Did you know that you can help your kids develop their cognitive skills at home? Or in other words, make them smarter! And, all you need to do is to simply engage their brains with fun activities?

Therefore, in this article, I am going to give you 5 different activities that can engage your children’s brains and increase their skills’ levels, and can be adjusted to your kids’ levels:

1. Needed tools: A deck of playing cards

Play a memory game; simply spread out all the cards, facing downward, then ask them to try to find pairs. If they did not find the right pair, then they put the cards they chose back and start again. This game helps in building Memory and Attention Skills.

2. Needed tools: A geometric-shaped set (tangrams) with board

As a parent, create a simple design and have your child replicate it. There are many places that sell it. Try to choose the one that has bigger pieces for younger children, and would be good if it had different patterns they can copy from the back cover. This game will help in building Logic and Reasoning, Visual Processing and Attention.

3. Needed tools: Rhyming words domino-like cards

Use these double-sided cards with words and pictures to teach rhyming. This game will help in building Sound Segmenting, Rhyming, and Auditory Processing.

4. Needed tools: A wooden shape sorter or a box of wooden shapes

Help and encourage young children to sort the pieces into piles of the same shape, color, size, and any other similar factors. This game will help in building your child’s Logic and Reasoning, Visual Processing and Attention.

5. Needed tools: A timer

Simply, time any task your child does and then encourage him/her to beat his/her own time. This game will help children become faster and build their Processing Speed.   These different exercises do engage the brain, but if you feel your child is behind in a certain skill, then professional brain training is needed to make sure your child can increase in any weakness and to truly become smarter!