside. They also need to see how a series of shapes will make more of the same shape. With enough lines and divisions, this can get downright tricky to count all the shapes present.
8. Fluency Verbal Games
You can play a whole series of verbal fluency games to facilitate language skills, creativity, and quick thinking.
Here are some simple options:
In the Human Thesaurus game, you ask your child to name as many words that mean the same thing. For example, how many words can you name that show movement?
Not Three of a Kind is a game where one person names three things, and one of the objects doesn’t belong with the others. You might say strawberries, cherries, and peaches. Both cherries and peaches have pits, so strawberries don’t belong.
Raid Fire asks kids to name as many words as possible that start with a certain letter or fit into a certain category. For example, you could say you have 30 seconds to name zoo animals.
Each of these games facilitates critical thinking and language fluency.
Try These Fun Brain Games for Kids
Another nice feature of most critical thinking and brain games for kids is that they have little cost. You don’t have to make considerable investments to get your kids thinking critically.
At The Learning Experience, we care as much about helping your child grow creativity and critically as you do. Check out our area centers and get more information on our programs.
The Learning Experience – Overland Park West
13305 Pflumm Rd
Overland Park, KS 66213
(913) 814-3734
https://thelearningexperience.com/center/overland-park/?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=MyBusiness
