By certified Early Childhood Educator
Memory is an essential component of a child's overall development. Infant's memory helps them recognize familiarity in people and things way before they are capable of comprehending language.
Working memory is regulated by the same part of the brain that controls attention and concentration. They aid children in remembering what they need to pay attention to in any situation. Therefore, exercising the memory is the way of gaining focus because it requires concentration to remember.
Children's brain is rapidly developing during childhood, and this is why memory exercises can push children's learning to the next level by helping them to become more focused when studying any subject.
Here are some ways to improve the memory of children:
Sudoku
Sudoku is an excellent starting point for teaching children about mathematics and reading. While Sudoku often involves numbers, it does not require any arithmetic or scientific skills.
Sudoku pushes children to think out-of-the-box. They have to remember the letter or number in order to solve the puzzle; this exercise of remembering helps to stimulate the memory.
Sudoku can teach children how to memorize figures, sequences, and symbols quickly. if you have young children check out this magnetic Sudoku board perfect for traveling.
3D Puzzle
Puzzles keep the child's mind focus and engaged. This is particularly helpful for sharpening short-term memory.
Many activities, such as solving a 3D puzzle, can speed up the brain's connections, which will help learning in many other areas of learning, such as math, reading, and languages.
Some benefits of 3d puzzles include memory improvement, Increase IQ, Problem solving skills, Increase productivity, and social skills acquisition.
Memory Improvement
When you pick up a puzzle piece and try to find its matching, you think of the larger picture being built, your brain makes neural connections and increases the generation of new connections. This whole process is good for mental speed and to maintain and improve memory.
Increase IQ
Did you know that assembling puzzles can help an adult or child raise your IQ by 4 points? That’s what a study from the University of Michigan found!
Problem solving skills
When assembling a puzzle there are so many approaches you take to make the pieces work, this thinking can be transferred to make you more innovating, critical thinker, and have better adaptive skills.
Increase productivity
When you assemble a puzzle you really have to focus, and what happens is that when your concentration improves your productivity does as well!
Social skills acquisition
Lastly, puzzles are a perfect group activity that help strengthen relationships, as team work needs to be done in order to solve the puzzle.
Here is an activity to try out at home with your kiddos...
Work on building a puzzle with your child, after finishing the puzzle, ask your child to close his/her eyes. Then, to see how much they recall, ask them questions about the puzzle. Since their memory worked so focus on finding every piece to match the puzzle they should be able to tell you a lot about it.
Brain Teasers
parents can help children to facilitate learning by providing constructive reinforcement. An easy and fun way to help children exercise their memory are brain teasers.
Brain teasers assist children in remembering what they have learned over a more extended period of time. Children love to compete,challenges, are curious, and love attention from their parents, so when playing brain teasers they put more effort to obtain knowledge. As a result, the information they learn from this activity stays in their mind for a pretty long time.
There are plenty of brain teasers available online, giving a variety of problems to solve for kids. Here is a link to one of my favorite brain teasers for kids with awesome reviews!
Sensory Memory
Sensory memory stores the information given by the senses correctly. it is necessary in the process of storing information. Sensory projects help children remember more of a topic or experience as children's learning is strongly geared to direct experimentation.
Therefore sensory play is vital for children's learning. In this form of play the child's senses are activated and stimulated. Furthermore, sensory activities can help children relax, stay focus and concentrated in one activity.
Through out the years of teaching preschool, I have found that the most active children enjoy sand play, or any type of sensory play. Sensory Play for extra active children is the easiest way to help them learn since they can focus more when using their senses.
Here is an idea for sensory play for children:
Sand Foam
Sand Foam is an excellent material for sensory exploration. Sand and shaving cream are the only ingredients used to make it. The soft, textured mixture can entice children to run their hands and fingers through it. Add letters, numbers, cups and spoons to enhance their play. Go the extra mile asking them open ended questions!
Final Thoughts
Memory and focus are linked and you can help children exercise their memory and gain focus by doing Sudoku, brain teasers, sensory play and 3d puzzles. The benefits of these activities are profound on children's abilities to learn and improve memory. Developing focus can help children through out many areas in their life. Pick one activity and try it out!