Families with young children are accustomed to having their children come home from school, eat a big lunch and then take a nap. Your feisty baby has been up all night and is bored.

Does this circumstance ring a bell? Do you think a lot about how to deal with him or her in a positive way?

Here are some tips and techniques to help young people focus on their work and encourage their cognitive development. What better way to foster the bond between parents and children than playing games that stimulate the child’s brain?

It is abundantly obvious from a well-known comment from the esteemed educator Maria Monterssori that when kids are encouraged to look around them, “making use of all that he finds around him, molds himself for the future.” As a result, we discover that engaging in activities that let kids use their senses helps them further develop and promote a more distinct logical and analytical justification.

Early experiences affect the way a child’s brain develops, whether they are positive or negative.Although every child is born with their own uniqueness, environmental influences can also have a significant impact on how a child’s brain develops. What we know about the nature vs. nurture debate is that while genes are inherited, environmental variables have an impact on how people grow cognitively. It is now known that intelligence is a product of a mix of nature and nurture.

It is ideal for parents and teachers to promote aspects of nature and nurture at home as well as at school for the best possible brain development.

The brain of a child develops more quickly between birth and age 5 than at any other point in life. Many crucial, higher-level skills, like motivation, self-control, problem solving, and communication, require connections that are either developed during these early years or not at all.

Even if memory is not entirely formed during infancy, the early years of childhood (from birth to age 8) are crucial for acquiring and developing memory. Understanding memory growth offers a fresh approach to making plans for your day.

Here are some of the best games and activities that I have successfully utilized both at home and in school to support and boost cognitive development, drawing on my personal experience as a parent of a 14-year-old and a preschool teacher for the past ten years.

Blocks – Construct it!

Children aged 2 to 4 are best suited to this game.

Since the dawn of time, blocks have been the most fundamental brain activities for children and have remained a staple in the “toy-sphere”—and there’s a solid reason for that.

Ways to Play-

Just introduce your toddler to blocks in a variety of colors and sizes. Give your kid free rein to explore the blocks and use their creativity.

Your child’s growth is exposed in all areas, including creativity, spatial awareness, form and color identification, and much more.

For younger children, you can start with simple color and form blocks, and for older kids, you can move up to Legos or other types of abstract construction blocks.

Use blocks to make simple patterns, then have your toddler try to imitate them. Blocks have been the most basic brain game for kids since birth.

I spy games – I spy… children’s mind games

Children aged 5 to 12 are best suited to this game

Scavenger hunts and classic games like “I Spy with My Little Eye,” “Rahul  Says,” and “I Spy…” are enjoyable ways to exercise your brain.

It is proven that children who play these games for brain development are better at paying attention, following directions, improving their language skills, and possessing a greater sense of spatial awareness. Children (and adults!) love “Where’s Waldo” books because they help develop your child’s cognitive systems by teaching them how to search for a specific object in a chaotic environment.

Scavenger hunts are easy to customize, and they can keep kids occupied for hours.

WHAT IS MISPLACED? / Memory Recall (Visual, Auditory, Tactile)

Put a tray with various household goods on it (the more items, the more challenging the game so for younger children start with just 3-4 items and increase from there).

Tell your child to examine the items on the tray in detail. Call them all by name (the more you discuss the items the more likely your child is to remember them so you could ask them what color or shape (Each item is or serves a specific purpose).Wrap the objects with a towel. As they do so, take one thing out from under the cover while asking your child to close their eyes. Ask them to open their eyes, take off the cloth, and describe the missing item for you! Alternatively, request a list of the things.

For those who learn best visually, this game helps to stimulate visual memory. For auditory learners, it can be changed so that you name the objects or words instead of having them displayed. The student must pay close attention while listening and recall as (in the same order to make it more challenging).

By passing objects (in each hand) around a circle and feeling each one, agreeing on a common name, then recalling and listing all the objects, it can be customized for kinesthetic learners.

Puzzle Your Brain to Keep It Busy!

Children aged 2 to 8 are best suited to this game

The whole family can have fun with puzzles! Puzzles are fantastic brain-training activities because they are an excellent method to help your child improve their spatial awareness, coordination, problem-solving, cognitive, and fine motor skills.

For younger children, there are tangrams and board games to pick from, and older kids (and adults) can enjoy Scrabble, Sudoku, crossword puzzles, logic games, and even Rubik’s cubes! Puzzles are guaranteed brain teasers at any age!

Idea for a homemade puzzle: Arrange popsicle sticks in a row and attach copies of family photos to the sticks. Cut between the popsicle sticks with a cutter.

A Memory Game

A traditional game involves matching graphic cards. It is a memory-based game, and the person with the most pairs of cards and the ability to recollect where the cards are is the winner.

We started playing memory games when my kid was two years old because she was already pretty familiar with ideas like animals and their young and animals and their habitats. We would place the cards with the animal images turned upside down on one side. Pictures of animal habitats, young animals, and food choice cards would be placed upside down on the opposite side. She had to remember the card she picked during her turn as well as mine in order to find the appropriate pair. What a wonderful approach to improve recall and memory!

Later, this was expanded to include other ideas as well, including constructive behaviors, related items, etc. It’s simple to play a memory match game in preschool as well.