For the past five weeks, I’ve been posting brain boosting games to help families get through this difficult time of social distancing.
These games are special in that they’re not only fun, they NURTURE BRAIN DEVELOPMENT, teach and/or sharpen skills in the Common Core, and can be easily adapted for ages 4 to 14 as well as for abilities and interests.
Your kids may be missing school, but they don’t have to miss out on what they’re supposed to be learning, nor do they have to let their skills get rusty.
Jackie and I wrote Brain Stages to support parents in raising successful kids in our complicated, competitive world—which has recently become WAY more complicated.
Please let us help you!!
Brain Stages not only has a list in layman’s terms of what kids are supposed to learn in each grade, K-5, it has a ton of fun games and activities that either require no materials or just stuff you likely already have at home to HELP YOUR KIDS LEARN THOSE SKILLS.
There are also book lists to get even the most reluctant readers to ENJOY READING, and lots of practical social and emotional tools to IMPROVE RELATIONSHIPS.
I seldom talk much about Brain Stages in a post, but if you have kids at home right now, you NEED this book!
Okay, I’ll get off of my soapbox now. 😉
If you missed the other posts, you can find Games 1-3 here, 4-6 here, 7-9 here, and 10-12 here. 🙂
LUCKY GAME #13: WE GOT THE BEAT (p. 140 Brain Stages, print version)
Here’s another brain game that I play with parents and kids at workshops that also breaks tension (similar to Game #10: Add a Move), no materials required.
When the air gets stale or emotions rise, or kids need a quick break to reset their brains while doing school assignments at the kitchen table, this game is great for a fresh start.
And while they’re at it, they’ll work the memory, sequencing, rhythm, and coordination centers in their brains as well as their auditory cortex.
Here’s how to play “We Got the Beat”:
- Clap a pattern. Start simple at first.
- Ask your children to copy it. Example: Clap—clap—clap-clap-clap.
- Clap another pattern that’s a little trickier, and have them copy you.
- Keep going until someone “misses” by clapping a pattern that is slightly off.
- Invite each of your kids to lead the clapping pattern until someone misses.
Once you’ve had some fun with this, and they know how to play, tell them when they get tired or frustrated working on school assignments, or whatever, you might clap a pattern for them to copy to help them snap out of it. Also invite them to start a clap pattern when they need a “restart”.
Most of the time, when our brains get a little break, they come back much sharper. It’s similar to when our computers or phones get wonky, and we turn our electronics off and on again to reboot them.
If the clapping noise starts to get to you, have your kids tap two fingers on the palm of their other hand. It’s much quieter, and they’ll still get all of the same benefits.
See the quick video for an example.
GAME #14: RANDOM SCAVENGER HUNT
A grandma sent this game to me that she and her husband played virtually with their grandchildren. If you’re missing some children in your life or you want another fun learning game your kids can play at home, try out having a “Random Scavenger Hunt” (though the game is much more than having kids look for things) — they had a blast with this and exercised all kinds of brain parts!
She says:
“We did this with our grandkids via Facetime who are ages 10 and 13. You can adapt this for any age!”
1. Find something in the house that starts with the letter C.
2. Find something Green.
3. Draw a picture of you doing your favorite sport. Take your time doing it!
4. Find something that starts with the letter G.
5. Go out and make 3 free throws with your basketball (adapt to your circumstances—examples: go out the back door and bounce a ball as many times as you can without the ball rolling away, or draw a hopscotch with chalk on the driveway, sidewalk, or in the common area of your apartment building and jump it back and forth five times).
6. Show us your favorite snack.
7. Show us your favorite book and tell us about it.
8. Run 3 laps (other examples: skip, gallop, ride your skateboard, scooter, or bike—you get the idea) in the driveway (around the common area if kids live in an apartment—or have them skip around the house if they can’t go outside).
10. Write a note to your mom and tell her 3 reasons she is special to you. Then put it where she will find it! Date the note. She’ll likely want to keep a treasure like that for a long time.
11. Make a note to your sibling and tell them 3 things you like about them. Please share it with them, and date that note too.
My grandma friend says: “We asked them to share what they wrote to their siblings with us, and they were so sweet!”
GAME #15 STORY STARTER (likely not what you think—p. 190 Brain Stages, print version)
We used to play this game with our kids in the car, especially when tension would rise. “Story Starter” would get them out of their emotional limbic system and into their frontal lobes for clearer thinking.
“Story Starter” is also great when you just want something your kids can do for fun that doesn’t involve a screen, and they get to painlessly develop skills while they’re at it.
Here’s how to play:
When you see an interesting person from the front window, or on a trail when you go for a walk with your kids, begin a story about them. Be sure you let your kids know this is a pretend story.
Keep it positive. Maybe the person or family is wearing interesting masks made of fabric, so you make up a story about where the fabric came from—a favorite shirt that tore when it got stuck in the car door. Rather than try to repair the shirt, this person got a pattern for making a mask off the internet, cut up the shirt, and made four masks, one for each member of their family . . .
If the person or people are walking slowly, add to the story about why they’re walking at that pace—and so on.
Or if you see someone flying a model airplane, you might make up where she got a kit to build an airplane (a present from a grandparent?). Maybe you and your kids decide she and her brother read the directions and built it together—and they accidentally glued an extra part to the back of their little sister’s shirt. The sky’s the limit.
The stories we used to come up with could get pretty wild.
Not only is “Story Starter” a fun way to pass the time, the game gives language centers in the brain a good workout, enhances right-brain creativity, exercises neural pathways for problem solving, and builds skills for writing.
We also used to find that a round of “Story Starter” would sometimes reveal things that were bothering our kids, so were able to help them work through anxieties we hadn’t even realized they had.
For a ton more games, activities, and great parenting tools, check out Brain Stages. on Amazon. BTW, it’s on sale right now.
Regular $16.95, now “$14.68. Just sayin’ . . .
Best wishes for health and well-being for you and your loved ones,
Trish Wilkinson
Co-author Brain Stages: How to Raise Smart, Confident Kids and Have Fun Doing It
