Top six activities that focus on cognitive skill development of your child

Children, at the initial stage of learning, tend to learn fast and pick cues quickly. Those years are extremely critical for a child’s development and in laying down the foundation of a successful future. Cognitive skills include memory, thinking and attention. These skills help a child to learn, evaluate, analyze, remember and compare things from each other. Most of these cognitive skills are taught to children through practice and different activities. Listed below are few of these that can help in your child’s development:

Sing a song – Doctors always recommend talking and singing to your babies whether they are responding or not. Children love to hear music around them. Sing your child’s favorite song and ask him to join along. Memory improvement and word identification gets improved with this activity.

Practice Counting – There are ample opportunities throughout the day that can help in practicing counting. You can ask your child to count the shoes while he is getting dressed or count the number of stairs that he had to climb. Again, memory and attention to detail are the targeted skills in this activity.

Practice the alphabet – Sing the alphabet song to your child and read books to him. Alphabet books and puzzles in particularly are helpful in alphabet recognition. You can also buy colored sand and a tray for your child and encourage him to write alphabets on sand.

Practice shapes and colors – Show your child a round blue ball in the playground or a red round signal when you halt at a traffic light. Once your child has some understanding, you can also ask him to describe these objects to you.

Asking questions – An easy way to help your child learn is by asking simple questions. “Is the tree blue?” or “what did you have dinner last night?” are simple questions that can be asked. Asking helps children to learn how to solve problems and also understand their surroundings.

Play items – Your household items can be easily used for educational purpose and become fun and cost effective too. Ask your child to match the pots with their lids. His mirror image can help him identify his nose, eyes and cheeks.

These activities can be easily performed at home or while you are travelling. The staff in playgroups in Singapore is trained to use these and many more to enhance the cognitive skills of your child. The programs are designed in a way to target the specific skills for a child at a certain age.