Brain Boosts

Challenge your child

with a Brain Boost!

If your child has mastered an activity such as building an inset puzzle, catching and throwing a ball, or jumping it may be time to add a “brain boost” to it. 

Occupational therapists often present activities that require children to combine motor actions with a cognitive skill. During these types of activities, the child not only works on the motor and cognitive skills required for the task, but he or she also works on being flexible by engaging in activities in a new way and on building attention and working memory skills.

Challenge your child with the following brain boosts.

1. If your child can build an inset puzzle:

   1. Describe the piece you’d like him to put in next. For example, “Can you find the animal that lays eggs?”  You can vary the description to best challenge your child.  

   2. Hide the puzzle pieces around the room. Provide verbal cues to help your child find them. For example, The hen is under the pillow. You can vary the hiding places and your descriptions to best challenge your child. 

2. If your child can catching and throw a ball with a partner:

   1. Before starting, determine a category, then each time you or your child catches the ball name an item in that category before throwing the ball back. For example, the category of fruits. When you catch the ball you can say “apple”, then throw the ball to your child and she can say “banana”, etc. 

   2. Skip count each time someone catches the ball. For example, for skip counting by 10s, the first person who catches the ball will say, “10”, the next person to catch the ball will say, “20”, etc until a predetermined number. Once you get to 100 you can extend the activity by trying to skip count back to zero. 

3. If your child can jump:

   1. Use 3-6 different colors, ex. Colored pieces of tape, hoops, spots, etc. Give your child a sequence of 3-5 colors to jump on in order. For example, “Jump on red, yellow, green, blue.” Can your child recall the order while jumping? Repeating the sequence back before jumping can improve success. 

   2. Use direction words: right, left, forward, backward to give your child a jumping sequence. For example: Jump forward, backward, right, left. In this case your child should end up in about the same spot. 

   3. You can add to the above challenge by adding a number to the jumps. For example, jump forward 1x, backward 2x, and to the left 3x. Did your child end up in the same spot this time?

I hope you and your child enjoy these brain-boosting activities!