Saturday, March 15, 2014

Strengthen The Brain With These Kid-Friendly Activities

By Madeleine Bridgeman


While a healthy diet, plenty of exercise and sleep are important components for ensuring academic and personal success for your child, there are some fun activities that also can boost their brain power. These activities have been shown to improve academic performance as well as helping children focus and think more critically.

Chess is an activity that has been shown to have a positive effect in many areas. Obviously, learning chess will improve one's critical thinking skills, but it actually has been shown to improve verbal skills and mathematical skills. Many schools offer Academic Chess classes after school for a small fee and the instructors quickly teach children all the skills they need to play. This is a great lifelong skill that has been shown to possibly inhibit dementia and diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Along those same lines, there are plenty of other games that can hone a variety of important skills. Create a weekly family game event, and not only will you enjoy increasing your family's bond, you will be improving those little minds as well. For example, to boost verbal skills and vocabulary, consider games such as Scrabble, Apples to Apples and Balderdash. Games such as Boggle and puzzles improve spatial skills. Monopoly and Yahtzee can be helpful in improving math skills as well as helping them learn how to devise successful strategies. Most board games these days have junior versions so that children of all ages can enjoy them.

You might think of Legos as only a colorful toy, but these plastic blocks are much more than a simple plaything. Children boost their creativity and improve their fine motor skills by playing with Legos. Even problem solving can become easier when you play with Legos. Your community or school might even have low-cost weekly Lego classes where children can work together to build structures and machines, and there are even Lego camps to help fill up those long summer months.

There are many benefits your child can derive from music lessons, and students who play an instrument have been shown to have better grades and higher tests scores than children not involved in a music program. Developing discipline and improving spatial skills and even math skills are other reasons why you might consider opting for music lessons. There are dozens of instruments to consider, from popular instruments such as clarinet, flute and violin to more rock-oriented instruments such as the guitar, drums or keyboard. Whether you want to learn a traditional instrument or something a bit more unusual, Los Rios Rock School has teachers that can provide top-notch instruction.

At this San Juan Capistrano music school, students not only enjoy a weekly lesson in the instrument of their choice, the tuition includes a true rock band experience. Student bands are formed and after weeks of practice, these bands perform at real local music venues such as the Coach House, the House of Blues or perhaps Stillwater. If you are searching for a Dana Point music school, a Laguna Niguel music school or a San Clemente music school, Los Rios Rock School might be the perfect place for your child to excel.




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