It is no longer novel that the world is now filled with several activities that act as stimuli and for this reason, it is essential to intentionally and circumspectly nurture the minds of our children. As a result, there is this unending quest to find out engaging activities that will nourish one’s children’ mental agility and enhance their cognitive development.
Evidently, the place of mental fitness and agility cannot be over-emphasized as the popular saying goes that ‘a healthy mind and a strong body are the foundation of a vibrant life’. On the strength of this, this article is aimed at sharing brain stimulating activities and games that will indubitably help your ward to be mentally agile
What is Mental Agility?
Mental agility is the capacity to respond to events in a flexible way and being able to move quickly between different ideas. It indicates the ability of an individual to think, learn and quickly absorb new information, systems and processes. It is apparent from this definition that mental agility is a must-have for every child and young person.
Some of the benefits of mental agility include but are not limited to;
1. Creativity a mind that is agile leaves an open room for creativity to thrive unhindered. It allows children to think outside the box and face situations with an open mind. This in turn, engenders innovation and a fondness for learning.
2. Problem-Solving: another crucial upside to mental agility is problem solving. Children with well developed mental agility can rapidly and easily analyze situations, identify any challenge the situation poses and proffer feasible solutions. This upside does not only benefit them academically, but also empowers them to face real life hurdles.
3. Swift Learning: it has become common knowledge that learning is not a linear process but a dynamic journey filled with vicissitudes, that is ups and downs. In lieu of this, mental agility helps children to swiftly adapt to various learning styles and environment. It helps them garner information from various sources, synergize unrelated concepts and fosters a deeper understanding of the world around them.
Brain Stimulating Activities for Children and Teenagers
The activities listed here are globally recognized to be optimally effective for boosting one’s mental agility and stimulating one’s cognitive abilities. Due to the myriads of activities available, we have handpicked some of the best of them all and also each activity mentioned will concurrently entail the specific age gap the activity is best suitable for.
1. Sensory Treasure Hunt: This activity is best suitable for toddlers as it helps develop their sense of touch and sight. One of the best ways to engage in this activity is by filling a box with different textured items like soft fabric, fuzzy toys, rough fabric and even smooth stones.
Then ask the toddler to identify each texture and describe them as they touch and feel them. This activity not only enhance their sensory awareness, it also helps them develop their language as they learn new words to express these different textures.
2. Storytelling: Narrative skills have overtime been proven to enhance and improve language proficiency. It equally stimulates the imagination and wards create mental pictures in their minds and they attempt to narrate stories.
For kindergarten, using picture books is most apposite while for primary and secondary school levels, tasking them with narrative essays and story writing is most preferable.
3. Puzzle games: A pertinent method of engendering brain stimulating activities and mental agility is through hands-on activities. Solving puzzles are excellent for this as they help develop awareness of the area around them and problem-solving skills.
This activity is not limited to any age grade as preschoolers and kindergarten can solve simple jigsaw puzzles and higher grades can solve tougher ones.
Another upside to puzzle games is that it increases cognitive abilities and boosts concentration.
4. DIY Arts and Crafts: Although, many schools incorporate cultural and creative arts which provides for making different crafts and arts, however, you can also help your ward engage in arts and crafts projects that requires planning and problem-solving.
It is best that you provide them with various materials so they out of their own volitions produce their artifact.
The purpose of this is to enhance their fine motor skills and also give room for them to express themselves creatively and boost their confidence.
5. Kitchen Math: This is the most unconventional way of stimulating brain activities. The uniqueness with kitchen mathematics is that it helps in applying mental math to real life situations. Taking your child into the kitchen and involving them in measuring ingredients, doubling or halving recipes and even calculating cooking times is mentally stimulating.
Doing this not only solidify their mathematical skills, it also helps them understand the relevance of mathematics in their day-to-day lives.
Conclusion
So far, we have been able to establish the need for mental agility and brain stimulating activities and also itemize some feasible and effective activities that you can engage your ward in.
I would say, that my favorite of these activities is the kitchen math. Which one is yours? Tell us in the comment section below…