10 Simple and Fun Activities to Boost Your Child’s Cognitive Development at Home
We all want our children to have the best start in life and cognitive development is a significant element of this. Cognitive skills are the mental processes that allow us to learn, think and solve problems. This can be our memory, language, reasoning and problem solving. Enrolling your child in classes and social groups is extremely beneficial for their development but their is a lot of small, simple things we can do at home to encourage the development of our little ones cognition. We’ve put together a quick and simple list of activities you can do with your child at home.
1. Building Blocks
How it helps: Building with blocks or LEGO duplo bricks helps develop spatial awareness, fine motor skills, and creativity. [Note: Do not buy regular sized LEGO blocks for little ones as they are a chocking hazard! Instead invest with their wonderful duplo range.] It also strengthens problem-solving skills as children figure out how to stack, arrange, and balance their creations.
How to do it: Encourage your child to follow a simple design or allow them to create freely. As they play, ask open-ended questions like, “How do you think we can make this taller?” or “What happens if we add another block?”
2. Memory Matching Games
How it helps: Memory games improve working memory, concentration, and attention to detail. These games help children practice recalling and matching pairs, a skill that is fundamental for learning.
How to do it: If you don’t have any matching games at home, you can create your own memory cards by cutting pictures from magazines or using a deck of cards. Start with fewer pairs and increase the difficulty as your child’s skills improve.
Here are a few memory games we love if you are willing to invest!
3. Puzzles
How it helps: Puzzles are excellent for enhancing problem-solving skills, hand-eye coordination, and concentration. They also help children understand patterns, shapes, and cause-and-effect relationships.
How to do it: Start with age-appropriate puzzles. You can also engage your child by sorting puzzle pieces by colour or shape before putting the pieces together. For little ones peg puzzles are always a great start.
Here are a few age appropriate puzzles
Toddler: Alphabet puzzle
Toddler: Dinosaur puzzle
Age 4+: Orchard Toys Dinosaur puzzle
4. Storytelling and Reading
How it helps: Reading and storytelling stimulate imagination, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. They also help develop language and listening abilities.
How to do it: Read together every day, using picture books, simple stories, or even making up your own stories. Ask questions like, “What do you think happens next?” or “Why do you think the character did that?”
5. Shape and Colour Sorting
How it helps: Sorting objects by shape, colour, or size teaches classification skills, which are essential for early math concepts like counting and categorisation.
How to do it: Gather a variety of colourful objects, for example blocks, buttons, buttons, and ask your child to sort them into groups. You can make it a fun challenge by adding a time limit!
6. Play “I Spy”
How it helps: "I Spy" improves children’s observation skills, vocabulary, and critical thinking. It also helps them learn how to categorise objects based on different attributes.
How to do it: Take turns saying, “I spy with my little eye something [colour/shape/letter].” The other person must guess what it is. This game can be played anywhere, whether at home, in the park, or on a walk.
7. Scavenger Hunts
How it helps: Scavenger hunts encourage problem-solving, memory, and critical thinking. They also build attention to detail as children search for specific items.
How to do it: Create a list of things for your child to find around the house. You can make it educational by asking them to find objects of a certain colour, shape, or size.
8. Drawing and Colouring
How it helps: Drawing and colouring not only enhance fine motor skills but also promote creativity, focus, and concentration. It encourages children to think critically about how to depict what they see.
How to do it: Provide your child with colouring books, blank paper, and crayons or markers. Give them a theme or let them draw freely. Sit down and colour a picture together, or make it fun by making it a competition of who can keep their colouring in the lines. One of our personal favourites is to take it in turns to draw a body part of a monster and see what weird and wonderful creations you end up with!
9. Pretend Play
How it helps: Pretend play stimulates imagination, empathy, and social skills. It helps children develop an understanding of the world around them by acting out real-life scenarios.
How to do it: Create a pretend kitchen, doctor’s office, or grocery store with simple household items. Encourage your child to take on different roles, like being a chef, teacher, or parent, and act out scenes from daily life.
10. Simple Science Experiments
How it helps: Hands-on science experiments promote curiosity, observation, and critical thinking. They also allow children to engage with cause and effect in a fun, interactive way.
How to do it: Start with simple experiments like mixing baking soda and vinegar to create a fizz, growing a plant from a seed, or watching ice melt. Ask your child questions like, “What do you think will happen if we do this?” or “Why do you think the ice is melting?”