Quick Brain Boosters for Clever Kids

Great news, teaching your children doesn’t have to be hard work. It doesn't have to mean sitting down at the kitchen table struggling through a stack of worksheets whilst simultaneously trying to make dinner, walk the dog and put yet another load of washing on. In fact, there’s lots of evidence to suggest that learning is more effective in short, sharp bursts. So here's a list of sharp activities you can do with your kids to boost their brain power.

·         Times tables actions- hula hoop the fives, clap the sevens, star jump the sixes etc. Jo Wicks would be proud!

·         Word ladders: can you get from HIDE to WINK by changing only one letter at a time… in only 2 words? There are lots of free examples of these on the Internet.

·         Anagrams: when you’re out driving and spot a place name, see how many other words you can make with the letters.  

·         Wordsearches: when I was little, one of the best things about the holiday was the bumper book of puzzles I was bought for the long car journey. Why not go retro and invest in a ‘summer puzzle book’ for your child?

·         Play ‘Chinese Laundry,’ saying bring me something: in a specific colour (for early years children), that starts with the sound… (for early readers) or that I can describe using the adjectives… (older children)

·         Up-levelling boring sentences. Give the children a sentence such as ‘The cat sat on the mat,’ then see who can make the silliest/ most ambitious sentence by improving: the adjectives, add subordinate clauses with extra information, add a conjunction. Do this verbally- no need to write!

·         Have a ‘word of the day,’ try to use it as much as you can.

Well, that concludes our blog for the day.

P.S. ‘Concludes’ is my word of the day- so far I’ve used it eleven times. 😊