cognitive development problem solving activities

How to Promote Cognitive Development: 23 Activities & Games

It is imperative that children reach their full cognitive potential, as childhood development and intellectual functioning predict survival, lifelong health, and human capital (Casanova et al., 2021).

Cognition includes the general processes of perception, attention, memory, working memory, pattern recognition, executive function, concept formation and reasoning, intelligence, and academic achievement (Samuel et al., 2017). Just as with their physical bodies, there are specific activities and games we can practice to help children develop cognitive skills, and it is these cognitive development activities that we will share below.

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This Article Contains:

How to promote healthy cognitive development, 17 best activities for toddlers and children, is play important 6 games for kids & adolescents, 3 worksheets for psychologists & teachers, 4 questionnaires to measure milestones, can toys enhance cognitive development, 3 best books on the topic, resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

There are various factors that contribute to healthy cognitive development .

A child’s environment plays an immense role in their cognitive development, and stability is paramount. For example, in a study of migrant children, Lu, Yeung, and Treiman (2020) found that migration offers the potential for higher household earnings; however, in terms of cognitive development, the reduction of parent involvement in the home outweighs the financial benefit. Parental involvement is a big part of cognitive development.

Sleep is critical for cognitive development. Shortened sleep in children and toddlers has a detrimental effect (Gertner et al., 2002; Smithson et al., 2018). Making sure a child gets enough rest is an important part of cognitive development.

Nutrition is crucial for developing brains, and nutrients such as iodine, iron, folate, zinc, vitamin B12, and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids support emergent cognitive functions (Bryan et al., 2004). Additionally, hydration is just as important, as dehydration has the potential to affect cognition negatively (Edmonds & Burford, 2009; Kim, Chun, & Shin, 2020).

When considering activities that support cognitive development, we would be remiss if we failed to include videos games or television shows. It is beneficial for children when the virtual and physical worlds are combined in interactive computer games (Yilmaz, 2016).

Preschoolers have demonstrated academic achievement in English, mathematics, and science because of educational television viewing (Blumberg et al., 2019). Of course, parents and educators must ensure that the content is educational and free of violence.

Adults should also limit the time children spend in front of screens. The American Academy of Pediatrics (2019) recommends less than two hours per day of recreational screen time.

Recess is necessary for brain consolidation, and any kind of brain break can be considered an extension of cognitive work. Additionally, physical exercise positively influences cognition (Donnelly et al., 2016; Samuel et al., 2017). Children need time to process their learning.

Below is a list of suggested activities to boost congnitive development. For ease of use, they have been listed according to age.

According to Piaget (1964), the first few months of life are characterized by a sensory–motor, pre-verbal stage.

During this stage, newborns may see an object but immediately forget about it once it has been taken away or covered.

Tracking should be developed with newborns. Hanging a mobile with simple patterns and sharp contrasts above a crib can help newborns advance their vision.

Giving infants something to focus on may encourage them to move in new ways, especially when they discover that if they move their body, the mobile may also move. This act would show the idea of causality for the baby, which is also an understanding indicative of this age group (Malik & Marwaha, 2021).

To encourage eye movement and tracking, hold a rattle or any object that catches the baby’s attention about 8–12 inches from the baby’s face, wait for them to focus on it, then slowly move it from side to side.

Their eyes should track the object’s movement. After a few times, the baby may bat at the object as it passes by, which can help to develop hand–eye coordination.

At this age, object permanence is evolving (Piaget, 1964), and hide-and-seek activities are beneficial.

3. Hide and seek

A game of peekaboo, a jack-in-the-box toy, or hide-and-seek game with an object can help the child develop cognitive skills.

For example, when a child plays hide-and-seek, they are in the beginning stages of understanding that another’s level of knowledge concerning the object is not the same as their own. This is important, especially for real-world social behavior (Peskin & Ardino, 2003).

4. Family photos

Working on memory provides an understanding of how the brain makes a memory.

Help babies strengthen their memory by watching videos of family events or looking through photos of their own recognizable face.

Imaginative play is a helpful way for children to construct symbolic thinking, theory of mind, and counterfactual reasoning (Weisberg, 2015). Although pretend play appears to be pure entertainment for the child, there are distinct connections to cognitive and social skill development.

Put on a puppet show for the child or practice imaginative play with a doll or stuffed animal.

6. Tea parties

Play pretend. Using toy versions of real-life objects, such as talking to one another on the telephone, arranging a tea party, building a house of blocks using a plastic hammer, or cooking in a toy kitchen, lets the child mimic common activities.

7. Sing songs

Songs are a common element in many preschool classrooms, and rightly so. Integrating song and movement can help develop cognitive skills (Supartini & Weismann, 2020). Additionally, sing-along songs act as pedagogical and didactic tools, enhancing the curriculum (Gluschankof, 2007).

Sing songs that involve counting backward such as “Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” and “100 Bottles of Pop on the Wall.”

Kids, ages: 3–6

Mazes exercise working memory and executive function and encourage cognitive flexibility. They require the participant to activate spatial learning and memory, graphomotor and visual–motor coordination, foresight, perceptual organization, planning, decision-making, and general reasoning (Venkatesan & Lokesh, 2020).

Mazes use the prefrontal cortex, visual occipital lobe, hippocampus, and motor regions of the brain (Venkatesan & Lokesh, 2020).

Jigsaw puzzles help children develop spatial abilities and problem-solving strategies (Doherty, Wimmer, Gollek, Stone, & Robinson, 2021), which aid in cognitive development.

Kids, ages: 7–9

10. matching games.

As working memory is the retention of a small amount of information in a readily accessible form, it has been noted to underpin not only learning and education but also cognitive development (Cowan, 2014).

Memory, Concentration, and Matching games are fun and easy activities for kids to play to encourage cognitive development.

11. Stroop effect games

Stroop effect activities involve reading a word written in a different color or saying the color of the ink and not the actual word. It requires focus and attention.

Stroop found that individuals read color-name words that are printed in a different-colored ink more slowly than if the ink color matches the word (Styles, 1997); for example, reading the word “yellow” written in red ink typically takes longer than reading the word “yellow” written in yellow ink.

Here is an online version of this game.

12. Real-life questions

Encourage higher order thinking skills to fine tune children’s ability to apply knowledge, skills, and values in reasoning, reflection, problem-solving, decision-making, innovating, and creating (Sulaiman, Muniyan, Madhvan, Hasan, & Rahim, 2017). Questions that range from concrete to abstract on Bloom’s Taxonomy, which is a hierarchical classification of the different levels of thinking, can stimulate higher-order thinking.

Ask real-life questions that require analysis. Pose questions that involve critical thinking such as, “Why is it important to wear a seatbelt?” or “Why must we visit the doctor?” Asking questions such as these encourages problem-solving.

What’s that noise? Practice listening to or playing various sounds, such as birds, instruments, or paper crinkling, and ask the child to identify what is making the noise.

14. Higher-order level questions

Use higher-order level questions where “yes/no” responses cannot be an option. Examples may include instructions that require the learner to describe, create, synthesize, etc.

Adolescents, ages: 10-19

As with younger ages, puzzles are an excellent method of fostering cognitive development in adolescents.

15. Rebus puzzles

These fun puzzles require the individual to determine a common phrase or saying through the use of letters, words, pictures, or numbers. An excellent source is available on Amazon .

Sudoku is an activity where the player completes a grid using numbers or symbols.

This captivating game encompasses many cognitive benefits. Symbol-based puzzles offer a significant effect on the logical thinking of students in the dimensional stage of cognitive development, and number-based puzzles benefit students in the vectorial stage of cognitive development (Baek, Kim, Yun, & Cheong, 2008).

17. Crossword puzzles

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There is a distinct research-backed correlation between play and learning, as play is an essential part of children’s development (Yilmaz, 2016). Here are a few examples.

1. Threading

Threading is an activity conducive to the preschool classroom (Sunderland, n.d.):

• Give each child a thread and a pile of colored beads.
• Explain that you will make matching strings of beads.
• Children must put their hands on their heads, while the leader calls out two colors.
• Once the leader says, ‘Go’, the children find the beads and thread them.
• Each child has a turn being the leader, picking two colors for the group to find and thread.
• Increase the number of colors the children need to find at a time.

2. Instructions

Give children a “mission.” Giving one-step requests to a toddler, like “bring me the doll,” or “point to the chair,” can help them learn in simple goal-oriented ways. For more advanced learners, include multi-step directions such as, “Crawl under the table, hop around the chair, and bring me the ball.”

3. Now You See It, Now You Don’t

In this game, select an object and describe it with the children. Ask them, “Is it small or is it big? What colors does it have? What shape is this part of the object?” After discussing the object, cover it, and ask the children to recall what the object looked like. Uncover the object to recall more details or check the details stated (Sunderland, n.d.).

4. Repetitive oral games

Repetitive oral games, such as, “I Went on a Picnic” also help to aid memory skills. Each person recalls what the others said and adds their own item. For example, child 1: “I went on a picnic and brought an apple.” Child 2: “I went on a picnic, and I brought an apple and a banana.” Child 3: “I went on a picnic, and I brought an apple, a banana, and a carrot.” And so on.

One person gives clues describing an object within sight. Another person is charged with trying to figure out what it is. For example, “I spy with my little eyes something big and yellow.”

6. Card games

Card games such as Crazy Eights, Go Fish, and Old Maid are childhood favorites that require the use of working memory. Solitaire is also an excellent option for older children that calls upon both long and short-term memory.

• Developmental Checklist Birth to Five Years Old by the Early Childhood Direction Center is a checklist with space to indicate the date when each milestone was reached. This document also has “Development Red Flags” to alert the examiner of potential concerns for development.
• Although not a worksheet, the Child Development Institute includes an excellent breakdown of cognitive-developmental milestones from birth to 18 years of age.
• Teachers Pay Teachers has an excellent free source depicting the stages of cognitive development. This visual shows the abilities of children from birth to three years of age for attention and memory, perception and concepts, and reasoning and academics.

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development – Sprouts

The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development is the most commonly used infant development assessment in the United States (Balasundaram & Avulakunta, 2021).

A pediatrician usually administers it; however, anyone who is trained, including occupational therapists and speech and language pathologists, may use this 30–70-minute test. This assessment aims to identify developmental delays in children from 16 days old to begin early intervention (Lobo & Galloway, 2013) and can be purchased through Pearson .

While the Cattell Infant Intelligence Scale cannot be used to determine future intelligence, it can be used as a routine baseline assessment in well-baby clinics to identify intellectual disabilities and developmental delay in one area only (Hooper, Conner, & Umansky, 1986; Koshy & Sharma, 1984). It is easy to administer and score, and also holds the interest of the child.

The Cattell Infant Intelligence Scale was published by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

The Cognitive Assessment System is recommended for children from 4 to 18 and is used in many schools. The following areas are addressed by this assessment:

• Executive function without working memory
• Executive function with working memory
• Working memory
• Verbal content
• Nonverbal content

The Gesell Scale offers practitioners the opportunity to compare a child’s development to typical growth patterns of children from 2.5 to 9 years old. This video demonstrates the use of the Gesell Scale. The scales can be found via Gesell at Yale .

Button and jack-in-the-box toys show cause and effect, as do musical tools such as rattles and drums. Touch and feel books introduce and entertain with various textures. Kitchen and tool toys promote imaginative play.

Those are only a few examples; many items from around the house can also be used. For example, building blocks are great for creative play and stacking, but food-storage containers may work just as well and be even more interesting to the child.

There are a multitude of matching activities and games; for example, matching pot and pan lids may be an activity that benefits both a guardian and a child. Additionally, sorting household items or toys could also be another activity that is mutually beneficial.

While it’s fun to dump things out, sorting and returning objects to their original containers can also help learning and encourage participation; plus it saves from having to clean up.

Although there are countless household objects that can help to promote cognitive development, consider pre-made cognitive toy kits such as SparkleBox or KiwiCo , which are offered in a subscription-style delivery method.

Three books to enhance your understanding of cognitive development.

1. 50 Strategies to Boost Cognitive Engagement: Creating a Thinking Culture in the Classroom – Rebecca Stobaugh

This book aims to help teachers transform their classroom into a climate that encourages active learning and student engagement.

This book also provides 50 strategies for promoting cognitive development and nurturing problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Find the book on Amazon .

2. The Critical Mind: Enhancing Your Problem Solving, Questioning, Observing, and Evaluating Skills – Zoe McKey

While this book may be personally beneficial to you, many of the concepts can be introduced to children and young adults.

If you yearn to be able to teach students to be self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinkers, this book may be for you.

3. The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Brain – Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

This book is advertised for parents to address behavioral concerns, but it is equally beneficial for teachers and caregivers who want to promote healthy emotional and intellectual development.

The authors provide strategies for dealing with everyday struggles and explain how adults can integrate the entire brain (left, right, upstairs, downstairs) to practice whole-brain growth.

We have a number of related articles for additional reading.

How to Improve Cognitive Function: 6 Mental Fitness Exercises presents vital information on improving cognitive function and maintaining cognitive fitness, as well as exercises and games that enhance cognitive functioning.

If you are still unconvinced of the significance of cognitive health, What Is Cognitive Health & Why Is It Important to Maintain It? brings a wealth of knowledge.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others enhance their wellbeing, check out this signature collection of 17 validated positive psychology tools for practitioners. Use them to help others flourish and thrive.

17 Top-Rated Positive Psychology Exercises for Practitioners

Expand your arsenal and impact with these 17 Positive Psychology Exercises [PDF] , scientifically designed to promote human flourishing, meaning, and wellbeing.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

It is crucial to understand that each child develops at their own pace and will meet milestones at different times.

Some children may require a more individualized approach and a plan to help support their cognitive development.

Further, try to provide various options. For example, children with several toys or activities to choose from can flex decision-making skills. Present choices with everyday items, such as wearing blue shoes or brown shoes. Giving children a say encourages them to feel confident in their decision-making skills and independence.

Make the student the leader of their own learning. Having well-developed cognitive skills will enable learners to become independent and self-reliant in terms of directing their learning.

As remarked by Plutarch,

“Education is not the filling of a pail, it is the lighting of a fire.”

By helping children develop their attention, perception, memory, logic, and reasoning, you are lighting the fire that will motivate them to become lifelong learners.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free .

• American Academy of Pediatrics. (2019). Adequate sleep, limited screen time can decrease impulsivity in children . Retrieved November 19, 2021, from https://www.aap.org/en/news-room/news-releases/pediatrics2/2019/adequate-sleep-limited-screen-time-can-decrease-impulsivity/
• Baek, Y., Kim, B., Yun, S., & Cheong, D. (2008). Effects of two types of sudoku puzzles on students’ logical thinking. In T. Conolly & M. Stansfield (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second European Conference on Games Based Learning (pp. 19–24). Academic Conferences.
• Balasundaram, P., & Avulakunta, I. D. (2021). Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. StatPearls . Retrieved November 12, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK567715
• Blumberg, F. C., Deater-Deckard, K., Calvert, S. L., Flynn, R. M., Green, C. S., Arnold, D., & Brooks, P. J. (2019). Digital games as a context for children’s cognitive development: Research recommendations and policy considerations. Social Policy Report , 32 (1), 1–33.
• Bryan, J., Osendarp, S., Hughes, D., Calvaresi, E., Baghurst, K., & van Klinken, J. W. (2004). Nutrients for cognitive development in school-aged children. Nutrition Reviews , 62 (8), 295–306.
• Casanova, I. G., DiGirolamo, A., Kroker-Lobos, M. F., Ochaeta, L., Ramirez-Zea, M., Martorell, R., & Stein, A. D. (2021). Association between early child development trajectories and adult cognitive function in a 50-year longitudinal study in Guatemala. BMJ Open , 11 (6).
• Cowan, N. (2014). Working memory underpins cognitive development, learning, and education. Educational Psychology Review , 26 (2), 197–223.
• Doherty, M. J., Wimmer, M. C., Gollek, C., Stone, C., & Robinson, E. J. (2021). Piecing together the puzzle of pictorial representation: How jigsaw puzzles index metacognitive development. Child Development , 92 (1), 205–221.
• Donnelly, J. E., Hillman, C. H., Castelli, D., Etnier, J. L., Lee, S., Tomporowski, P., … Szabo-Reed, A. N. (2016). Physical activity, fitness, cognitive function, and academic achievement in children: A systematic review. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise Journal , 48 (6), 1197–222.
• Edmonds, C. J., & Burford, D. (2009). Should children drink more water? The effects of drinking water on cognition in children. Appetite , 52 (3), 776–779.
• Gertner, S., Greenbaum, C. W., Sadeh, A., Dolfin, Z., Sirota, L., & Ben-Nun, Y. (2002). Sleep–wake patterns in preterm infants and 6 month’s home environment: Implications for early cognitive development. Early Human Development , 68 (2), 93–102.
• Gluschankof, C. (2007). Research and practice in early childhood music education: Do they run parallel and have no chance to meet? The case of preschool singing repertoire. In Proceedings of European Network for Music Educators and Researchers of Young Children , 27–31.
• Hidayati, N. (2020). Designing the Arabic crossword puzzles for the first, second, and third grade of the “Mambaul Ulum” Islamic elementary school malang. Al-Arabi: Journal of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language , 4 (2), 245–258.
• Hooper, S. R., Conner, R. E., & Umansky, W. (1986). The Cattell Infant Intelligence Scale: A review of the literature. Developmental Review , 6 (2), 146–164.
• Kim, C. S., Chun, W. Y., & Shin, D. M. (2020). Dehydration impairs physical growth and cognitive development in young mice. Nutrient s, 12 (3), 670.
• Koshy, V., & Sharma, S. D. (1984). Standardisation of the Cattell’s Infant Intelligence Scale in India. Indian Journal of Psychiatry , 26 (4), 327–330.
• Lobo, M. A., & Galloway, J. C. (2013). Assessment and stability of early learning abilities in preterm and full-term infants across the first two years of life. Research in Developmental Disabilities , 34 (5), 1721–1730.
• Lu, Y., Yeung, W. J. J., & Treiman, D. J. (2020). Parental migration and children’s psychological and cognitive development in China: Differences and mediating mechanisms. Chinese Sociological Review , 52 (4), 337–363.
• Malik, F., & Marwaha, R. (2021). Cognitive development. StatPearls . Retrieved November 21, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537095/
• McKey, Z. (2019).  The critical mind: Enhance your problem solving, questioning, observing, and evaluating skills.  Author.
• Peskin, J., & Ardino, V. (2003). Representing the mental world in children’s social behavior: Playing hide-and-seek and keeping a secret. Social Development , 12 (4), 496–512.
• Piaget, J. (1964). Part I: Cognitive development in children: Piaget development and learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 2 (3), 176–186.
• Samuel, R. D., Zavdy, O., Levav, M., Reuveny, R., Katz, U., & Dubnov-Raz, G. (2017). The effects of maximal intensity exercise on cognitive performance in children. Journal of Human Kinetics , 57 , 85–96.
• Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2011).  The whole-brain child: 12 Revolutionary strategies to nurture your child’s developing mind.  Delacorte Press.
• Smithson, L., Baird, T., Tamana, S. K., Lau, A., Mariasine, J., Chikuma, J., … Mandhane, P. (2018). Shorter sleep duration is associated with reduced cognitive development at two years of age. Sleep Medicine , 48 , 131–139.
• Stobaugh, R. (2019). 50 Strategies to boost cognitive development: Creating a thinking culture in the classroom. Solution Tree Press.
• Styles, E. (1997). The psychology of attention . Psychology Press.
• Sulaiman, T., Muniyan, V., Madhvan, D., Hasan, R., & Rahim, S. S. A. (2017). Implementation of higher order thinking skills in teaching of science: A case study in Malaysia. International Research Journal of Education and Sciences , 1 (1), 2550–2158.
• Sunderland, M. (n.d.). Games to improve working memory . Retrieved November 21, 2021, from https://homeschoolingwithdyslexia.com/wp-content/uploads/Working-Memory-Games.pdf
• Supartini, T., & Weismann, I. T. J. (2020). Development of learning methods through songs and movements to improve children’s cognitive and psychomotor aspects. European Journal of Educational Research , 9 (4), 1615–1633.
• Venkatesan, S., & Lokesh, L. (2020). Studying the effects of Porteus Maze Test in children with learning disabilities. International Journal of Asia Pacific School Psychology , 1(2), 117–125.
• Weisberg, D. S. (2015). Pretend play. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science , 6 (3), 249–261.
• Yilmaz, R. M. (2016). Educational magic toys developed with augmented reality technology for early childhood education. Computers in Human Behavior , 54 , 240–248.

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Are use this to refresh in my mind from my degree in secondary social science, education. I’m using the S the early parts for my new six month old granddaughter, and I had forgotten all of this stuff from 27 years ago in college. The next thing I will probably buy is the Piaget book of child development stages of child development, and several of the other sources that you cited. Thanks for the really great touchup on behavior therapy. It has totally changed my outlook on my granddaughter. I knew these things 25 years ago when I was raising a child, but not using them has made it slip from my memory. Now at least, I can give my daughter the short version. Thanks

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Discovery Play with Littles

2:01 pm ·

15 Powerful Problem Solving Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

I looked over to her table and she’s crying. Again. While everyone else is happily working away, she sat there, unable to move, just crying. 

Not asking for help.

Not trying to solve her problem.

Just crying.

I took a deep breath before heading over. We’ve already been at this for several months…isn’t it about time the problem-solving has kicked in yet?

One glance and I could tell what her problem was. She didn’t have her pencil.

Know how I knew?

It laid on the floor beside her. In plain sight.

As a kindergarten teacher, I don’t jump right in and solve problems for kids. It’s good for them to try to solve the problem themselves. This is something she struggled with. 

I reminded myself of the need for patience and empathy as I walked up to her. “What’s wrong, Amanda?” 

“I…can’t…find…my…pencil….” she sputtered out between sobs. 

“Ok, that’s a problem we can solve. What have you tried?” 

“I don’t know.” 

After a long time trying to first, calm her down, and second, come up with some strategies she could try, she finally found her pencil. At that point, everyone else had finished the project. 

What is Problem Solving?

Problem-solving is the process of finding a solution to your problem . This can be quite tricky for some young children, especially those with little experience in finding more than one way to solve a problem.

Why is Problem Solving Important? 

Problem-solving skills are used throughout childhood into adulthood. As adults, we solve problems on a daily basis. Some problems we solve without thinking much- I wanted to make tacos for dinner but forgot to buy the ground beef. What are we going to have for dinner now?

Other problems are significantly more complicated. 

Problems for kiddos can be problems with friendships, the inability to find something that’s needed, or even what to do when things don’t go your way. 

Kids who lack problem-solving skills struggle to maintain friendships or even begin to attempt to solve their own problems. 

Children who lack problem-solving skills are at a higher risk for depression as well.

What Are Problem-Solving Skills?

Problem-solving skills are:

• Breaking Down a Problem into Smaller Parts
• Communication
• Decision-making
• Logical Reasoning
• Perseverance

That’s a big list to teach toddlers and preschoolers. Where do you begin?

The Problem-Solving Steps

Sometimes kids are so overwhelmed with frustration that it affects their ability to solve problems.

Kids feel safe in routines, and routines help them learn and grow. After a few times of repeating this routine, you’ll find your kiddo starts to do this on their own. 

It’s important not to skip straight to solving the problem , because your kiddo needs to be in a calm state of mind to solve the problem, and also they need to know their feelings are valid. 

• The first thing to do when your kiddo is struggling with problem-solving is to validate their emotions.

In doing this, they will feel more understood and learn that their emotions are okay. There are no bad feelings, and we must learn how to manage our emotions. 

This might sound something like “Oh, I can see you are really frustrated that the block won’t fit on there right. Let’s take some deep breaths to help us calm down before we think about what to do next.”

• Next, work through your calm-down process . This may be taking some deep breaths together, hugging a stuffie, or giving your kiddo some quiet time to calm down their heart and mind.
• Identify the problem . This sounds like something you may have already done (before the meltdown) but it’s important to be very clear on the problem you’re solving. Have the child tell you their problem out loud.
• Move on to solution-finding . When your kiddo is ready, talk about what the problem is and three possible solutions. When possible, let your kiddo do all of the talking. This allows him to practice his problem-solving skills. It’s important to remind him that the first thing he tries may not work, and that’s ok. There’s always another way to solve the problem. If he’s prepared for this, solutions that don’t work won’t be such a frustrating experience. 
• After you’ve done that, test your solutions one by one. See what works. If you haven’t found a solution yet, go back and think of different ways you might be able to solve your problem and try again.

Are you tired of hearing “It’s TOO HARD!” followed by a meltdown?

Using this one simple phrase you’ll get in this powerful lesson, you’ll not only be able to help your kiddo not give up but you’ll:

>Activate their superpower of perseverance so that they can turn around a meltdown and keep trying

>Inspire them to use perseverance …even when it’s hard

>Teach them to recognize the warning signs of giving up , and how to turn it around by taking control of their choices.

Grab your powerful FREE video lesson to teach your kiddo one of the most powerful keys to perseverance.

Powerful Activities that Teach Problem-Solving Skills to Toddlers & Preschoolers

These activities below may look simple, but don’t let that deter you from trying them. A lot happens in little developing brains and these powerful activities help toddlers and preschoolers make connections and develop {many} essential skills-more than just problem-solving.

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Puzzles are fun and a great way to encourage cognitive development in children. They are great for spacial reasoning and strengthening problem-solving skills. They also develop memory skills, critical thinking, and the ability to plan and execute the plan. Toddlers will enjoy the simple puzzles, and preschoolers will do great with floor puzzles with larger puzzle pieces.

Doing Simple Chores

Doing simple chores is a great way to teach children problem-solving skills, and it strengthens responsibility and perseverance as well. 

During the toddler years , you may start with just picking up their toys, or helping you put their dirty clothes in the hamper. 

Preschoolers can take their dirty dishes to the sink (or load them in the dishwasher), collect the trash, dust, wipe baseboards, and do their own personal care items like making their bed, taking care of their dirty clothes, and putting clean clothes away.

Stacking Rings

When watching a toddler play with stacking rings it doesn’t look like much is happening, but playing with these toys is full of ways to encourage development. It helps with visual and spacial perception and planning ahead, but it also with balance control, crossing the midline, creative play, and gross motor skills. Not to mention it’s a great opportunity to practice problem-solving. 

Playing Hide-and-Seek

Hide and seek has many surprising benefits for kids. Playing hide and seek is like a treasure hunt that helps develop gross motor skills and encourages physical development, as well as problem-solving skills. It also helps young children develop visual tracking, working memory, and social-emotional skills.

Imaginative Play

Imaginative play (also called role-play) builds important skills. Through pretending to be in different situations, kids develop social skills, emotional skills, better communication, and problem-solving skills. Imaginative play is a great idea for young toddlers all the way to older children.

Free Play 

Many young children don’t have {enough} time for free play. Free play is important for healthy brain development , not only developing imagination, cooperation, physical skills, and independence but also providing a great opportunity to strengthen problem-solving skills. 

Playing with Wooden Blocks

Building blocks are a fun way for children to develop creative thinking, imagination, problem-solving, fine motor skills, and if working with others, cooperation, communication, and friendship.

Playing Memory

Memory games improve attention, focus, visual recognition, and concentration. It helps children recognize details and of course, strengthens problem-solving skills. 

Ask Questions

When I see my son struggling with something, my first instinct is to give him choices or at least lead him in the right direction. The better thing to do is to ask very open-ended questions that lead his process, not his thoughts.

Questions like “What’s one way to solve your problem?” are much more effective in teaching problem-solving skills than “Well, where did you last see your stuffy?” 

Read Books and Social Stories

Reading books is one of my favorite ways to teach any skill. It’s extremely effective at teaching, and it’s also an amazing bonding time with kids.

When we read stories, our brain reacts as if we’re living in the story. This is why reading books about skills such as problem-solving is so effective. 

Kids of all ages learn from the people they love . (Yes, even those older kids who you don’t think are paying attention.) Often as adults, we’re too busy going through our daily routine to think about talking about the way we solved the problem at work that day.

Talking about how you use skills such as problem-solving, perseverance, and integrity is a great way to set an example, and an expectation that this is how we do things, and it will provide encouragement for your kiddo to do the same.

Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts are a great group activity that can strengthen your child’s logical thinking and problem-solving skills.

When Your Kiddo is Ready, Add These Activities

Preschoolers would benefit from all of the fun activities on the list above and when they’re ready, feel free to add in the following activities.   

Mazes are great for problem-solving and perseverance, but your kiddo will need to have decent fine motor skills to do these activities. Mazes are one of our favorite activities. We love to take our activity book of mazes in the car with us for road trips. 

Board Games  

Board games are a good way to strengthen problem-solving, teamwork, planning skills, patience, sportsmanship, and communication skills. They also strengthen family relationships by providing some intentional time of connection .

Any board game can also be turned into an academic game with just a deck of cards for whatever skill you’re working on. If you’re working on the alphabet, put one letter on each card. Before each player’s turn, they draw a letter card and say the letter’s name. (You may accidentally forget the name of a letter every now and then to see if your kiddo is really paying attention!) 

Allow Opportunities for Hands-On Investigations

Kids are tactile. They love to touch and explore things with their hands. This is a good activity for toddlers also, as long as they are out of the putting everything in their mouth stage. Hands-on exploration is great for language development, sensory exploration, and problem-solving.

Allowing kids to investigate with their hands allows them to see how the world works up close. It also gives them time and space to try to make things work…and problem-solve when it doesn’t go as they think it should.

The Most Difficult Way (and Most Important Way) To Strengthen Problem-Solving Skills

Watching our kids struggle is hard ! We don’t want to see them having a hard time…and most of the time we don’t want to deal with the impending meltdown. Standing back and giving our kids time and space to work through even simple problems is hard to do. It’s also the most important way to strengthen problem-solving skills. 

As parents, we’re like frogs in boiling water. When our kids are infants, they need us to recognize their needs and solve them immediately. As they get older, they can point to what they want, but we still have a lot of interpreting and problem-solving to do on our own. If we aren’t careful, we stay in this stage and don’t teach our kiddos the steps to problem-solving for themselves. 

The next most difficult thing? Allowing natural consequences to happen. (As long as your child is safe of course.) If your child saves their money for a long time to buy a new toy, but walks down the toy aisle and picks up something you know they’ll be disappointed with, let it happen. It will teach a valuable lesson that will last for years to come.

Another Essential Part of Problem-Solving

Perseverance is a big part of problem-solving. We are rarely able to solve problems the first time, and it’s essential that kids can find more than one solution to a problem. Studies have found that perseverance is actually the biggest predictor of success, even more than aptitude or raw talent. 

An entire module is dedicated to perseverance in our course for kids, Super Kid Adventures . Your kiddo will get 25 teacher-led lessons on character traits (perseverance, empathy, friendship, responsibility, and wellness) and activities that take their learning further. 

Want a free preview? Grab a FREE Perseverance video lesson that teaches your kiddo one of the most important secrets that help them use perseverance.

Want More? 

If you like this, you’ll love: 

The Ultimate List of Books that Teach Perseverance

7 Simple Ways to Encourage Independence in Young Children

How to Help Your Child Develop Self-Help Skills

Your Turn 

What are your favorite ways to teach problem-solving skills?

About Elizabeth

Elizabeth is a mama of two boys, a former teacher, and the founder of Discovery Play with Littles. Her mission is to make raising kids with character simple and fun. Join us for our best learning through play ideas, character growth activities, and family connection ideas so you can watch your child thrive.

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As a SLP trying to guide parents as I work with their child. I would like to know what toys to recommend to my parents as I assist in guiding their child’s development in cognition and expressive language.

Perseverance is the biggest predictor of success, even more than raw talent or aptitude.

Grab a FREE lesson to teach your kiddo one of the keys to perseverance...which is how we talk to our brains.

They'll learn what to say when they encounter something difficult, and why it's so important.

PLAY is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. -Mr. Rogers

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Problem Solving Activities for Preschoolers

Colleen beck otr/l.

• by Colleen Beck OTR/L
• October 22, 2021

It can be frustrating when children act without thinking of the consequences. In this blog post, you’ll learn about the development of problem solving in specific parts of our brain, discover important aspects of executive functioning that impact problem solving abilities, how to teach problem solving to preschoolers, and problem solving activities for preschoolers and young children so they can use words instead of the preschooler’s behaviors  or tantrums.

Best of all, many of our favorite fine motor activities for preschoolers support problem solving skills in early childhood.

Problem Solving Activities for Preschoolers

Before we get into the problem solving activities for preschoolers, and specific strategies to use in early childhood, it’s important to understand the development of the problem-solving process in kids. Supporting small children by giving them the skills to be problem solvers takes time and practice. We’ll get to those specific strategies below.

But first, does this scenario sound familiar at all…

I just don’t understand why Johnny keeps throwing the ball in the house. Doesn’t he realized that he could break the window? Johnny is three and he loves to play with his tennis ball in the house. Even though I have told him over and over again that we don’t throw them in the house, I still catch him sneaking them indoors at least once a week. 

Before we can address problem solving by helping kids look at the big picture and coming up with creative solutions for problem solving issues, we need to understand what is happening developmentally. Self-reflection is a challenging cognitive skill, and for young learners! 

Let’s take a better look at the development of problem solving skills…

Development of Problem Solving Skills

It’s through play, observation of others, and practice that young learners are developing problem solving skills in early childhood .

Problem solving, rational thinking and reasoning are all skills that are controlled by a part of our brain called the prefrontal cortex. Our brains grow exponentially over the first five years of life, but not the part of our brain that helps us with critical thinking and problem solving skills. This part of our brain, called the prefrontal cortex, isn’t fully developed until we turn 25 years old! 

As babies, we are exposed every day to new experiences, but at this age we don’t comprehend how these experiences affect us and those around us. If only children could think through their problems. This resource on executive functioning skills offers more information.

Have you noticed that it can be a bit scary when teenagers get their drivers licenses? They don’t always think of “what might happen.” This is due to their prefrontal cortex not being fully developed. 

But what about our three and four year olds? We know they can count, ask questions and get the cookie off the counter in a very sneaky way when we aren’t looking. In the Early Years study of 2011 called Making decisions, Taking action , they describe the prefrontal cortex entering a rapid period of development, making critical interconnections with our limbic system. (link: )

This study states “The prefrontal cortex pathways that underlie these capacities are unique to human brains and take a long time to mature. Early connections begin in infancy. Between age 3 and 5 years, the prefrontal cortex circuits enter a rapid period of development and make critical interconnections with the limbic system. During adolescence and early adulthood, the neural pathways are refined and become more efficient.”

What is so great about this part of the brain anyway? 

As the prefrontal cortex (that is located behind out eyes) develops over the years, we are able to engage with situations differently, assessing our surroundings in a new way. As we develop these new executive functioning skills, we are able to keep ourselves safe, build friendships and become successful in our careers.

Related, these friendship activities for preschoolers offers ideas and strategies to support social emotional development.

This peer reviewed report competed by Merve Cikili Utyun, called Development Period of Prefrontal Cortex, discusses how amazing this part of our brain is, and how each of the three sections control different aspects of our functioning. It states that: 

“ PFC includes the following Broadman Areas (BA): 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 44, 45, 46, 47. “The dorsolateral frontal cortex (BA) 9/46 has been functioned in many cognitive process, including processing spatial information, monitoring and manipulation of working memory, the implementation of strategies to facilitate memory, response selection, the organization of material before encoding, and the verification and evaluation of representations that have been retrieved from long-term memory. 

The mid-ventrolateral frontal cortex (BA 47) has implicated cognitive functions, including the selection, comparison, and judgment of stimuli held in short-term and long-term memory, processing non-spatial information, task switching, reversal learning, stimulus selection, the specification of retrieval cues, and the ‘elaboration encoding’ of information into episodic memory.

BA 10, the most anterior aspect of the PFC, is a region of association cortex known to be involved in higher cognitive functions, such as planning future actions and decision-making. BAs 44 and 45, include part of the inferior frontal and these regions’ functions are language production, linguistic motor control, sequencing, planning, syntax, and phonological processing.

Finally, the orbitofrontal cortex mostly (BA 47, 10, 11, 13) in the orbitofrontal cortex has been implicated in processes that involve the motivational or emotional value of incoming information, including the representation of primary (unlearned) reinforcers such as taste, smell, and touch, the representation of learnt relationships between arbitrary neutral stimuli and rewards or punishments, and the integration of this information to guide response selection, suppression, and decision making.” 

Wow! No wonder it takes so long for this part of our brain to fully develop. Problem solving skills in preschoolers take time to develop!

When Johnny is throwing the ball inside the house, he is thinking about what is happening now, in the present. Not what has happened in the past (when he broke the window at grandmas house a year ago) or that breaking a window might happen in the future. 

What are some problem solving techniques?

Solving problems is a skill that all preschoolers need support with. This critical skill doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and practice to become second nature.

It’s hard for us, as adults, to remember that children ages 3-5 (preschool-aged) don’t yet have the brain capacity to problem solve on their own, or remember what they learned from a situation a week ago. 

Just like when Andrew was painting at the easel and his paintbrush got stuck in the container. Instead of asking for help or trying to “unstick” the brush, he screamed.  Or when Sally and Samantha ran outside to grab the red bouncy ball, Samantha screamed when Sally grabs it first. She didn’t see the other red bouncy ball in the bucket next to the bikes. 

Try some of these problem solving activities for  kids :

Observation- Children need problem solving strategies that they can observe, and then practice in their everyday lives. Let kids see you talk through problems as you “figure out” a solution. This gives children a chance to see a problem-solving approach in real life situations. They get to see problem solving scenarios in action.

Repetition- Repetition supports brain growth in every area of development including problem solving, executive functioning, motor development, language skills and social development.

Multisensory Activities- Children learn best with multi-sensory cues, learning new skills through seeing, touching, hearing and experiencing the skills they are learning. In 2013, the US National Library of Medicine published an article titled  Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat.  stating “The prefrontal cortex acquires information from all of the senses and orchestrates thoughts and actions in order to achieve specific goals.” (link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/)

Creative Activities- Solving problems is a skill that all preschoolers need support with. It’s hard for us, as adults, to remember they don’t yet have the brain capacity to problem solve on their own. The best way to teach children how to problem solve, it to create activities that support these new skills in a positive way, that their developing brain understands. This letter to future self is one activity to work on goal achievement even at a young age. Preschoolers can draw a picture of what they would like to do or be as an older child or as a teenager or adult.

Problem Solving Activities for Preschool

Here are 3 Simple Ways to Teach Preschoolers to Solve Problems

1.Teaching executive functioning and problem solving skills in everyday situations will support the growth of a child’s prefrontal cortex. For example, these activities that teach executive functioning at the beach show how much thought and preparation goes into building a simple sand castles.

• Children have to think about how much sand to use, how to keep it standing, how to prevent sand from getting into their eyes and how to create another one if the one they are building falls down.
• They must create, plan ahead, problem solve when things get tough and communicate to adults and peers for help.

What other activities does your child do on a regular basis that requires all areas of the prefrontal cortex to activate?

2.When children become upset, their emotions become so overwhelming that they can’t think. In order to calm down and problem solve, they need to access a multi sensory way to help them remember how to do that.

Soothing Sammy gives children tactile and visual cues that remind them how to calm down and problem solve in a developmentally appropriate way. They can be reminded of this positive reinforcement with two words “Sammy Time!”

By reading the book about the sweet golden retriever, who understands that everyone feels upset sometimes, children are encouraged to use all of the sensory strategies to calm down. They can talk to Sammy about what is happening and think through their problem to create a solution.

Ashlie’s four year old daughter did just this. She reports: “When Molly was having some big emotions about coloring a picture and needed to calm down, she visited Sammy and returned with a solution to the problem she came up with all on her own (well with Sammy’s help).”

Click here for more information on the Soothing Sammy resources .

3.Problem solving requires us to remember what just happened, what is happening now and what do we want to happen next. A preschoolers brain tends to blend all three of these situations together, not able to communicate any of them until prompted by an adult. And as an adult, we are left “guessing” what our children are thinking about. Visual cues are a wonderful sensory communication tool to support both children and adults in the realm of solving problems.

Using tools like “First/Then” cards to support routine and common situations like transitions and completing tasks. Using visuals clearly communicates what needs to be done, especially if using pictures of real children doing these tasks.

A Final note about problem solving skills in preschool

Solving problems are hard for young children, even teenagers, as their prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed yet. Using multisensory teaching tools to support brain development, practicing tasks that teach executive functioning skills and using developmentally appropriate tools to help children calm down, will help even the most frustrating moments become a bit less stressful for children and adults. 

As we learn to be more patient with children, understanding that the part of their brain needed to solve problems is just beginning to develop, repeating the same directions over and over again may not be so frustrating. Our children are doing the best they can. It’s up to us to provide them with experiences to help their brains grow and develop. 

Jeana Kinne is a veteran preschool teacher and director. She has over 20 years of experience in the Early Childhood Education field. Her Bachelors Degree is in Child Development and her Masters Degree is in Early Childhood Education. She has spent over 10 years as a coach, working with Parents and Preschool Teachers, and another 10 years working with infants and toddlers with special needs. She is also the author of the “Sammy the Golden Dog” series, teaching children important skills through play.

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Top 25 Cognitive Development Activities for Preschoolers

Dive into the enchanting world of preschool cognitive development, where each game and activity is a key to unlocking the vast potential of young minds. Beyond mere play, these 25 cognitive development activities help to encourage critical thinking skills, problem-solving and creative expression, laying the foundation for a future filled with innovation and curiosity. Join us on this transformative journey, where every challenge met and every question asked sparks the flame of lifelong learning for each toddler in your class.

Table of Contents

What Are the Best Cognitive Development Activities for Preschoolers?

Matching games for cognitive abilities.

• Rhyming Activities for Cognitive Skills    
• Problem-Solving Games for Preschoolers   
• Board Games for Cognitive Function   
• Structured Activities in the Preschool Setting   
• Encouraging Critical Thinking through Scavenger Hunts   
• Building Memory with Sequencing Activities   
• Enhancing Spatial Awareness with Blocking   
• Fostering Logical Thinking with Classification Games   
• Cultivating Attention and Focus with Listening Games   
• Encouraging Numeracy with Counting Activities  
• Sight Word Activities
• What is a cognitive activity for preschool?  
• Why are cognitive development activities so important for preschoolers?  
• How do you promote cognitive development in a preschool setting?  

What kind of cognitive skills can preschoolers develop?

Get 70+ Editable and Printable Templates for Almost Every Preschool Situation

Matching games enhance visual recognition, memory and concentration skills in preschoolers. These activities require children to identify similarities and differences, improving their cognitive abilities.

1. Color Match

• Overview: Children match objects or cards based on colors
• Materials Needed: Colored cards or objects
• Setup: Spread out the colored cards or objects on a table or a designated area on the floor so every item is visible to the children.
• Instructions:
• Ask the children to pick one colored item and then find another item or card that matches its color.
• After they make a match, discuss the color, asking the child to name the color to reinforce color recognition and vocabulary.
• Repeat the process, allowing each child multiple turns to enhance their learning experience.

2. Shape Sorting

• Overview: A game where children sort items based on their shapes
• Materials Needed: Various objects or cards with different shapes
• Setup:  Mix the shape items or cards and place them in a central pile accessible to all children.
• Instruct the children to sort the items or cards into groups based on their shapes.
• As they sort, engage with each child or group, discussing the properties of each shape (like the number of sides or corners).
• Encourage the children to name each shape as they sort, reinforcing their shape recognition and language skills.

Rhyming Activities for Cognitive Skills

Rhyming activities strengthen language skills, phonemic awareness and auditory discrimination — all important cognitive skills. They help children predict and recognize sound patterns, a key aspect of literacy development .

3. Rhyme Matching

• Overview: Kids match words or pictures that rhyme
• Materials Needed: Cards with rhyming words or pictures
• Setup: Mix the rhyming cards and spread them out face up on a large table or on the floor so all images or words are visible to the children.
• Invite the children to choose one card and then find another card that rhymes with it.
• Once they make a match, ask them to say the words out loud, emphasizing the rhyming sounds.
• Discuss each pair, reinforcing why the words rhyme and the phonetic similarities.

4. Rhyming Bingo

• Overview: A bingo game with a rhyming twist
• Materials Needed: Bingo cards with pictures, markers
• Distribute a bingo card to each child along with a set of markers or chips.
• Explain how each picture on their card will have at least one rhyming counterpart that you will call out.
• Call out or show pictures that rhyme with the images on the bingo cards.
• Children place a marker on the image that rhymes with the word or picture you presented.
• The first child to complete a line shouts "Bingo!" Review the rhyming words in their line to reinforce the learning objective.

Problem-Solving Games for Preschoolers

Problem-solving games enhance critical thinking, reasoning and decision-making skills. They provide scenarios where children need to find solutions, boosting their cognitive development.

5. Puzzle Completion

• Overview: Children complete puzzles to improve problem-solving and spatial reasoning
• Materials Needed: Age-appropriate puzzles
• Setup: Scatter the puzzle pieces across a table, ensuring there's enough space for children to work without crowding.
• Encourage children to select a puzzle and begin piecing it together.
• Observe and offer guidance as needed, asking questions to prompt them to think about where each piece might fit.
• After completing the puzzle, discuss the strategies they used and how they determined where each piece belonged.

6. Which One Doesn't Belong?

• Overview: A game that develops reasoning by identifying items that don't fit a set
• Materials Needed: Sets of objects or images, with one unrelated item in each set
• Setup: Arrange each set on a table or mat, making sure the unrelated item is not immediately obvious.
• Present each set to the children, asking them to examine the items and decide which one doesn't belong.
• Encourage them to explain their reasoning, fostering language development and ability to think logically.
• Discuss the attributes that group the other items together and why the outlier is different, reinforcing critical thinking and categorization skills.

Board Games for Cognitive Function

Board games promote strategic thinking, turn-taking and rule-following . These games offer fun ways to develop cognitive skills and social skills in a structured setting.

7. Memory Game

• Overview: A classic game that enhances memory and concentration
• Materials Needed: Memory game cards
• Setup: Shuffle the memory cards and lay them face down in a grid formation.
• Children take turns flipping two cards to find matching pairs.
• Encourage them to remember the locations of different cards to assist in making matches.
• Discuss strategies for remembering card positions to enhance memory and pattern recognition skills.

8. Simple Strategy Games

• Overview: Games like "Connect Four" or "Tic-Tac-Toe" encourage strategic thinking
• Materials Needed: Game boards and pieces
• Setup: Set up the game board according to the game rules.
• Demonstrate how to play the game, highlighting how to plan moves and anticipate the opponent's strategy.
• Let children play the game, guiding them to think about the cause-and-effect of their decisions and the consequences.
• After the game, discuss what strategies worked and what they could do differently next time.

Structured Activities in the Preschool Setting

Structured activities provide a framework for cognitive development, focusing on specific skills within a guided context.

9. Daily Routine Role-Play

• Overview: Helps children understand and get comfortable with daily routines
• Materials Needed: Props related to daily classroom activities
• Setup: Create stations around the classroom that represent different parts of the daily routine, such as arrival, story time, snack time and departure.
• Divide the children into small groups , assigning a station to each group.
• Guide them through the activities at each station, explaining the actions and their importance.
• Rotate the groups through the stations, allowing each preschooler to experience the different aspects of the routine.
• Conclude with a discussion on what they learned and how these routines contribute to their day.

10. Sorting and Categorizing

• Overview: Develops classification skills by grouping items based on attributes
• Materials Needed: Various objects or images
• Setup: Scatter the objects or lay out the images in a central location.
• Encourage children to sort the items into groups based on a specific attribute (e.g., color, size, type).
• Facilitate discussions about the characteristics of each group and why certain items belong together, reinforcing logical thinking and categorization skills.

Encouraging Critical Thinking through Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts stimulate cognitive processes like problem-solving, memory and deductive reasoning, as children follow clues to find objects.

11. Color Scavenger Hunt

• Overview: Children search for items based on color clues, enhancing color recognition and observational skills
• Materials Needed: Color clues and objects in various colors
• Setup: Prepare a list of colors or provide color cards to each child or team.
• Children search the classroom or play area to find items that match each color on their list.
• As they find each item, encourage them to discuss why they chose it, reinforcing their understanding of colors.
• Review all found items together, discussing the colors and enhancing vocabulary and observational skills.

12. Shape Scavenger Hunt

• Overview: A fun way to reinforce shape recognition as children find items matching specific shapes
• Materials Needed: Shape clues and various objects
• Setup: Provide a list of shapes for children to find in their environment.
• Kids search for and collect items that match the shapes on their list.
• Discuss the properties of each shape as children present their findings, reinforcing their shape recognition and cognitive association skills.

Building Memory with Sequencing Activities

Sequencing activities help preschoolers understand order and process, critical for developing logical thinking and memory skills in early childhood.

13. Story Sequencing

• Overview: Children arrange pictures or sentences to retell a story in the correct sequence
• Materials Needed: Story cards or pictures
• Setup: Scramble the sequence of story cards or pictures.
• Present the mixed-up story cards to the children.
• Ask them to arrange the cards in order that they believe narrates the story correctly.
• Once they complete the sequence, narrate the story based on their arrangement, discussing the flow and logic to reinforce understanding.

14. Daily Routine Sequencing

• Overview: Enhances understanding of daily sequences and time management
• Materials Needed: Cards representing daily activities
• Setup: Mix up cards that depict various daily routine activities.
• Show the mixed-up cards to the children, explaining each activity briefly.
• Ask them to arrange the cards in the order they think these activities occur throughout the day.
• Discuss each step as they place it, reinforcing the sequence and helping them understand daily routines.

Enhancing Spatial Awareness with Block Building

Developmentally appropriate block-building activities help to teach spatial reasoning, allowing children to understand and manipulate their physical world and enhance motor skills.

15. Block Building Challenges

• Overview: Encourages creative construction and spatial awareness
• Materials Needed: Different types and sizes of blocks
• Setup: Provide a variety of blocks.
• Challenge the children to build a specific structure or replicate a design with the blocks.
• Allow them time to build, then discuss the structures, focusing on the use of space and the shapes created.

16. Navigating Obstacle Courses

• Overview: Develops spatial awareness and physical coordination
• Materials Needed: Objects to create an obstacle course
• Setup: Arrange objects to form a simple obstacle course.
• Demonstrate how to navigate the course.
• Have the children take turns going through the course, observing their approaches and strategies.
• Discuss their experiences, focusing on how they perceived and interacted with the space.

Fostering Logical Thinking with Classification Games

Classification games enhance logical thinking, encouraging children to organize items based on common attributes.

17. Animal Habitat Sorting

• Overview: Kids classify animals based on their natural habitats, fostering matching skills, logical thinking and knowledge of the natural world
• Materials Needed: Animal and habitat pictures or figurines
• Setup: Display pictures or figurines of various animals and habitats.
• Ask the children to place each animal in its corresponding habitat.
• Discuss the choices, focusing on the characteristics of each habitat and why certain animals live there.

18. Sorting by Size or Color

• Overview: Develops the ability to classify objects based on size or color
• Materials Needed: A collection of objects in different sizes or colors
• Setup: Present a mixed group of objects to the children.
• Instruct the children to sort the objects by size or color.
• Engage in a discussion about their sorting criteria, reinforcing understanding of size, color and categorization.

Cultivating Attention and Focus with Listening Games

Listening games promote preschool cognitive development by enhancing auditory processing, concentration and the ability to follow directions.

19. Sound Identification

• Overview: Sharpens auditory skills and focus as children identify sounds
• Materials Needed: Various sound-making objects or recorded sounds
• Setup: Prepare a selection of distinct sounds, either from objects or recordings.
• Play one sound at a time and ask children to identify the source or type of sound.
• Discuss each sound after identification, talking about its characteristics and where it might be heard in everyday life.

20. Musical Statues

• Overview: Combines listening with physical control, as children must freeze when the music stops
• Materials Needed: Music player and a selection of songs
• Setup: Clear an area for children to move around safely.
• Play music and encourage children to dance or move around.
• Randomly pause the music; when it stops, children must freeze in place.
• Discuss the importance of listening for the music to stop and start, enhancing their attention to auditory cues.

Encouraging Numeracy with Counting Activities

Counting activities are a foundation for future education, where preschoolers develop numeracy and get a basic introduction to mathematics .

21. Count and Match

• Overview: Children count objects and match them with the correct numeral
• Materials Needed : Objects to count, number cards
• Arrange the small objects in groups from 1-10 on a table.
• Shuffle the number cards and place them in a stack face down.
• Ask a child to pick a number card from the stack.
• The child counts out the corresponding number of objects from the groups.
• Once the objects are counted, the child matches the group with the number card.
• Repeat the process with each child, ensuring they get turns to practice counting and matching.

22. Snack Time Counting

• Overview: Integrates counting into a routine activity, making learning relevant and practical
• Materials Needed: Snack items, plates or napkins
• Distribute an equal number of snacks on plates or napkins for each child.
• Ensure each child has a clear view of their snacks and easy access to count them.
• Instruct the children to count their snacks one by one.
• After counting, each child shares their total number with the group.
• Engage the children by asking who has the most or least if there's a variance in numbers.
• Introduce simple addition or subtraction by asking hypothetical questions (e.g., "If you eat two, how many will you have left?").

23. Math Worksheets

If you're looking for an activity to help children learn numbers, we built a pack of five math worksheets. Simply print them off, pass them out and provide a few simple instructions to teach children numbers one through five. Click the image below to download all five worksheets. If you're looking for more free materials, we have you covered with dozens of printables and templates . This is part of Vanco's mission to provide preschool classrooms with the free tools and management software they need.

Teaching Sight Words

Dolch sight words cover some of the most important words for little ones to learn. To help you, we built two sight word activity materials you can use. In the image below, you'll find the words that are most essential for preschoolers to learn. Each of the materials we built are designed to encourage mastery of these terms.

24. Sight Word Flash Cards

Flash cards are a great way to teach reading, especially for key terms. That's why we created these printout of sight word flashcards.

25. Sight Word Bingo Cards

Bingo is a fun game that many young learners are already familiar with. That's why we've created over a dozen printouts you can print off and use.

What is a cognitive activity for preschool?

Cognitive activities for preschoolers are tasks and games designed to enhance children's mental processes. These activities are not just about learning facts or figures; they're about encouraging kids to think critically, solve problems and understand complex concepts relative to their age groups. Cognitive development of preschoolers can range from simple memory games to more complex problem-solving tasks, all aimed at stimulating brain development in the preschool years.

Why are cognitive childhood development activities so important for preschoolers?

Importance of cognitive activities.

Engaging in cognitive development activities helps set the stage for a child's future learning. These activities help to fine-tune the preschooler's brain, making it more efficient and effective in processing information, solving problems and making decisions. By participating in these activities, children learn to focus, pay attention and remember details, which are essential cognitive skills in preschool and in their overall development.

Benefits for Preschoolers

• Enhances memory: Regular participation in cognitive activities helps improve preschoolers' memory, aiding them in retaining information more effectively.
• Boosts problem-solving skills: Cognitive activities challenge children to think critically and find solutions to problems, fostering their problem-solving skills.
• Promotes language development: Many cognitive activities involve following instructions or understanding stories, which can enhance language skills.
• Encourages creativity: These activities often allow children to use their imagination, promoting creative thinking.

How do you promote cognitive development in a preschool setting?

Tracking progress on cognitive milestones for preschoolers.

Keeping track of cognitive milestones is essential to ensure preschoolers are developing as expected. Observing how children engage with cognitive activities can provide insights into their progress, helping educators and parents identify areas where they may need additional support or stimulation.

How to Help Children Develop Cognitive Skills

• Provide a variety of activities: Offer a range of cognitive development activities that target different areas of the brain and skills, such as fine motor skills, critical skills and problem solving.
• Create a stimulating environment: Ensure the learning environment is rich with materials and opportunities for exploration and discovery.
• Encourage curiosity: Answer questions, provide explanations and encourage preschoolers to ask more and explore their surroundings.

Boosting Cognitive Development

• Interactive play: Engage children in interactive play that requires them to think, make decisions and solve problems.
• Storytelling: Use storytelling to enhance imagination, memory and language skills.
• Questioning: Ask them questions, especially open-ended questions that prompt children to think and articulate their thoughts.

Building Cognitive Skills through Puzzles

Puzzles are an excellent tool for developing spatial awareness, problem-solving skills and patience. They require children to recognize patterns, shapes and colors, all of which are fundamental to a preschooler's cognitive development.

Developing Memory through Games

Memory games are not only fun but also incredibly beneficial for enhancing a child's memory and attention to detail. These games encourage preschoolers to remember positions, colors or shapes, which is a vital cognitive exercise.

Enhancing Language Skills with Cognitive Activities

Language-based cognitive activities can significantly boost a child's vocabulary, comprehension and communication skills. Through imaginative storytelling, rhyming games and conversation, kids learn new words, understand sentence structures and express their ideas more clearly.

Get 100+ Editable and Printable Templates for Almost Every Preschool Situation

We know preschools like yours are busy. That's why we made dozens of templates to help you manage the various aspects of your organization. With billing and invoicing, activity templates, forms and even marketing materials, we have it all. Download all 100 today!

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Supporting Cognitive Development: Experiences and Activities

In this lesson, you will learn the importance of providing children with a variety of age-appropriate experiences. This lesson describes how you can engage children in activities to promote cognitive development and address the individual needs of all learners.

• Identify examples of types of learning that take place across various age and ability levels.
• Explore your own values and assumptions about how and what children learn.
• Create experiences and activities that you can use with the children in your care.

You most likely serve a diverse group of children in your family child care home and, in turn, address a variety of needs and interests. You know that children’s cognitive development is important, so you plan your environment and daily activities to support their learning. Your understanding of what skills are typical for children of certain ages, what is interesting and appropriate for an individual child, and what is valued by families and the community affects your daily interactions with the children in your care (Bredecamp & Copple, 2009). Developmentally appropriate practice is a term used to describe educational and caregiving methods that promote each child’s optimal learning and development through a strengths-based approach to joyful, engaged learning. You can implement developmentally appropriate practice by recognizing the multiple assets all young children bring to the group as unique individuals and as members of families and communities (NAEYC, 2019). You should use this knowledge to make daily decisions about the learning experiences you offer children.

Experiences and Activities that Promote Infants’ and Toddlers’ Cognitive Development

Infants and toddlers learn best through daily interactions with warm, caring adults and play-based experiences. Play helps children develop their approaches toward learning. Memory, spatial awareness, problem solving, attention, and persistence are a few cognitive competencies developed through play. Families and caregivers can support children in becoming better learners by engaging in play with them.

It is important to remember that young children are natural explorers. They are hungry for information about the world around them. Children are learning how to learn. Adults can nurture this curiosity by promoting exploration and problem-solving. This helps young children develop thinking skills. There is a lot you can do to help young children learn. Here is a short list of ways to support infants and toddlers in your care: 

• Model your own thinking skills. Show interest, ask questions, and make comments about your observations as you play with children. For example, you might say, “Hmm. I really wanted to paint this part of my picture purple, but the purple paint is being used. What should I do?”
• Find opportunities throughout the day to play “What if…?” games. Ask the children questions like, “I wonder what sound this drum will make if I bang on it?” or “What if we run out of snack? What should we do?”
• Give children lots of chances to explore concepts. Read books and promote literacy development during individual and group activities, sing songs about the stories you read, and encourage children to imitate story characters with sounds or movements.

Consider the following ways in which young children learn important concepts through play (Guyton, 2011). You might notice that many of these examples involve learning in more than one area, or developmental domain. Developmental domains represent specific aspects of a child’s overall development (Cognitive, Motor, Language &Literacy, Social-Emotional, Physical Well-Being). It is important to keep in mind that, during play, children often learn across multiple developmental domains. You may also notice that these examples reflect everyday experiences, which offer many opportunities for learning.

• When a young infant interacts with a mobile by reaching for an item or visually tracking a moving item, they are learning about the important concept of cause and effect while at the same time improving their eye-hand coordination. 
• When a pre-toddler interacts with books, they are engaging in early literacy, as well as learning the names of objects or characters on book pages. 
• When a toddler uses a puppet to tell a story or act out happenings in the story they are learning to use their imagination, abstract thinking, and language. 

Experiences and Activities that Promote Preschool-Age Children’s Cognitive Development

As children move into the ages of 3 to 5 years, their knowledge and skills continue to develop each day. Observing the children you care for helps you learn about their unique interests and strengths. You can use your knowledge of child development and your observations about the individual children in your care to plan developmentally appropriate activities to promote cognitive development.

Much of preschoolers’ learning occurs through their interaction and their experiences with materials and the environment. Preschool children’s cognitive learning falls into several categories or content areas including: math, science, social studies, language and literacy, art, and technology. You can support children’s learning across these content areas. Here are a few examples of ways children might learn important concepts:

• Math: A preschool child notices what comes next in a pattern. A child notices that his friend has a different number (size) on his shoe.
• Science: A child uses her senses to explore a new food offered at lunch. Another child shares information about her pet and what food her pet likes to eat.
• Social studies: A child brings his baby pictures and takes on family roles in the dramatic play area. Children draw a map of the buildings they passed on a walk to the park.
• Language and literacy: A child sings rhyming songs and claps the syllables in words. A child spends time after nap relaxing and looking at pictures in books.
• Art: A child creates a three-dimensional sculpture of the bird house he sees in your backyard. Another child dances to music and pats a rhythm on a toy drum.
• Technology: A child uses a computer to create a message and artwork for his mother. 

You may notice that many of the above examples involve learning in more than one area. It’s important to keep in mind that, during play, children often learn across multiple domains. For example, when a child types a message to his mother on the computer, he is learning about technology and literacy. When a child claps along to a rhyming song, she may be learning literacy, math, and music. Everyday experiences offer preschool children many opportunities for learning.  Some examples of ways you can support preschooler’s cognitive development in your family child care include:

• Taking clipboards and markers outside to observe, draw and write about nature
• Planting seeds, discussing what they need to grow and observing how they change as they grow
• Exploring prisms and transparent objects on a light table
• Rolling cars or balls down ramps of different inclines to see how far they travel
• Mixing different colors of paints to create new colors
• Creating a graph of children’s favorite colors, season, food, or sports as a group
• Using measuring cups and funnels to fill containers with sand in the sensory table
• Exploring parts of a flower with magnifying glasses
• Setting up dramatic play so that children can pretend to cook, be doctors, make grocery lists, or take care of baby dolls
• Sorting plastic animals by different characteristics (size, shape, color)
• Listening and acting out stories like “The Three Little Pigs”
• Creating patterns by using colored blocks and pattern pictures
• Drawing maps or driving toy cars along maps or roads
• Creating classroom rules together as a group
• Sorting objects into groups, counting how many are in each group or identifying which group has less or more

Preschoolers are naturally curious and eager to explore.  As a family child care provider you can nurture their curiosity and promote thinking skills. Observe the children in your care, note what they are interested in and provide opportunities for exploration. You can use everyday materials and objects to help children learn about their world. Here are just a few examples of ways you can support preschool children’s learning:

• Model your own thinking and ask children to generate ideas. “I wonder how I can attach this hook on the wall. What are some ideas you have for attaching it?”
• Find opportunities to use language to facilitate children’s mathematical thinking. “I have four bananas, but we have six children to eat a snack. I wonder how we can make sure everyone has a part of a banana.”
• Give children many opportunities to explore concepts. Play games during transition to outdoors by asking children to get their coats based on some characteristics: “Everyone who is wearing a blue shirt can get their coat.”
• Encourage children to use self-control and acknowledge when they do.  Say things like, “I know you were working really hard on that structure. It is hard to stop, but your mom is here. How about we put a sign on your structure and save it for tomorrow?” 

Experiences and Activities that Promote School-Age Children’s Cognitive Development

Caring for school-age children in your family child care setting means offering experiences and activities that they enjoy. Again, observing the children and watching what their interests are can help with planning meaningful activities for school-age children. At this age, children may be learning to read, write, do math problems, search the internet for research reports, and conduct simple science experiments. Talking with children about what they are learning in school may help you collect interesting books, materials, games, and software that appeal to children. Here are a few examples of ways school-age children might learn important concepts:

Reading & Writing

Reading and writing opportunities help school-age children and youth to develop the skills and knowledge to effectively communicate information, ideas, and opinions to a variety of audiences.  Learning to write, like reading, is a lifelong process. Research has shown that when students receive writing instruction, their reading fluency and comprehension improve. You can support school-age children’s reading and writing skills by offering the following opportunities in your family child care home:

• Partner reading: School-age children are learning to communicate with others through reading and writing. Supporting reading and writing in your family child care home may include asking school-age children to read aloud to a friend or to one of the younger children. Partner reading not only helps readers build their ability to read smoothly (i.e., fluency), but it encourages children to work together (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborne, 2001). 
• Reader’s theater: Acting out a story gives children the opportunity to work together to bring a book to life. Children at play naturally create characters, scenes, and stories. Dramatic play experiences encourage emotional growth, motivation, and engagement (Prescott, 2020). Reader’s theater is a form of dramatic play that effectively builds reading fluency by encouraging listening and speaking skills and boosting comprehension.
• Book discussions or literature circle: Literature circles help children and youth think and talk about the books they have read with other peers. Children can build a sense of community, deepen their understanding of books, and learn speaking and listening skills through these conversations.
• Creative writing activities: Younger children benefit from daily writing experiences, so embedding writing in the daily curriculum, such as having students write about their day, is helpful. Older children might benefit from writing-focused activities such as writing poems, writing letters to pen pals, writing autobiographies, writing songs, writing and acting out plays, and writing book reports on a topic of interest. Provide paper of different colors, sizes, and textures. Read poems and have children write their own poems, stories, and books, and illustrate them with photos (drawn and digital). 
• Author’s chair: Children take turns reading books they have written to their friends. You can designate a special chair and make this a weekly activity.

Mathematics

You can help school-age children become confident and successful mathematicians by planning math activities in your family child care setting. Here are just a few examples:

• Make math visual and hands-on . Many school-age children have difficulties picturing numbers and calculations in their minds. Active, hands-on learning opportunities provide students ways to visualize math concepts. For young children, addition and subtraction problems can be simplified by counting actual objects. Children can practice geometry by using toothpicks and marshmallows, for example, to create different types of shapes and angles. Older children can practice mathematical concepts by designing towers using building blocks or Legos and measuring them with tape measures, yardsticks, or rulers. 
• Create engaging opportunities for learning . If an activity relates to children’s lives, interest, or hobbies, then their level of participation and effort will increase. Sports, board games, card games, and videos can incorporate aspects of math. One example is for children to take a poll, asking the other children and their family members their favorite animal or food item. Then, children can create a graph to show the results of their poll. 
• “I'm noticing a pattern here, what patterns do you see?“
• “How did you figure that out?”
• “How did you solve this problem?”
• “What would happen if ...?”
• “Tell me more about this.”

Science and Exploration

Children are natural explorers who use all of their senses to investigate their surroundings. The enthusiasm and energy that children bring to new experiences provides a wealth of opportunities for learning. Opportunities for exploration and problem solving are tied with the physical world, the life sciences, earth and the environment. A fallen bird’s nest, the illumination of lightning bugs, the presence of pollution and litter are just a few examples of topics that can be used for deeper exploration. Growing plants, collecting rocks, finding insects, or creating a book about different birds seen in the neighborhood are all ways to engage children in science. Activities such as a walk to the park or a trip to the public library can help children make and document new discoveries.

Social Studies

You can make social studies come alive by creating opportunities for experiential learning. Experiential learning simply means to learn by doing. Experiential learning is a successful teaching strategy that enables children to learn and retain information through experiences tied to their learning. When engaged in experiential learning, children draw on all their senses. They read and listen to information to develop background knowledge. Children can see items or visuals related to a particular topic. They can take on roles to experience the topic they are learning about (Diem, 2004). 

Many social studies topics can be taught through experiential learning. For example, children studying a particular culture can perform tasks that individuals from that culture may typically perform (e.g., trading goods and services; designing transportation for a country; creating a mock election). The children can work together and with you to design engaging and meaningful learning around social studies.

Addressing the Needs of Diverse Learners and Families

All children need a strong developmentally appropriate curriculum, supportive environment, and nurturing relationships. As a family child care provider, you will need to plan experiences and activities that address the varying developmental needs of the children you serve. Some children you care for will thrive even without much support from you while other children will need your help more frequently.  It is critical that you work with each child’s family to learn more about their child’s learning and development and what supports have been most successful. Some children have specific learning needs and require individualized strategies to help them be successful in your child care home. Include an item asking about this on any paperwork you create as a “Getting to Know Your Child” form in your parent handbook. You will want to know about any special activities or equipment, specialists or programs that provide individualized strategies or services, and how your environment and daily activities can support the child’s optimal development.

Infants and toddlers (birth to three years) with disabilities may have an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) that was written with the child’s parents and specialized therapists. Ask parents to share ideas and specific strategies about how you can best meet their child’s learning needs. Parents are the experts about their child. The more you know and understand each individual child’s developmental needs the better care you can support them. 

Children (three years and older) may have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) written with the child’s parents, teachers, and therapists. Ask the parents to share any information from their child’s IEP that will assist you in caring for the child. IEP’s may have specific strategies for learning new vocabulary, eliciting language, responding to questions, and following directions. When you can accommodate individual learning needs, you support the individual child as well as the other children in your care. Specialized learning strategies often are helpful not only for the child with special needs but for all the children in your family child care home.

Children who speak another language and are learning English are often called English language learners (ELLs) or dual language learners (DLLs). It might be hard for some children who are learning English to easily participate in all the activities in child care. The children learning English may be at different stages of acquiring their home language and English. Some children may hear quite a bit of English in their home, while others may hear none. This means some children may need more help than others. You can help children who are learning English by (a) including activities that are culturally meaningful to them, (b) giving them special supports, and (c) making children feel included in all activities. Helping all children is characterized by flexibility and a variety of changes. By making adaptations to the materials and/or the environment, or by adjusting your expectations of an activity, all children can feel successful and included.

Changes to Curricula

The curriculum should support the development and well-being of all children in a group to foster learning. While children may have diverse learning needs, the skills, and concepts they are learning through the curriculum may be similar.

Think about whether your experiences and activities include the right kind of goals and instruction for children. If not, you can make some changes to how information is presented. For example, some children who have difficulty with reading comprehension may need to have an abridged version of a book while other children can read the book in its entirety. Children with weak vocabulary skills might benefit from vocabulary instruction before reading a new book. School-age children can use a concept map where they write the vocabulary word, write the definition, identify an example and non-example, and draw a picture of the vocabulary word.

Changes to the Environment

You may have to make some changes to your family child care environment to meet the needs of all children. A school-age child may prefer reading while sitting on an exercise ball. Some children may prefer a self-monitoring chart (a list that children use to help know they are staying on task). Some children enjoy quiet classical music playing to help them stay focused on a game. In family child care, the mixed ages of children are an advantage when looking at the overall environment. Some school-age children with disabilities may enjoy playing in areas of your home child care that are designed for the younger children (e.g., an 8-year-old takes the role of the cashier in a pretend grocery store area). You may have to rethink the environment so that an older child can participate in more age-appropriate ways (e.g., make signs for the pretend store or count the play money so each preschooler has an equal amount). It is important to keep the environment age-appropriate and challenging for all the children in your care. You can do this by talking with parents about a child’s specific special needs and interests. Then, intentionally use the child’s interests to engage the child in planned activities.

Changes During Activities

Children with disabilities might find some activities very challenging. For example, a school-age child who is learning how to add numbers may have difficulty quickly adding up the points when playing a board game with other children. You can make the activity easier by providing this child with a basic calculator. You can decrease the use of a calculator as the child becomes faster at adding numbers on paper. The help and concrete support that you offer the child will change over time as they become more skilled. Making modifications to activities and offering individualized support allows all children to participate successfully in activities. As a family child care provider, it is your job to support all children. You should know the strengths and needs of all children in your care to ensure that each child gets what they need when they need it.

Partnering with Families

Always support children’s cultures, learning styles, and temperaments as you promote interesting and meaningful learning during daily routines and activities. Maintain open communication with children’s families about your philosophy about how children learn, the importance of the learning environment and planned daily activities. Encourage families to share their own thoughts and beliefs to ensure continuity of care. Additionally, by sharing your weekly schedule of activities and ways children are learning through the experiences with each family, you are demonstrating your commitment to their child’s development. 

The following video clips show caregivers supporting children’s cognitive development through various activities and interactions in their family child care setting.

Cognitive Development: Experiences & Activities

You promote learning through your interactions and careful planning of activities every day. You can support children’s cognitive development by:

• Providing a variety of enriching, developmentally appropriate activities that are challenging to each age level, but still allow them to feel successful.
• Presenting opportunities for toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age children to engage in active, project-based learning
• Offering interesting, age-appropriate play and exploration choices each day
• Providing books and videos that are fiction and nonfiction, culturally sensitive, and supportive of the interests of the children in your care
• Creating games and experiences that a variety of ages of children can participate in at their level of development
• Developing activity or curriculum plans that incorporate learning opportunities across all content areas (math, literacy, science, social studies, technology, art, music)
• Providing books, materials, toys, music, and foods that reflect the cultures of the children in your care
• Allowing for voluntary participation in activities knowing that not all children enjoy the same things
• Using daily observations and taking notes about the learning and development of each child you care for so you can best meet their individual needs

Each of us has different opinions, philosophies, and ideas about what and how children learn. Read and review the What Should Children Learn activity. Use these scenarios to reflect on your own point of view. Then think about how you would use your knowledge of cognitive development to respond to the adults in the scenarios. Write your responses and share them with your trainer, coach, or family child care administrator. Then compare your answers to the suggested responses. For this activity, it is helpful to consider multiple points of view when reflecting on the parents’ opinions and beliefs compared to your own. 

It is important to offer learning experiences and activities that are appropriate, engaging and supportive of children’s learning and development across various developmental domains including cognitive, social-emotional, physical, language and literacy, and creative development. Providers working toward their CDA credential should use the  CDA Science/Sensory Activity Plan and the CDA Mathematics Activity Plan handout to develop a science/sensory and a mathematics learning experience from your curriculum (or new activities you plan on implementing).  

What Should Children Learn During the Infant, Toddler, Preschool, and School-Age Years?

Cda science/sensory activity plan, cda mathematics activity plan.

Planning developmentally appropriate activities, experiences, and materials for your family child care home is important to supporting children’s play and exploration. Use the handout Materials and Activities You Use to Support Cognitive Development to think about how you support children’s cognitive development across a variety of ages.

Also, the Extension Database of Hands-On Activities for Child Care is an excellent resource, which includes experiences you can provide to a wide age-range of children: https://childcare.extension.org/hands-on-activities-for-child-care/

Materials and Activities to Support Cognitive Development

Demonstrate.

Child Care Aware of North Dakota. (2017). https://ndchildcare.org/providers/activities.html

Child Trends. (2019). Parental Expectations Increase Kids’ Stress. https://www.childtrends.org/videos/parental-expectations-increase-kids-stress  

Gestwicki, C. (2016). Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Curriculum and development in early education (6th ed.). Cengage Learning, Inc.

Graham, S., Bollinger, A., Booth Olson, C., D’Aoust, C., McArthur, C., McCutchen D., & Olinghouse, N. (2012). Teaching Elementary School Students to be Effective Writers: A practice guide (NCEE 2012-4058). National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Educational Sciences. 

Gurganus, S. P. (2007). Math Instruction for Students with Learning Problems (1st ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.

Guyton, G. (2011). Using Toys to Support Infant-Toddler Learning and Development. Young Children . https://educate.bankstreet.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=faculty-staff  

Harms, T., Cryer, D., & Clifford, R. (2007). Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale (rev. ed.). Teachers College Press.

National Association for the Education of Young Children (2019). NAEYC position statement on developmentally appropriate practice 2020. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/position-statements/dap

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2014). Standards and Focal Points .

Olness, R. (2005). Using Literature to Enhance Writing Instruction . Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Platas, L.M. (2017). Three for One: Supporting social, emotional, and mathematical development. Young Children, 72 (1), 33-37.

Prescott, J. (n.d.) The Power of Reader’s Theater: An easy way to make dramatic changes in kids’ fluency, writing, listening, and social skills. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/power-readerx2019s-theater/

11 Ways to Improve Cognitive Development in Early Childhood

By: Author Tanja McIlroy

Posted on Last updated: 29 April 2024

Categories Child Development

Building cognitive skills is an important part of early childhood development .

Here’s a brief overview of how children learn and think, some examples of cognitive skills, and the typical stages of cognitive development in early childhood.

There are also 11 simple, actionable tips for parents and teachers of young children.

What is Cognitive Development in Early Childhood?

Cognitive refers to a child’s intellectual skills. It includes how children process information, their understanding of concepts, their ability to learn expressive and receptive language and their perceptual skills.

Cognitive development is one of the four major areas of a child’s holistic development , along with:

• Physical development
• Social development
• Emotional development

At what Age Does Cognitive Development Begin?

Babies start to develop their cognitive skills from birth. In the past, this wasn’t always known. It was presumed that babies were not yet able to process on a cognitive level until they were able to use language.

Now we know that you can improve and stimulate your baby’s intellectual skills right from birth.

Examples of Cognitive Skills

There are many types of cognitive skills and complex thinking processes that children reach at different ages . Here are some examples of cognitive development in early childhood :

• Responding to their name
• Recognizing and naming objects in a book
• Verbalizing needs
• Following instructions
• Counting to 10
• Knowing their gender
• Understanding the difference between the present and the past
• Engaging in symbolic play
• Listening to stories
• Telling stories
• Asking questions

This is not a full list of cognitive skills – just a few examples. There are many milestones to be reached during the first few years.

What are the 4 Stages of Cognitive Development?

Before you can help stimulate cognitive development in preschoolers and toddlers, it is useful to know what stage of thinking they are in and how their thinking should evolve and advance with time.

Jean Piaget was a French psychologist who created a theory of cognitive development. He divided children’s cognitive development into 4 stages, showing how they progressed to more advanced thought patterns as they got older.

The four stages are the sensorimotor , pre-operational , concrete operational and formal operational periods.

Toddlers and preschoolers are in the pre-operational period .

Here is a brief summary of the stages , summarized from the book “ The Young Child in Context: A psycho-social perspective ” by Marike de Witt.

This video also provides a great summary of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.

The Sensorimotor Period (Infancy)

• This stage lasts from birth until around the age of 2.
• Babies interact with their environment mainly through their senses and through movement .
• They haven’t yet developed  expressive and receptive language so they don’t think of words as being linked to images or things.
• They don’t yet have a concept of time so they can only focus on the present moment , with no understanding of the past or future.
• They are not yet able to plan .
• With time they learn that objects are permanent , so they realize that something may still be there even if it is not visible. They learn this through games such as peek-a-boo.
• They start imitating and engaging in dramatic or symbolic play .
• There are 6 sub-phases in the sensorimotor period .

The Pre-Operational Period (Toddlerhood and Preschool Age)

• This stage occurs between the ages of 2 to 7 .
• It is n amed pre-operational because it is the stage before children begin to use operational thinking.
• It is divided into two main phases – pre-conceptual thought and intuitive thought.

Pre-Conceptual Thought (2-4 years)

• Children understand the world as they see it – from their own frame of reference.
• They come to conclusions that may not be logical , such as believing the sun is alive because they are alive.
• They use language from their own frame of reference.
• They know the world as they see and experience it.
• They view events as happening independently as they can’t really see a relationship between cause and effect.
• Children identify with their models . They imitate them and feel a sense of awe towards them.

Intuitive Thought (4-7 years)

• Preschoolers and kindergarteners mainly fall into this category.
• Compared to the previous phase where children were very egocentric, they are now less egocentric . They no longer believe the world completely revolves around them.
• Children become more social .
• Words become part of their thinking process.
• They begin to coordinate their egocentric views with actual reality.
• They can only perceive one idea at a time but are not yet able to see the full picture i.e. they can conceptualize the separate parts but not the relationship between things and the bigger picture.
• They may be able to count , but don’t yet have a concept of numbers or what they mean.
• They use language in the correct way but still attach their own meaning to it.

The Concrete Operational Period (School Age)

• From the age of 7 to 11 , children fall into the concrete operational period, which means they have a coherent cognitive system.
• Children are capable of thought processes that are reversible , but they are still limited to real ( concrete ) things.
• They can categorize , classify and place items into hierarchies .

The Formal Operational Period (School Age)

• This period starts at around 11 years of age. Children are now able to think in an abstract and logical way and no longer rely on concrete thinking.
• They are able to make deductions and think about possibilities and hypotheses .

How Young Children Think

Marike de Witt shares these examples of how young children typically think.

As they move through the cognitive stages their thinking matures from the descriptions below to more advanced thinking patterns.

• Language is the most important of the semiotic functions because it is used to represent objects or express actions and thoughts.
• Children begin to use two kinds of mental representations – symbols and signs (e.g. when they draw or engage in symbolic play).
• Children imitate a caregiver even if they are not in their presence. Another version of this is verbal recall (e.g. when they “miaow” even though they can no longer see the cat.)
• They are egocentric , which means they are not fully able to see things from someone else’s perspective or put themselves “in their shoes.”
• Children are focused on and only really concerned with their  immediate surroundings . They don’t really think about objectives or situations that are remote in time and space.
• They struggle to make comparisons between things (e.g. bigger, smaller). They see each thing separately.
• They are unable to distinguish between psychological and physical occurrences. They don’t know the difference between what is internal and what is external. (e.g. seeing thinking as part of speaking ).
• Children personify objects. They believe objects can feel or act like human beings (e.g. believing the doll is upset).
• Children’s reasoning is not sound. They may not see the relationship between two things or group unrelated things together (e.g. “ The girl doesn’t have a name because she can’t talk” ). They may not see the relationship between cause and effect (e.g “ He’s sick because he didn’t go to school “).
• They can group and classify according to one criterion , such as shapes, but not more than one at the same time (such as shape and colour). This also relates to seriation (arranging different objects according to size). They can categorize the objects into big and small but not order them perfectly in a series of biggest to smallest.
• Children don’t necessarily have a number concept, even if they can count to 10. In order to have a concept of numbers, they must understand the ordinal properties of numbers, the cardinal properties and the conservation of numbers . They must also know numbers can be grouped into different wholes by addition and multiplication and can be broken up by subtraction and division.

How to Improve Cognitive Skills In a Child

During the preschool years, parents can help build their children ‘s cognitive development through play and simple activities.

Here are 11 easy cognitive development activities for preschoolers:

There are few activities that will build cognitive skills in preschoolers at the rate that reading to them will.

Reading to your children daily is crucial and will be the difference between a child with a highly developed vocabulary and a child with a basic vocabulary.

While reading to your children, you will be developing:

• Language patterns
• Thinking skills
• Writing skills
• Problem-solving abilities
• Attention span
• Listening skills

…and much more. 

Language is one of the most important aspects of early childhood cognitive development. The best way to build it is to expose your children not only to hearing language but also to using it.

You are the primary source of your children’s language in the early years and so it is important that you use it in a grammatically correct and stimulating way. Your children will learn to speak by imitating you.

Talk to your children all the time, at every opportunity you get. Talk to them in the car, in the bath , while preparing supper and while playing.

The less time children lose watching TV and other screens, the more they will engage in conversation with you and others around them.

Talking is crucial to help a child’s cognitive development. Here are some fun word games to play in the car .

3. Nursery Rhymes

Nursery rhymes are more than just fun to sing. They are actually highly stimulating and a great cognitive activity for preschoolers and toddlers.

They teach children language patterns and they develop vocabulary. Most importantly, they build a child’s auditory perceptual skills – such as auditory memory , discrimination, etc.

Expose your children to:

• classic nursery rhymes and songs
• finger rhymes
• action rhymes
• nonsense rhymes.

Learning nursery rhymes is an important aspect of pre-reading skills and will set children up for reading success later in school.

4. Thinking Games

Thinking is an important skill for adults and a skill that needs to be actively worked on. Many adults struggle to think outside the box, find solutions or think critically.

Thinking games have the specific intention of working on children’s higher-order thinking skills and critical thinking skills.

These stimulate children to actively practise thinking.

There are various examples of thinking skills. Here are just a few:

• Summarizing
• Understanding cause and effect
• Forming opinions
• Thinking creatively

Here are some fun cognitive games to further develop kids’ mental skills.

5. Creative Activities

Children spend much of their time naturally engaging in creative activities, whether they are drawing , painting, moulding or creating something with waste materials or boxes. Even making up a game during fantasy play is a form of creative expression.

Whenever a child is using their creative mind they are building their cognitive skills.

Creativity is not really a skill you can teach, but rather a skill you can ignite.

What children need is a platform to be creative. They need materials, stimulation and opportunities. From there, the creative process is a natural one.

6. Problem-Solving Activities

Problem-solving is another area that many older children, as well as adults, struggle with. There are few careers today that do not rely heavily on a person’s ability to solve problems.

This is a skill that can be taught from an early age with very simple problem-solving activities and fun games .

The beauty of problem-solving at a young age is that children don’t usually view problems as problems, but rather as challenges to be overcome.

Puzzles are one of my personal favourite activities for kids. They require so much concentration and effort, as well as perseverance to complete.

Children who are solving a puzzle are thinking deeply and building their intellectual capacity.

The most important thing to remember is that a puzzle should be challenging but doable. Choose one that is appropriate for a child’s age. The younger the child, the fewer and bigger the pieces should be.

The right puzzle is one that is challenging but doable, not one that makes a child frustrated.

As children get more confident with them, they will begin to seek out bigger, more complex puzzles.

8. Movement

Movement is an excellent activity for stimulating brain growth.

Movement develops neural pathways in children and vestibular movement affects learning to read and write later on.

Movement wakes up, resets and re-energises the brain. It helps a child’s development in two ways.

Firstly, developing gross motor and fine motor skills helps children with their overall development. Secondly, you can use movement breaks during any activity to reset children’s concentration.

Just two minutes of doing a physical activity or going for a run outside can allow children to continue to concentrate and finish the activity they were working on.

9. Symbolic Play 

Symbolic play is when children engage in pretend or make-believe play using objects to represent other objects. For example, a child who uses a block as a mobile phone.

Symbolic play is very natural to children and is a highly creative form of play that will develop their intellectual skills.

During this kind of play, children are constantly thinking of new ways to act out their world in order to make sense of it.

Symbolic play is the next step up from functional play where a child will use an appropriate object – for example pretending to iron clothes with a toy iron.

Later on, when they pick up a block to use as an iron, it means their brains have developed the ability to use the block to represent something else. This is an advanced skill.

The only thing children need to engage in symbolic play is access to materials, toys, and plenty of free time.

10. Developmentally Appropriate Toys

A child’s environment can greatly impact how much stimulation they are receiving.

They don’t need any fancy toys or equipment – just basic educational toys , such as wooden blocks, Lego, playdough, books, construction materials and natural materials.

Try to vary children’s experiences by offering different manipulatives. For example, introduce Lego and after a few days, swap the tub and offer wooden blocks instead. This will encourage your children to think of new and different ways to play and create.

Playdough is an excellent and highly educational material that is easy to make. 

11. Free Play

Last but not least, free play is undoubtedly the most important tool to develop cognitive skills.

Play is what children do. It’s what they spend all day doing and it’s what they naturally need to do in order to learn.

Everything children learn before the age of 6 will be primarily through play.

In order for this to happen, children need time to be able to play. Unfortunately, in modern times, they often need to sacrifice play time in order to attend extra activities.

Make play a priority in your home or classroom and allow your children to play as much as they are naturally inclined to.

Free play requires no adult intervention. All children need is the time and freedom to do it as they choose.

These are just a few ways to develop children’s cognitive skills.

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Nadira Najieb

Thursday 21st of March 2024

Tanja McIlroy

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Wednesday 5th of October 2022

Thank you this was helpful

Tanja Mcilroy

Thursday 6th of October 2022

Thanks Palesa!

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Monday 25th of April 2022

very impresive it provides logic information about ECE

Monday 7th of March 2022

This is nicely put and easy to understand, thank you! I wish I could print out this very helpful information, not only for myself but for the parents I work with.

Tuesday 6th of April 2021

Thank you , clear and well explained . From your guide its easy to understand the roots of child development .

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I'm glad you found this helpful, Smeetha! Thanks for reading.

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Problem-solving skills are necessary in all areas of life, and classroom problem solving activities can be a great way to get students prepped and ready to solve real problems in real life scenarios. Whether in school, work or in their social relationships, the ability to critically analyze a problem, map out all its elements and then prepare a workable solution is one of the most valuable skills one can acquire in life.

Educating your students about problem solving skills from an early age in school can be facilitated through classroom problem solving activities. Such endeavors encourage cognitive as well as social development, and can equip students with the tools they’ll need to address and solve problems throughout the rest of their lives. Here are five classroom problem solving activities your students are sure to benefit from as well as enjoy doing:

1. Brainstorm bonanza

Having your students create lists related to whatever you are currently studying can be a great way to help them to enrich their understanding of a topic while learning to problem-solve. For example, if you are studying a historical, current or fictional event that did not turn out favorably, have your students brainstorm ways that the protagonist or participants could have created a different, more positive outcome. They can brainstorm on paper individually or on a chalkboard or white board in front of the class.

2. Problem-solving as a group

Have your students create and decorate a medium-sized box with a slot in the top. Label the box “The Problem-Solving Box.” Invite students to anonymously write down and submit any problem or issue they might be having at school or at home, ones that they can’t seem to figure out on their own. Once or twice a week, have a student draw one of the items from the box and read it aloud. Then have the class as a group figure out the ideal way the student can address the issue and hopefully solve it.

3. Clue me in

This fun detective game encourages problem-solving, critical thinking and cognitive development. Collect a number of items that are associated with a specific profession, social trend, place, public figure, historical event, animal, etc. Assemble actual items (or pictures of items) that are commonly associated with the target answer. Place them all in a bag (five-10 clues should be sufficient.) Then have a student reach into the bag and one by one pull out clues. Choose a minimum number of clues they must draw out before making their first guess (two- three). After this, the student must venture a guess after each clue pulled until they guess correctly. See how quickly the student is able to solve the riddle.

4. Survivor scenarios

Create a pretend scenario for students that requires them to think creatively to make it through. An example might be getting stranded on an island, knowing that help will not arrive for three days. The group has a limited amount of food and water and must create shelter from items around the island. Encourage working together as a group and hearing out every child that has an idea about how to make it through the three days as safely and comfortably as possible.

5. Moral dilemma

Create a number of possible moral dilemmas your students might encounter in life, write them down, and place each item folded up in a bowl or bag. Some of the items might include things like, “I saw a good friend of mine shoplifting. What should I do?” or “The cashier gave me an extra $1.50 in change after I bought candy at the store. What should I do?” Have each student draw an item from the bag one by one, read it aloud, then tell the class their answer on the spot as to how they would handle the situation.

Classroom problem solving activities need not be dull and routine. Ideally, the problem solving activities you give your students will engage their senses and be genuinely fun to do. The activities and lessons learned will leave an impression on each child, increasing the likelihood that they will take the lesson forward into their everyday lives.

You may also like to read

• Classroom Activities for Introverted Students
• Activities for Teaching Tolerance in the Classroom
• 5 Problem-Solving Activities for Elementary Classrooms
• 10 Ways to Motivate Students Outside the Classroom
• Motivating Introverted Students to Excel in the Classroom
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Ten of our favourite early years problem-solving activities

A lot of the time when we hear the term ‘problem-solving’, our brain jumps back to the tricky maths teasers from our school days, and we immediately recoil a little. However, problem-solving is much more than number conundrums.   

Problem-solving is a key part of early years development and can support learning across many of the My First Five Years streams. The skill of problem-solving starts developing very early in a child's life and stems from the knowledge of the world that they are constantly building.[1]. For instance, your baby may cry when hungry as they know that crying gets the attention of an adult who can feed them.   

Problem-solving is a part of everyday life for children, from being a baby through to their future adulthood. When children learn how to solve problems, it can support them in building resilience, self-confidence and self-esteem. Taking part in problem-solving activities with others can also help children develop social skills, communication and relationships.[2]   

Psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development also focuses on the importance of problem-solving for early childhood development. In each developmental stage of his theory, the psychologist emphasised the importance of play-based learning for young children when it comes to problem-solving, and in turn building skills across the spectrum.[3]    

Supporting problem-solving  

When thinking about problem-solving activities for your child, it can be difficult to know where to begin.   

To keep children engaged, enabling them to take the lead and follow their interests, is key. Play-based, hands-on learning makes acquiring new skills more interesting and memorable for young children.[4]    

Many activities can support children when developing their problem-solving abilities – the possibilities are wide open. When considering which problem-solving activities are the most effective, it is also important to consider how they can be adapted to multiple interests, abilities and how accessible they are when it comes to using resources and materials.   

To help you out, here are ten of My First Five Years’ favourite problem-solving activities that you can try with your child.   

1) Den-building

Den-building is brilliant for problem-solving as it requires creative and critical-thinking, foresight, and planning. It is also a wonderful way to promote sustained shared thinking with your child. Sustained shared thinking is a way of working together that encourages individuals to evaluate the problem that they are working on and is focused on collaboration, using experiences and prior knowledge.[5]  

When building a den with your child, encourage your child to take the lead. You could provide materials such as boxes and blankets, or you could even ask your child to decide what materials you need before starting, encouraging them to plan out their work. Den-building can also be done both indoors and outdoors and with children from a young age. You may find that people have already started creating these in your local woodland that you can add to, adapt, or just enjoy!  

2) Cooking and baking

Cooking and baking are not only fun activities, but they also focus on mathematical problem-solving. To bring problem-solving into a cooking and baking activity, you can ask your child to count out simple measurements, for instance, cups of flour or sugar. Activities like cooking or baking are great for children to be able to take ownership of what is happening; encourage them to choose what you will make and allow them to do all the elements themselves.   

What’s great about cooking is it really doesn't matter how it turns out! Problems can arise often in cooking or baking, for example, the mixture may turn out too dry, you may be an ingredient short, or your cakes might not rise how you expected them to. If this is the case, talk to your child about what might have gone wrong and how you can rectify it next time! Then when they come to do it again, they can use their prior knowledge to help them.   

3) Playing with patterns

Patterns are a great activity for mathematical problem-solving. You can create patterns of any objects that you can find! For example, with pieces of fruit, pebbles from the garden, building blocks or even snacks! You could encourage your child to continue patterns, fill in the missing pieces or even create their own for you to solve problems with as they grow more confident. 

4) Sorting and categorising

Sorting and categorising objects is an activity that supports children in mathematical problem - solving and can be easily adapted to individual children’s abilities . You could encourage your child to sort by shape, size, colour, or better yet , their interests . For example, if they are a dinosaur enthusiast, they could classify them by wh ich is their favourite or least favourite , or order them by the size of their feet. They may even find enjoyment in helping you with daily sorting such as recycling or washing!  

Puzzles are a fun resource that can be used with children from a very young age. There are a wide variety of puzzles for children to access , such as chunky wooden puzzles or traditional shape sorters. When playing with puzzles, children will have to use their prior knowledge and experience of shape, space and measure whil e also experimenting with different angles and placements. They will use trial and error to find the best way to complete the puzzle and then will use this knowledge in future attempts.  

6) Ice rescue

As well as being a great problem-solving activity, ice rescue enables children to explore seasonal changes, temperatures and develop their fine and gross motor skills using tools. To play ice rescue, freeze toys inside ice overnight. This could be in cake moulds or small bowls. Use toys that will motivate your child, for instance, their favourite small figurines.   

Once frozen, place your blocks of ice in a big bowl or tray, and encourage your child to think about how they can get the items out. You could provide tools, or even get your child to find tools themselves.  

7) Obstacle courses

Obstacle courses are versatile and can be made with a wide variety of resources. When setting up an obstacle course for your child, try to include sections where your child will have to stop and think about how they will have to adapt their body to move through it , for example, something that they must climb over or under, or a section where they have to move differently. You could even include them in trying to create the obstacle course and allow them to make it the most challenging they can.  

8) Filling, emptying and investigation

Many children enjoy filling and emptying during play. Investigating this way helps children to get a sense of size, capacity and explore predicting and estimation. For instance, if your child likes playing with sand, you could ask them to guess how many scoops they will need to fill a container, or if they like water play you could challenge them to find a way to move the water between two containers as quickly as possible , or from one tray to another.  

9) Story problems

Stories are an effective way of introducing problem-solving and they can be a highly engaging way to promote creative and critical-thinking. You could use familiar or traditional stories to help scaffold play opportunities for your child. For example, you could try building a house for the three little pigs that cannot be knocked over. You could test out different methods using materials that you can find around your home.   

If you are feeling creative, you could also make up a little story using your child’s favourite toys. An example of this could be figuring out how to share food between their favourite teddies during a picnic and making sure that everyone gets enough.   

10) Playing with loose parts or open-ended resources

Natural materials such as leaves, conkers, sticks, acorns, and pinecones are all brilliant open-ended play opportunities (if supervised). You can also use household objects like bottle caps, curtain rings, tubes, tins, boxes, buttons etcetera in this sort of play. All it requires is a tray of different objects that you've collected and time to explore them. Your child will have to think creatively about how to utilise the objects and in doing so will be challenging their cognitive capacity by problem-solving to achieve the desired outcomes.   

References 

[1]  Rachel Keen. (2011). The Development of Problem Solving in Young Children: A Critical Cognitive Skill. Available: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.031809.130730#_i22 .  

[2] Sheila Ebbutt. (2009). EYFS best practice - All about ... problem-solving . Available: https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/features/article/eyfs-best-practice-all-about-problem-solving .  

[3] Piaget, J. (1983). Piaget's Theory. In P. Mussen (ed). Handbook of Child Psychology. 4th edition. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley.  

[4] Unicef. (2018). Learning Through Play. Available: https://www.unicef.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/UNICEF-Lego-Foundation-Learning-through-Play.pd .  

[5] Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Pam Sammons, Iram Siraj-Blatchford and Brenda Taggar. (2004). The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project: Findings from Pre-school to end of Key Stage1. Available: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/8543/7/SSU-SF-2004-01.pdf .  

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Child cognitive development is a fascinating and complex process that entails the growth of a child’s mental abilities, including their ability to think, learn, and solve problems. This development occurs through a series of stages that can vary among individuals. As children progress through these stages, their cognitive abilities and skills are continuously shaped by a myriad of factors such as genetics, environment, and experiences. Understanding the nuances of child cognitive development is essential for parents, educators, and professionals alike, as it provides valuable insight into supporting the growth of the child’s intellect and overall well-being.

Throughout the developmental process, language and communication play a vital role in fostering a child’s cognitive abilities . As children acquire language skills, they also develop their capacity for abstract thought, reasoning, and problem-solving. It is crucial for parents and caregivers to be mindful of potential developmental delays, as early intervention can greatly benefit the child’s cognitive development. By providing stimulating environments, nurturing relationships, and embracing diverse learning opportunities, adults can actively foster healthy cognitive development in children.

Key Takeaways

• Child cognitive development involves the growth of mental abilities and occurs through various stages.
• Language and communication are significant factors in cognitive development , shaping a child’s ability for abstract thought and problem-solving.
• Early intervention and supportive environments can play a crucial role in fostering healthy cognitive development in children.

Child Cognitive Development Stages

Child cognitive development is a crucial aspect of a child’s growth and involves the progression of their thinking, learning, and problem-solving abilities. Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget developed a widely recognized theory that identifies four major stages of cognitive development in children.

Sensorimotor Stage

The Sensorimotor Stage occurs from birth to about 2 years old. During this stage, infants and newborns learn to coordinate their senses (sight, sound, touch, etc.) with their motor abilities. Their understanding of the world begins to develop through their physical interactions and experiences. Some key milestones in this stage include object permanence, which is the understanding that an object still exists even when it’s not visible, and the development of intentional actions.

Preoperational Stage

The Preoperational Stage takes place between the ages of 2 and 7 years old. In this stage, children start to think symbolically, and their language capabilities rapidly expand. They also develop the ability to use mental images, words, and gestures to represent the world around them. However, their thinking is largely egocentric, which means they struggle to see things from other people’s perspectives. During this stage, children start to engage in pretend play and begin to grasp the concept of conservation, recognizing that certain properties of objects (such as quantity or volume) remain the same even if their appearance changes.

Concrete Operational Stage

The Concrete Operational Stage occurs between the ages of 7 and 12 years old. At this stage, children’s cognitive development progresses to more logical and organized ways of thinking. They can now consider multiple aspects of a problem and better understand the relationship between cause and effect . Furthermore, children become more adept at understanding other people’s viewpoints, and they can perform basic mathematical operations and understand the principles of classification and seriation.

Formal Operational Stage

Lastly, the Formal Operational Stage typically begins around 12 years old and extends into adulthood. In this stage, children develop the capacity for abstract thinking and can consider hypothetical situations and complex reasoning. They can also perform advanced problem-solving and engage in systematic scientific inquiry. This stage allows individuals to think about abstract concepts, their own thought processes, and understand the world in deeper, more nuanced ways.

By understanding these stages of cognitive development, you can better appreciate the complex growth process that children undergo as their cognitive abilities transform and expand throughout their childhood.

Key Factors in Cognitive Development

Genetics and brain development.

Genetics play a crucial role in determining a child’s cognitive development. A child’s brain development is heavily influenced by genetic factors, which also determine their cognitive potential , abilities, and skills. It is important to understand that a child’s genes do not solely dictate their cognitive development – various environmental and experiential factors contribute to shaping their cognitive abilities as they grow and learn.

Environmental Influences

The environment in which a child grows up has a significant impact on their cognitive development. Exposure to various experiences is essential for a child to develop essential cognitive skills such as problem-solving, communication, and critical thinking. Factors that can have a negative impact on cognitive development include exposure to toxins, extreme stress, trauma, abuse, and addiction issues, such as alcoholism in the family.

Nutrition and Health

Maintaining good nutrition and health is vital for a child’s cognitive development. Adequate nutrition is essential for the proper growth and functioning of the brain . Key micronutrients that contribute to cognitive development include iron, zinc, and vitamins A, C, D, and B-complex vitamins. Additionally, a child’s overall health, including physical fitness and immunity, ensures they have the energy and resources to engage in learning activities and achieve cognitive milestones effectively .

Emotional and Social Factors

Emotional well-being and social relationships can also greatly impact a child’s cognitive development. A supportive, nurturing, and emotionally healthy environment allows children to focus on learning and building cognitive skills. Children’s emotions and stress levels can impact their ability to learn and process new information. Additionally, positive social interactions help children develop important cognitive skills such as empathy, communication, and collaboration.

In summary, cognitive development in children is influenced by various factors, including genetics, environmental influences, nutrition, health, and emotional and social factors. Considering these factors can help parents, educators, and policymakers create suitable environments and interventions for promoting optimal child development.

Language and Communication Development

Language skills and milestones.

Children’s language development is a crucial aspect of their cognitive growth. They begin to acquire language skills by listening and imitating sounds they hear from their environment. As they grow, they start to understand words and form simple sentences.

• Infants (0-12 months): Babbling, cooing, and imitating sounds are common during this stage. They can also identify their name by the end of their first year. Facial expressions play a vital role during this period, as babies learn to respond to emotions.
• Toddlers (1-3 years): They rapidly learn new words and form simple sentences. They engage more in spoken communication, constantly exploring their language environment.
• Preschoolers (3-5 years): Children expand their vocabulary, improve grammar, and begin participating in more complex conversations.

It’s essential to monitor children’s language development and inform their pediatrician if any delays or concerns arise.

Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication contributes significantly to children’s cognitive development. They learn to interpret body language, facial expressions, and gestures long before they can speak. Examples of nonverbal communication in children include:

• Eye contact: Maintaining eye contact while interacting helps children understand emotions and enhances communication.
• Gestures: Pointing, waving goodbye, or using hand signs provide alternative ways for children to communicate their needs and feelings.
• Body language: Posture, body orientation, and movement give clues about a child’s emotions and intentions.

Teaching children to understand and use nonverbal communication supports their cognitive and social development.

Parent and Caregiver Interaction

Supportive interaction from parents and caregivers plays a crucial role in children’s language and communication development. These interactions can improve children’s language skills and overall cognitive abilities . Some ways parents and caregivers can foster language development are:

• Reading together: From an early age, reading books to children enhance their vocabulary and listening skills.
• Encouraging communication: Ask open-ended questions and engage them in conversations to build their speaking skills.
• Using rich vocabulary: Expose children to a variety of words and phrases, promoting language growth and understanding.

By actively engaging in children’s language and communication development, parents and caregivers can nurture cognitive, emotional, and social growth.

Cognitive Abilities and Skills

Cognitive abilities are the mental skills that children develop as they grow. These skills are essential for learning, adapting, and thriving in modern society. In this section, we will discuss various aspects of cognitive development, including reasoning and problem-solving, attention and memory, decision-making and executive function, as well as academic and cognitive milestones.

Reasoning and Problem Solving

Reasoning is the ability to think logically and make sense of the world around us. It’s essential for a child’s cognitive development, as it enables them to understand the concept of object permanence , recognize patterns, and classify objects. Problem-solving skills involve using these reasoning abilities to find solutions to challenges they encounter in daily life .

Children develop essential skills like:

• Logical reasoning : The ability to deduce conclusions from available information.
• Perception: Understanding how objects relate to one another in their environment.
• Schemes: Organizing thoughts and experiences into mental categories.

Attention and Memory

Attention refers to a child’s ability to focus on specific tasks, objects, or information, while memory involves retaining and recalling information. These cognitive abilities play a critical role in children’s learning and academic performance . Working memory is a vital component of learning, as it allows children to hold and manipulate information in their minds while solving problems and engaging with new tasks.

• Attention: Focuses on relevant tasks and information while ignoring distractions.
• Memory: Retains and retrieves information when needed.

Decision-Making and Executive Function

Decision-making is the process of making choices among various alternatives, while executive function refers to the higher-order cognitive processes that enable children to plan, organize, and adapt in complex situations. Executive function encompasses components such as:

• Inhibition: Self-control and the ability to resist impulses.
• Cognitive flexibility: Adapting to new information or changing circumstances.
• Planning: Setting goals and devising strategies to achieve them.

Academic and Cognitive Milestones

Children’s cognitive development is closely linked to their academic achievement. As they grow, they achieve milestones in various cognitive domains that form the foundation for their future learning. Some of these milestones include:

• Language skills: Developing vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure.
• Reading and mathematics: Acquiring the ability to read and comprehend text, as well as understanding basic mathematical concepts and operations.
• Scientific thinking: Developing an understanding of cause-and-effect relationships and forming hypotheses.

Healthy cognitive development is essential for a child’s success in school and life. By understanding and supporting the development of their cognitive abilities, we can help children unlock their full potential and prepare them for a lifetime of learning and growth.

Developmental Delays and Early Intervention

Identifying developmental delays.

Developmental delays in children can be identified by monitoring their progress in reaching cognitive, linguistic, physical, and social milestones. Parents and caregivers should be aware of developmental milestones that are generally expected to be achieved by children at different ages, such as 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, 18 months, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, and 5 years. Utilizing resources such as the “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” program can help parents and caregivers recognize signs of delay early in a child’s life.

Resources and Support for Parents

There are numerous resources available for parents and caregivers to find information on developmental milestones and to learn about potential developmental delays, including:

• Learn the Signs. Act Early : A CDC initiative that provides pdf checklists of milestones and resources for identifying delays.
• Parental support groups : Local and online communities dedicated to providing resources and fostering connections between families experiencing similar challenges.

Professional Evaluations and Intervention Strategies

If parents or caregivers suspect a developmental delay, it is crucial to consult with healthcare professionals or specialists who can conduct validated assessments of the child’s cognitive and developmental abilities. Early intervention strategies, such as the ones used in broad-based early intervention programs , have shown significant positive impacts on children with developmental delays to improve cognitive development and outcomes.

Professional evaluations may include:

• Pediatricians : Primary healthcare providers who can monitor a child’s development and recommend further assessments when needed.
• Speech and language therapists : Professionals who assist children with language and communication deficits.
• Occupational therapists : Experts in helping children develop or improve on physical and motor skills, as well as social and cognitive abilities.

Depending on the severity and nature of the delays, interventions may involve:

• Individualized support : Tailored programs or therapy sessions specifically developed for the child’s needs.
• Group sessions : Opportunities for children to learn from and interact with other children experiencing similar challenges.
• Family involvement : Parents and caregivers learning support strategies to help the child in their daily life.

Fostering Healthy Cognitive Development

Play and learning opportunities.

Encouraging play is crucial for fostering healthy cognitive development in children . Provide a variety of age-appropriate games, puzzles, and creative activities that engage their senses and stimulate curiosity. For example, introduce building blocks and math games for problem-solving skills, and crossword puzzles to improve vocabulary and reasoning abilities.

Playing with others also helps children develop social skills and better understand facial expressions and emotions. Provide opportunities for cooperative play, where kids can work together to achieve a common goal, and open-ended play with no specific rules to boost creativity.

Supportive Home Environment

A nurturing and secure home environment encourages healthy cognitive growth. Be responsive to your child’s needs and interests, involving them in everyday activities and providing positive reinforcement. Pay attention to their emotional well-being and create a space where they feel safe to ask questions and explore their surroundings.

Promoting Independence and Decision-Making

Support independence by allowing children to make decisions about their playtime, activities, and daily routines. Encourage them to take age-appropriate responsibilities and make choices that contribute to self-confidence and autonomy. Model problem-solving strategies and give them opportunities to practice these skills during play, while also guiding them when necessary.

Healthy Lifestyle Habits

Promote a well-rounded lifestyle, including:

• Sleep : Ensure children get adequate and quality sleep by establishing a consistent bedtime routine.
• Hydration : Teach the importance of staying hydrated by offering water frequently, especially during play and physical activities.
• Screen time : Limit exposure to electronic devices and promote alternative activities for toddlers and older kids.
• Physical activity : Encourage children to engage in active play and exercise to support neural development and overall health .

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the key stages of child cognitive development.

Child cognitive development can be divided into several key stages based on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development . These stages include the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), preoperational stage (2-7 years), concrete operational stage (7-11 years), and formal operational stage (11 years and beyond). Every stage represents a unique period of cognitive growth, marked by the development of new skills, thought processes, and understanding of the world.

What factors influence cognitive development in children?

Several factors contribute to individual differences in child cognitive development, such as genetic and environmental factors. Socioeconomic status, access to quality education, early home environment, and parental involvement all play a significant role in determining cognitive growth. In addition, children’s exposure to diverse learning experiences, adequate nutrition, and mental health also influence overall cognitive performance .

How do cognitive skills vary during early childhood?

Cognitive skills in early childhood evolve as children progress through various stages . During the sensorimotor stage, infants develop fundamental skills such as object permanence. The preoperational stage is characterized by the development of symbolic thought, language, and imaginative play. Children then enter the concrete operational stage, acquiring the ability to think logically and solve problems. Finally, in the formal operational stage, children develop abstract reasoning abilities, complex problem-solving skills and metacognitive awareness.

What are common examples of cognitive development?

Examples of cognitive development include the acquisition of language and vocabulary, the development of problem-solving skills, and the ability to engage in logical reasoning. Additionally, memory, attention, and spatial awareness are essential aspects of cognitive development. Children may demonstrate these skills through activities like puzzle-solving, reading, and mathematics.

How do cognitive development theories explain children’s learning?

Piaget’s cognitive development theory suggests that children learn through active exploration, constructing knowledge based on their experiences and interactions with the world. In contrast, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory emphasizes the role of social interaction and cultural context in learning. Both theories imply that cognitive development is a dynamic and evolving process, influenced by various environmental and psychological factors.

Why is it essential to support cognitive development in early childhood?

Supporting cognitive development in early childhood is critical because it lays a strong foundation for future academic achievement, social-emotional development, and lifelong learning. By providing children with diverse and enriching experiences, caregivers and educators can optimize cognitive growth and prepare children to face the challenges of today’s complex world. Fostering cognitive development early on helps children develop resilience, adaptability, and critical thinking skills essential for personal and professional success.

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17 Cognitive Development Activities for 6-12 Years Olds

WhatToGetMy Instructional Article

Middle childhood is an important time in a child’s life where foundational skills are developed. It is equally a good time to engage children with remedial activities that will help them to improve in areas they are lagging behind.

• What describes the cognitive abilities of 6-12 year old children?
• Cognitive development activities for middle childhood

WHAT DESCRIBES THE COGNITIVE ABILITIES OF 6-12 YEAR OLD CHILDREN?

Table of Contents

The cognitive development of middle childhood is often characterized by; improved attention, complex thought processes, improved vocabulary, better communication skills, self-awareness, and emerging social reasoning skills.

This means that children in this age bracket should be able to;

• Concentrate or focus on tasks for a longer period of time
• Memorize and retain information for an extended period of time
• Process information faster, flexibly, and more accurately
• Apply logic to their thought process which shows up in their classification of things
• Develop independent reading skills
• Develop interest in various activities (hobbies)
• Communicate better and express themselves with a wide range of words
• Empathize or weigh things from other people’s perceptive
• Assess their ability through comparison

These skills are usually evaluated in school by teachers and educators through various class exercises, tests, and observations, and school activities, the results are then communicated to parents. It is quite common to see parents panic when they notice their children are lagging behind and it’s understandable. While cognitive assessments provide useful information about a child’s learning progress, the information is sometimes mishandled and this could have adverse consequences for the child.

A child’s cognitive development is a function of multiple factors and therefore can be improved by a lot of helpful activities.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES FOR MIDDLE CHILDHOOD

Source Link: https://whattogetmy.com/cognitive-development-activities-for-6-12-years-olds/

There are a couple of activities that could boost a child’s cognitive development and help them perform better in areas they are lagging behind. With consistent practice and patience, a child’s achievement deficit can be narrowed and surpassed. You can find more mentally stimulating activities for children in our article 12 super fun activities for 12 year olds

READING ACTIVITIES:

Good reading skill improves a child’s ability to communicate, attention span, and sense of judgment. It is expected that at the age of 6 and 7, children should be able to recognize words and read them out. They should also be inquisitive about new words as it expands their vocabulary. If a child is struggling with reading, there are a couple of things you could do to help them learn how to read.

A study that compared the reading times of students and their reading scores found that students who read 15 minutes or more a day experienced accelerated reading growth than children who read for a lesser amount of time.

Accelerated reading growth: Source: Renaissance

You can help a child cultivate a good daily reading habit by doing the following;

1. UPDATE THEIR LIBRARY OR TAKE THEM TO A LIBRARY :

While their textbooks and class notes are a good source of information, having them alone will make reading boring. They may begin to associate reading books with a negative feeling and will therefore find it difficult to read. Providing your children with a wide range of age-appropriate books and stories will make them freer around books. They will see books as both a source of good stories and useful information. Examples of age-appropriate books you could get for them are; The true story of the three little pigs , A bear called Paddington , Sight words and spelling workbook , and Reading activities . If getting your child new books isn’t feasible, take them to a local library and spend time with them reading until they get used to doing it alone.

2. READ TOGETHER AND READ ALOUD TO THEM:

Children love to be read to especially when it is done in a fun way like mimicking characters. It helps them to associate positive emotions with the content of the book. Associating positive emotions to books will help them remember what was read. The more they bond with a book, the more they learn how to read the book. One good strategy to use when reading to them is to point at words with your finger while reading. Secondly, by modeling how to read fluently, they learn how they should read. With patience and consistency, they will learn how words are pronounced, their meaning, and when to use them in a sentence.

3. GET THEM TO READ ALOUD

While reading to them is great, have them read to you. You can start by making them read two sentences from their favorite storybook, then a paragraph, page, and chapter until they are able to read the entire storybook to you. Ensure to start with a book they are familiar with, a book you’ve read to them a couple of times. Celebrate their progress and continue to encourage them. This will boost their self-esteem and confidence to do better.

4. WATCH PHONICS VIDEOS

Phonics is a simplified way of learning English. Phonics videos are not only instructive but also engaging and entertaining which makes them an effective method of teaching children how to read. Children can learn the sounds that alphabets make individually and when paired with each other. You can find lots of amazing phonic videos online for your child.

5. PLAY WORD GAMES

Play games that require them to form words they know and as well learn new words from their opponent. With games such as scrabbles , Word Witt , Jabuka word game , and Search puzzle , you are  able to access their word game and teach them new words and their meaning. With time, their vocabulary will expand.

COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES:

A child’s ability to communicate orally and in written form weighs on their academic achievement, social skills, and their ability to succeed in life. In a study, adults were asked which skill they thought children needed the most to succeed and communication skill was ranked higher than other skills.

Skills  that are most important for children to succeed : Source: Pew Research Center

At the age of 6-9, a child cannot depend so much on their body language to communicate their ideas and emotions. It is expected that children within this age bracket should be able to make coherent and lengthy sentences using the right grammar and voice tone. They should also be able to write down ideas clearly. This helps teachers access their level of knowledge and helps children to speak up for themselves in any setting.

For communication to be effective, it should involve

• Keeping an open-mind
• Asking questions / seeking opinions
• Eye contact
• Expressing one’s point clearly

Here are a couple of activities that should help a child improve their communication skills

6. ROLE PLAY

In role-play, you try to mirror possible life scenarios and get them to respond as they should in such scenarios. Doing this helps children to think and prepare themselves to respond better ahead of time. An example could be; getting them to introduce themselves in class or to a group. You start by mirroring how they should introduce themselves and then get them to introduce themself. You could make it more practical for them by inviting a friend over and informing your child that a family friend will be visiting them soon and that they would be required to introduce themself. This will make the experience real and will also help to boost their confidence to speak up in other social settings.

7. PICTURE STORYTELLING

With picture storytelling, you present a picture or set of pictures to a child/ren and ask them to tell you what they think about the picture or get them to tell you a short story looking at the picture. This activity will get them to draw on different experiences to create a good story. It will impact on their ability to think critically, make fair judgments, and speak clearly/communicate ideas clearly.

8. TELEPHONE PLAY

Telephone play is a great fun activity for children. Teachers can incorporate this into their class activity. It teaches children how to listen attentively.  In telephone play, get children to sit in a circle and whisper a message to a child ear, who then passes it on to the next person, and next person to the next until the message reaches where it started. You can then ask every child to say what they heard in unison or individually. Their responses will most likely differ and it’s ok if everyone laughs about it. However, do not forget to let them know the goal of the activity. You can make the game a little bit serious in the second round by including stricter rules. This is to make them more eager to listen attentively.

9. IDENTIFY THE OBJECT

In this activity, a child is blindfolded and given a number of objects to describe. The child may ask for cues to help them accomplish the task. This activity is expected to help them think critically, be attentive to details, learn to ask questions, work with others, and communicate clearly. This task can be given in various settings with different rules. For example, you could take children to the zoo to learn about animals and after the trip, you can ask them to describe one animal they liked in the zoo  and why they preferred the animal. This can be done as an individual task or group task. This activity will help their memory and giving them the opportunity to present this task will improve their oral skills.

10. GET THEM  TO WRITE/JOURNAL

Get a book and get them to write a paragraph or two on various topics. For example, you can get them to write three things about their favorite room, describe their maths teacher or any subject teacher in four sentences. It is important to give them detailed instructions that will help them complete the task effectively. This activity can be done 2-3 times a week.

VISUAL SPATIAL/ PROBLEM SOLVING ACTIVITIES:

Children from ages 7-12 are expected to understand coordination, organization, planning, numerical, and categorizations. All these weigh on their visual-spatial process.

A child’s spatial thinking skills can positively impact on their ability to understand Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) as well as perform complex tasks. It involves understanding objects, their movement, and relationship with each other. With visual-spatial thinking, a child should be able to imagine objects or items and mentally fit them in positions and space or solve problems with them.

There are a couple of activities that can help a child’s visual-spatial thinking.

There are a couple of games you should consider getting for your children. These games will require them to build unfamiliar structures and solve puzzles. They will be expected to figure which piece goes with which and as they are able to solve the task, give them a more complex task to solve. By so doing, they learn patterns, coordination, and organization. It will be great to build along with them until they are familiar with solving puzzles themselves.

• Building blocks
• Brain freeze
• Robot toy building set
• Gravity Maze Marble
• Tangrams puzzles
• Mosaic puzzles
• Jigsaw puzzles

12. CRAFT ACTIVITIES

• Building kit
• Carpentry building kit

13. MAP READING

Map reading is another activity that helps to develop a child’s spatial reasoning. It helps them understand the relationship between symbols, objects, and distance. They will understand directions better and easily visualize them. You can start with simple maps and then graduate to teaching them a more complex map.

14. ASSIGN HOMES TASK/CHORES TO THEM

They can improve their ability to organize, coordinate, and categorize by doing chores. You could assign them the task of organizing their room. You could also call them to join you in cooking or baking and teach them how to measure ingredients.

MEMORY ACTIVITIES

Cognitive development of 6-12 years is characterized by their ability to memorize and recall information when needed. A lot of scholarly work suggests a strong link between a good memory and academic achievements. Children that are able to effectively store information in their memory and recall them when needed tend to perform better in school. If your child is struggling in this area, there are a couple of things you could do to help improve on their ability to retain and recall information.

15. ASK QUESTIONS

Ask them questions that require them to think and remember. For example, you could ask them to remind you why their favorite character in a storybook was annoyed or unhappy, who lives at the end of the street, what color was gotten when you both mixed the colors red and white. It is important to ask them about things or topics they have been taught. In a situation where they are struggling to remember, be patient, give them time to think, give them cues, and if they are still unable to remember, remind them. Repeat the question a couple of times more and do it randomly. With repetition and practice, they will be able to remember.

16. SIMPLIFY TASKS

Some children find it difficult to grasp what they are being taught because they feel bombarded with so much information at a go.  While it may be difficult for teachers to consistently teach at a very slow pace, parents can help their children to learn and remember what they have been taught by breaking lessons or tasks into smaller bits. For example, when learning fractions, you can start by helping them identify numerators and denominators following by showing them how to identify smaller fractions and bigger fractions. It is important to use simple language and familiar items as references while teaching. You could use biscuits or cups of water to teach fractions.

17. PLAY GAMES THAT REQUIRE THEM TO REMEMBER RULES

Card games are good for memory. Children are expected to know the rules of card games and the meaning of each card to play the game well. There are equally board games that could improve their working memory. You can find a few useful board games in our articles fun games to play with 2 people and games to play with 6 people .

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION

1. What are some cognitive development activities for school-age kids?

We’ve mentioned 17 cognitive activities for school-age kids and some of are, reading aloud to children and encouraging them to equally read aloud to you. This activity will expose them to new words, help them memorize familiar words, improve their ability to read and their grammar. You could also get them to watch fun phonic videos that help them learn the sounds of alphabets and how to pronounce unfamiliar words using the sounds of its letters.

2. Name some classroom cognitive development activities

• Telephone play: it teaches them how to be good listeners
• Identify the object: it teaches them to be attentive to details, it improves their social skills and communication skills

In this article, we’ve identified some cognitive milestones that children between the ages of 6-12 are expected to attain. In situations where a child is not making enough progress, there are a lot of cognitive development activities for middle childhood learners that will help them improve their cognitive performance. We have listed 17 and there are many more. We hope that this article has been helpful in understanding how to improve a child’s reading ability, communication skills, visual-spatial ability, and memory skills.

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Child Development

Building blocks: enhancing cognitive development and problem-solving skills.

Table of Contents

Key Takeaways

• Building blocks enhance cognitive development and problem-solving skills.
• Building blocks improve spatial awareness and visual perception.
• Building blocks contribute to fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
• Building blocks support language development and social skills.

The Impact of Building Blocks on Spatial Awareness and Visual Perception

Enhancing Fine Motor Skills and Hand-Eye Coordination Through Building Blocks

The Role of Building Blocks in Language Development and Social Skills

Emotional Development and Sensory Benefits of Building Blocks

Building Blocks: A Catalyst for Cognitive Development and Problem-Solving Skills

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some specific examples of building blocks that can enhance cognitive development and problem-solving skills, how can building blocks be used to promote critical thinking and effective problem-solving strategies.

Are There Any Specific Activities or Games That Can Be Played With Building Blocks to Enhance Spatial Reasoning Skills?

Can building blocks be used to improve other areas of development, such as creativity or social skills, are there any recommended age ranges for using building blocks to enhance cognitive development and problem-solving skills.

Elaine’s journey with Healthy Kid Play began with a simple yet profound observation: the unparalleled potential within every child. With her extensive experience in early childhood, Elaine saw the need for a space where learning and fun converge seamlessly.

Career Paths in Child Development: From Early Intervention to Advocacy

Unlocking the School-Age Stage: Growth, Learning, and Milestones

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• These blocks make an ideal gift for children aged 3-5 years old, providing hours of entertainment and learning while encouraging creativity and problem-solving skills.

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Enhancing Cognitive Development Through Magnetic Block Play

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Enhance Learning and Development With Qizfun Busy Board and Melissa & Doug Shape Sorter

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• Provides a variety of interactive activities that allow children to think and problem-solve.
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• Stimulates imaginative play by introducing educational concepts in a fun and engaging way.
• Encourages children to think outside the box and come up with unique solutions to challenges.
• Fosters independent thinking and decision-making skills.

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How Melissa & Doug Shape Sorter Enhances Learning and Development

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• Stimulates creativity and imagination as children explore different ways to play with the toy.

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As an affiliate, we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases. We get commissions for purchases made through links on this website from Amazon and other third parties.

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Preschoolers: 5 Fun Activities for Boosting Cognitive Development

• Asli on August 9, 2023
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Introduction

Preschoolers are at a crucial stage of development, where their minds are akin to sponges, eagerly absorbing information and making sense of the world around them. It’s during these formative years that cognitive development takes center stage, laying the foundation for future learning and growth. As parents and educators, nurturing this cognitive growth is paramount, and one effective way to do so is through engaging activities tailored to stimulate their young minds. In this article, we’ll explore five fun and enriching activities specifically designed to boost cognitive development in preschoolers. From building blocks to outdoor exploration, each activity offers unique opportunities for learning, creativity, and problem-solving, setting the stage for a lifetime of intellectual curiosity and growth. Let’s dive in and discover how these activities can shape the cognitive landscape of our little ones.

Activities to Development in Preschoolers

Building blocks and construction play.

Building blocks and construction play are popular activities among preschoolers , offering a multitude of benefits for their cognitive development. These activities involve using materials like LEGO or wooden blocks to build structures and creations, providing ample opportunities for learning and growth.

Preschoolers naturally gravitate towards building blocks, drawn by the tactile experience and endless possibilities they offer. As they manipulate blocks of varying shapes and sizes, children develop spatial awareness and hand-eye coordination. The process of arranging blocks to create stable structures also requires problem-solving skills, as they experiment with balance and cause-and-effect relationships.

Moreover, construction play encourages creativity and imagination. Children engage in open-ended play, using their creativity to envision and construct unique creations. Whether building towering skyscrapers or intricate landscapes, preschoolers exercise their imagination and develop their capacity for creative thinking.

Puzzles and Brain Teasers

Puzzles and brain teasers are excellent tools for stimulating cognitive development in preschoolers. These activities challenge children’s problem-solving abilities, spatial reasoning, and logical thinking skills in engaging and entertaining ways.

Introducing age-appropriate puzzles allows children to gradually develop their cognitive skills while having fun. Whether it’s fitting puzzle pieces together to form a complete picture or solving riddles and brainteasers, these activities provide mental stimulation and promote critical thinking.

Storytelling and Imaginative Play

Storytelling and imaginative play play a crucial role in fostering cognitive development in preschoolers. Through storytelling, children not only expand their vocabulary and language skills but also learn about narrative structure and sequencing. By engaging in imaginative play, such as pretending to be characters in a story or acting out scenarios, children explore different roles and perspectives, enhancing their social and emotional development alongside cognitive growth.

Sorting and Classification Games

Sorting and classification games offer valuable opportunities for preschoolers to develop categorization skills and pattern recognition. By sorting objects based on various attributes such as color, shape, or size, children learn to identify similarities and differences, a fundamental aspect of cognitive development. These activities also encourage logical reasoning and organization skills as children categorize and group objects according to specific criteria.

Outdoor Exploration and Nature Activities

Outdoor exploration and nature activities provide preschoolers with rich sensory experiences that promote cognitive development. Whether it’s exploring a local park, going on a nature walk, or engaging in gardening activities, children learn about the natural world and observe changes in their environment. Outdoor play stimulates curiosity and encourages children to ask questions, fostering a sense of wonder and exploration that supports cognitive growth.

Engaging preschoolers in fun and stimulating activities is essential for fostering cognitive development. Building blocks, puzzles, storytelling, sorting games, and outdoor exploration offer valuable opportunities for learning, exploration, and growth. By incorporating these activities into their daily routines, parents and educators can support preschoolers in developing essential cognitive skills that will benefit them throughout their lives.

Also read: Myths about Online Education

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Piaget’s Theory and Stages of Cognitive Development

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Key Takeaways

• Jean Piaget is famous for his theories regarding changes in cognitive development that occur as we move from infancy to adulthood.
• Cognitive development results from the interplay between innate capabilities (nature) and environmental influences (nurture).
• Children progress through four distinct stages , each representing varying cognitive abilities and world comprehension: the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), the preoperational stage (2 to 7 years), the concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years), and the formal operational stage (11 years and beyond).
• A child’s cognitive development is not just about acquiring knowledge, the child has to develop or construct a mental model of the world, which is referred to as a schema .
• Piaget emphasized the role of active exploration and interaction with the environment in shaping cognitive development, highlighting the importance of assimilation and accommodation in constructing mental schemas.

Stages of Development

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of intellectual development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children’s thought

Each child goes through the stages in the same order (but not all at the same rate), and child development is determined by biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

At each stage of development, the child’s thinking is qualitatively different from the other stages, that is, each stage involves a different type of intelligence.

Although no stage can be missed out, there are individual differences in the rate at which children progress through stages, and some individuals may never attain the later stages.

Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain age – although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at which the average child would reach each stage.

The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: Birth to 2 Years

The first stage is the sensorimotor stage , during which the infant focuses on physical sensations and learning to coordinate its body.

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

• The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions (moving around and exploring their environment).
• During the sensorimotor stage, a range of cognitive abilities develop. These include: object permanence; self-recognition (the child realizes that other people are separate from them); deferred imitation; and representational play.
• They relate to the emergence of the general symbolic function, which is the capacity to represent the world mentally
• At about 8 months, the infant will understand the permanence of objects and that they will still exist even if they can’t see them and the infant will search for them when they disappear.

During the beginning of this stage, the infant lives in the present. It does not yet have a mental picture of the world stored in its memory therefore it does not have a sense of object permanence.

If it cannot see something, then it does not exist. This is why you can hide a toy from an infant, while it watches, but it will not search for the object once it has gone out of sight.

The main achievement during this stage is object permanence – knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object.

Towards the end of this stage the general symbolic function begins to appear where children show in their play that they can use one object to stand for another. Language starts to appear because they realise that words can be used to represent objects and feelings.

The child begins to be able to store information that it knows about the world, recall it, and label it.

Individual Differences

• Cultural Practices : In some cultures, babies are carried on their mothers’ backs throughout the day. This constant physical contact and varied stimuli can influence how a child perceives their environment and their sense of object permanence.
• Gender Norms : Toys assigned to babies can differ based on gender expectations. A boy might be given more cars or action figures, while a girl might receive dolls or kitchen sets. This can influence early interactions and sensory explorations.

Learn More: The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2 – 7 Years

Piaget’s second stage of intellectual development is the preoperational stage . It takes place between 2 and 7 years. At the beginning of this stage, the child does not use operations, so the thinking is influenced by the way things appear rather than logical reasoning.

A child cannot conserve which means that the child does not understand that quantity remains the same even if the appearance changes.

Furthermore, the child is egocentric; he assumes that other people see the world as he does. This has been shown in the three mountains study.

As the preoperational stage develops, egocentrism declines, and children begin to enjoy the participation of another child in their games, and let’s pretend play becomes more important.

Toddlers often pretend to be people they are not (e.g. superheroes, policemen), and may play these roles with props that symbolize real-life objects. Children may also invent an imaginary playmate.

• Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental imagery.
• During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing, such as a word or an object, stand for something other than itself.
• A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It is not yet capable of logical (problem-solving) type of thought.
• Moreover, the child has difficulties with class inclusion; he can classify objects but cannot include objects in sub-sets, which involves classifying objects as belonging to two or more categories simultaneously.
• Infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s.

By 2 years, children have made some progress toward detaching their thoughts from the physical world. However, have not yet developed logical (or “operational”) thought characteristics of later stages.

Thinking is still intuitive (based on subjective judgments about situations) and egocentric (centered on the child’s own view of the world).

• Cultural Storytelling : Different cultures have unique stories, myths, and folklore. Children from diverse backgrounds might understand and interpret symbolic elements differently based on their cultural narratives.
• Race & Representation : A child’s racial identity can influence how they engage in pretend play. For instance, a lack of diverse representation in media and toys might lead children of color to recreate scenarios that don’t reflect their experiences or background.

Learn More: The Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development

The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 – 11 Years

By the beginning of the concrete operational stage , the child can use operations (a set of logical rules) so they can conserve quantities, realize that people see the world in a different way (decentring), and demonstrate improvement in inclusion tasks. Children still have difficulties with abstract thinking.

• During this stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events.
• Children begin to understand the concept of conservation; understanding that, although things may change in appearance, certain properties remain the same.
• During this stage, children can mentally reverse things (e.g., picture a ball of plasticine returning to its original shape).
• During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel.

The stage is called concrete because children can think logically much more successfully if they can manipulate real (concrete) materials or pictures of them.

Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child’s cognitive development because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than physically try things out in the real world).

Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes.

But operational thought is only effective here if the child is asked to reason about materials that are physically present. Children at this stage will tend to make mistakes or be overwhelmed when asked to reason about abstract or hypothetical problems.

• Cultural Context in Conservation Tasks : In a society where resources are scarce, children might demonstrate conservation skills earlier due to the cultural emphasis on preserving and reusing materials.
• Gender & Learning : Stereotypes about gender abilities, like “boys are better at math,” can influence how children approach logical problems or classify objects based on perceived gender norms.

Learn More: The Concrete Operational Stage of Development

The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and Over

The formal operational period begins at about age 11. As adolescents enter this stage, they gain the ability to think in an abstract manner, the ability to combine and classify items in a more sophisticated way, and the capacity for higher-order reasoning.

Adolescents can think systematically and reason about what might be as well as what is (not everyone achieves this stage). This allows them to understand politics, ethics, and science fiction, as well as to engage in scientific reasoning.

Adolescents can deal with abstract ideas: e.g. they can understand division and fractions without having to actually divide things up, and solve hypothetical (imaginary) problems.

• Concrete operations are carried out on things whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas. Formal operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints.
• During this stage, adolescents can deal with abstract ideas (e.g. no longer needing to think about slicing up cakes or sharing sweets to understand division and fractions).
• They can follow the form of an argument without having to think in terms of specific examples.
• Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with many possible solutions. E.g. if asked ‘What would happen if money were abolished in one hour’s time? they could speculate about many possible consequences.

From about 12 years children can follow the form of a logical argument without reference to its content. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts, and logically test hypotheses.

This stage sees the emergence of scientific thinking, formulating abstract theories and hypotheses when faced with a problem.

• Culture & Abstract Thinking : Cultures emphasize different kinds of logical or abstract thinking. For example, in societies with a strong oral tradition, the ability to hold complex narratives might develop prominently.
• Gender & Ethics : Discussions about morality and ethics can be influenced by gender norms. For instance, in some cultures, girls might be encouraged to prioritize community harmony, while boys might be encouraged to prioritize individual rights.

Learn More: The Formal Operational Stage of Development

Piaget’s Theory

• Piaget’s theory places a strong emphasis on the active role that children play in their own cognitive development.
• According to Piaget, children are not passive recipients of information; instead, they actively explore and interact with their surroundings.
• This active engagement with the environment is crucial because it allows them to gradually build their understanding of the world.

1. How Piaget Developed the Theory

Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking.

He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences between the thinking of adults and children.

Piaget branched out on his own with a new set of assumptions about children’s intelligence:

• Children’s intelligence differs from an adult’s in quality rather than in quantity. This means that children reason (think) differently from adults and see the world in different ways.
• Children actively build up their knowledge about the world . They are not passive creatures waiting for someone to fill their heads with knowledge.
• The best way to understand children’s reasoning is to see things from their point of view.

Piaget did not want to measure how well children could count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q. What he was more interested in was the way in which fundamental concepts like the very idea of number , time, quantity, causality , justice , and so on emerged.

Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence using naturalistic observation of his own three babies and sometimes controlled observation too. From these, he wrote diary descriptions charting their development.

He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations.

2. Piaget’s Theory Differs From Others In Several Ways:

Piaget’s (1936, 1950) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process that occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

Children’s ability to understand, think about, and solve problems in the world develops in a stop-start, discontinuous manner (rather than gradual changes over time).

• It is concerned with children, rather than all learners.
• It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does not address learning of information or specific behaviors.
• It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative differences, rather than a gradual increase in number and complexity of behaviors, concepts, ideas, etc.

The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by which the infant, and then the child, develops into an individual who can reason and think using hypotheses.

To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience.

Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment.

Piaget claimed that knowledge cannot simply emerge from sensory experience; some initial structure is necessary to make sense of the world.

According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge are based.

Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and enable us to form a mental representation of the world.

Piaget (1952, p. 7) defined a schema as: “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning.”

In more simple terms, Piaget called the schema the basic building block of intelligent behavior – a way of organizing knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions, and abstract (i.e., theoretical) concepts.

Wadsworth (2004) suggests that schemata (the plural of schema) be thought of as “index cards” filed in the brain, each one telling an individual how to react to incoming stimuli or information.

When Piaget talked about the development of a person’s mental processes, he was referring to increases in the number and complexity of the schemata that a person had learned.

When a child’s existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e., a state of cognitive (i.e., mental) balance.

Operations are more sophisticated mental structures which allow us to combine schemas in a logical (reasonable) way.

As children grow they can carry out more complex operations and begin to imagine hypothetical (imaginary) situations.

Apart from the schemas we are born with schemas and operations are learned through interaction with other people and the environment.

Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive development and described how they were developed or acquired.

A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond to situations. The assumption is that we store these mental representations and apply them when needed.

Examples of Schemas

A person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The schema is a stored form of the pattern of behavior which includes looking at a menu, ordering food, eating it and paying the bill.

This is an example of a schema called a “script.” Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from memory and apply it to the situation.

The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this – especially those used by infants. He described how – as a child gets older – his or her schemas become more numerous and elaborate.

Piaget believed that newborn babies have a small number of innate schemas – even before they have had many opportunities to experience the world. These neonatal schemas are the cognitive structures underlying innate reflexes. These reflexes are genetically programmed into us.

For example, babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by something touching the baby’s lips. A baby will suck a nipple, a comforter (dummy), or a person’s finger. Piaget, therefore, assumed that the baby has a “sucking schema.”

Similarly, the grasping reflex which is elicited when something touches the palm of a baby’s hand, or the rooting reflex, in which a baby will turn its head towards something which touches its cheek, are innate schemas. Shaking a rattle would be the combination of two schemas, grasping and shaking.

4. The Process of Adaptation

Piaget also believed that a child developed as a result of two different influences: maturation, and interaction with the environment. The child develops mental structures (schemata) which enables him to solve problems in the environment.

Adaptation is the process by which the child changes its mental models of the world to match more closely how the world actually is.

Adaptation is brought about by the processes of assimilation (solving new experiences using existing schemata) and accommodation (changing existing schemata in order to solve new experiences).

The importance of this viewpoint is that the child is seen as an active participant in its own development rather than a passive recipient of either biological influences (maturation) or environmental stimulation.

When our existing schemas can explain what we perceive around us, we are in a state of equilibration . However, when we meet a new situation that we cannot explain it creates disequilibrium, this is an unpleasant sensation which we try to escape, and this gives us the motivation to learn.

According to Piaget, reorganization to higher levels of thinking is not accomplished easily. The child must “rethink” his or her view of the world. An important step in the process is the experience of cognitive conflict.

In other words, the child becomes aware that he or she holds two contradictory views about a situation and they both cannot be true. This step is referred to as disequilibrium .

Jean Piaget (1952; see also Wadsworth, 2004) viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration.

To get back to a state of equilibration, we need to modify our existing schemas to learn and adapt to the new situation.

This is done through the processes of accommodation and assimilation . This is how our schemas evolve and become more sophisticated. The processes of assimilation and accommodation are continuous and interactive.

5. Assimilation

Piaget defined assimilation as the cognitive process of fitting new information into existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding. Overall beliefs and understanding of the world do not change as a result of the new information.

Assimilation occurs when the new experience is not very different from previous experiences of a particular object or situation we assimilate the new situation by adding information to a previous schema.

This means that when you are faced with new information, you make sense of this information by referring to information you already have (information processed and learned previously) and trying to fit the new information into the information you already have.

• Imagine a young child who has only ever seen small, domesticated dogs. When the child sees a cat for the first time, they might refer to it as a “dog” because it has four legs, fur, and a tail – features that fit their existing schema of a dog.
• A person who has always believed that all birds can fly might label penguins as birds that can fly. This is because their existing schema or understanding of birds includes the ability to fly.
• A 2-year-old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides. To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts “Clown, clown” (Siegler et al., 2003).
• If a baby learns to pick up a rattle he or she will then use the same schema (grasping) to pick up other objects.

6. Accommodation

Accommodation: when the new experience is very different from what we have encountered before we need to change our schemas in a very radical way or create a whole new schema.

Psychologist Jean Piaget defined accommodation as the cognitive process of revising existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding so that new information can be incorporated.

This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.

In order to make sense of some new information, you actually adjust information you already have (schemas you already have, etc.) to make room for this new information.

• A baby tries to use the same schema for grasping to pick up a very small object. It doesn’t work. The baby then changes the schema by now using the forefinger and thumb to pick up the object.
• A child may have a schema for birds (feathers, flying, etc.) and then they see a plane, which also flies, but would not fit into their bird schema.
• In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing silly things to make people laugh. With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit better to a standard concept of “clown”.
• A person who grew up thinking all snakes are dangerous might move to an area where garden snakes are common and harmless. Over time, after observing and learning, they might accommodate their previous belief to understand that not all snakes are harmful.

7. Equilibration

Piaget believed that all human thought seeks order and is uncomfortable with contradictions and inconsistencies in knowledge structures. In other words, we seek “equilibrium” in our cognitive structures.

Equilibrium occurs when a child’s schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).

Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds. Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation).

Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it.

Equilibration is a regulatory process that maintains a balance between assimilation and accommodation to facilitate cognitive growth. Think of it this way: We can’t merely assimilate all the time; if we did, we would never learn any new concepts or principles.

Everything new we encountered would just get put in the same few “slots” we already had. Neither can we accommodate all the time; if we did, everything we encountered would seem new; there would be no recurring regularities in our world. We’d be exhausted by the mental effort!

Applications to Education

Think of old black and white films that you’ve seen in which children sat in rows at desks, with ink wells, would learn by rote, all chanting in unison in response to questions set by an authoritarian old biddy like Matilda!

Children who were unable to keep up were seen as slacking and would be punished by variations on the theme of corporal punishment. Yes, it really did happen and in some parts of the world still does today.

Piaget is partly responsible for the change that occurred in the 1960s and for your relatively pleasurable and pain-free school days!

“Children should be able to do their own experimenting and their own research. Teachers, of course, can guide them by providing appropriate materials, but the essential thing is that in order for a child to understand something, he must construct it himself, he must re-invent it. Every time we teach a child something, we keep him from inventing it himself. On the other hand that which we allow him to discover by himself will remain with him visibly”. Piaget (1972, p. 27)

Plowden Report

Piaget (1952) did not explicitly relate his theory to education, although later researchers have explained how features of Piaget’s theory can be applied to teaching and learning.

Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational policy and teaching practice. For example, a review of primary education by the UK government in 1966 was based strongly on Piaget’s theory. The result of this review led to the publication of the Plowden Report (1967).

In the 1960s the Plowden Committee investigated the deficiencies in education and decided to incorporate many of Piaget’s ideas into its final report published in 1967, even though Piaget’s work was not really designed for education.

The report makes three Piaget-associated recommendations:

• Children should be given individual attention and it should be realized that they need to be treated differently.
• Children should only be taught things that they are capable of learning
• Children mature at different rates and the teacher needs to be aware of the stage of development of each child so teaching can be tailored to their individual needs.

“The report’s recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the centrality of play in children’s learning, the use of the environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the evaluation of children’s progress – teachers should “not assume that only what is measurable is valuable.”

Discovery learning – the idea that children learn best through doing and actively exploring – was seen as central to the transformation of the primary school curriculum.

How to teach

Within the classroom learning should be student-centered and accomplished through active discovery learning. The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning, rather than direct tuition.

Because Piaget’s theory is based upon biological maturation and stages, the notion of “readiness” is important. Readiness concerns when certain information or concepts should be taught.

According to Piaget’s theory, children should not be taught certain concepts until they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development.

According to Piaget (1958), assimilation and accommodation require an active learner, not a passive one, because problem-solving skills cannot be taught, they must be discovered.

Therefore, teachers should encourage the following within the classroom:

• Educational programs should be designed to correspond to Piaget’s stages of development. Children in the concrete operational stage should be given concrete means to learn new concepts e.g. tokens for counting.
• Devising situations that present useful problems, and create disequilibrium in the child.
• Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of it. Instead of checking if children have the right answer, the teacher should focus on the student’s understanding and the processes they used to get to the answer.
• Child-centered approach. Learning must be active (discovery learning). Children should be encouraged to discover for themselves and to interact with the material instead of being given ready-made knowledge.
• Accepting that children develop at different rates so arrange activities for individual children or small groups rather than assume that all the children can cope with a particular activity.
• Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing “truths.”
• Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children can learn from each other).
• Evaluate the level of the child’s development so suitable tasks can be set.
• Adapt lessons to suit the needs of the individual child (i.e. differentiated teaching).
• Be aware of the child’s stage of development (testing).
• Teach only when the child is ready. i.e. has the child reached the appropriate stage.
• Providing support for the “spontaneous research” of the child.
• Using collaborative, as well as individual activities.
• Educators may use Piaget’s stages to design age-appropriate assessment tools and strategies.

Classroom Activities

Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years):.

Although most kids in this age range are not in a traditional classroom setting, they can still benefit from games that stimulate their senses and motor skills.

• Object Permanence Games : Play peek-a-boo or hide toys under a blanket to help babies understand that objects still exist even when they can’t see them.
• Sensory Play : Activities like water play, sand play, or playdough encourage exploration through touch.
• Imitation : Children at this age love to imitate adults. Use imitation as a way to teach new skills.

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years):

• Role Playing : Set up pretend play areas where children can act out different scenarios, such as a kitchen, hospital, or market.
• Use of Symbols : Encourage drawing, building, and using props to represent other things.
• Hands-on Activities : Children should interact physically with their environment, so provide plenty of opportunities for hands-on learning.
• Egocentrism Activities : Use exercises that highlight different perspectives. For instance, having two children sit across from each other with an object in between and asking them what the other sees.

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years):

• Classification Tasks : Provide objects or pictures to group, based on various characteristics.
• Hands-on Experiments : Introduce basic science experiments where they can observe cause and effect, like a simple volcano with baking soda and vinegar.
• Logical Games : Board games, puzzles, and logic problems help develop their thinking skills.
• Conservation Tasks : Use experiments to showcase that quantity doesn’t change with alterations in shape, such as the classic liquid conservation task using different shaped glasses.

Formal Operational Stage (11 years and older):

• Hypothesis Testing : Encourage students to make predictions and test them out.
• Abstract Thinking : Introduce topics that require abstract reasoning, such as algebra or ethical dilemmas.
• Problem Solving : Provide complex problems and have students work on solutions, integrating various subjects and concepts.
• Debate and Discussion : Encourage group discussions and debates on abstract topics, highlighting the importance of logic and evidence.
• Feedback and Questioning : Use open-ended questions to challenge students and promote higher-order thinking. For instance, rather than asking, “Is this the right answer?”, ask, “How did you arrive at this conclusion?”

While Piaget’s stages offer a foundational framework, they are not universally experienced in the same way by all children.

Social identities play a critical role in shaping cognitive development, necessitating a more nuanced and culturally responsive approach to understanding child development.

Piaget’s stages may manifest differently based on social identities like race, gender, and culture:

• Race & Teacher Interactions : A child’s race can influence teacher expectations and interactions. For example, racial biases can lead to children of color being perceived as less capable or more disruptive, influencing their cognitive challenges and supports.
• Racial and Cultural Stereotypes : These can affect a child’s self-perception and self-efficacy . For instance, stereotypes about which racial or cultural groups are “better” at certain subjects can influence a child’s self-confidence and, subsequently, their engagement in that subject.
• Gender & Peer Interactions : Children learn gender roles from their peers. Boys might be mocked for playing “girl games,” and girls might be excluded from certain activities, influencing their cognitive engagements.
• Language : Multilingual children might navigate the stages differently, especially if their home language differs from their school language. The way concepts are framed in different languages can influence cognitive processing. Cultural idioms and metaphors can shape a child’s understanding of concepts and their ability to use symbolic representation, especially in the pre-operational stage.

Curriculum Development

According to Piaget, children’s cognitive development is determined by a process of maturation which cannot be altered by tuition so education should be stage-specific.

For example, a child in the concrete operational stage should not be taught abstract concepts and should be given concrete aid such as tokens to count with.

According to Piaget children learn through the process of accommodation and assimilation so the role of the teacher should be to provide opportunities for these processes to occur such as new material and experiences that challenge the children’s existing schemas.

Furthermore, according to this theory, children should be encouraged to discover for themselves and to interact with the material instead of being given ready-made knowledge.

Curricula need to be developed that take into account the age and stage of thinking of the child. For example there is no point in teaching abstract concepts such as algebra or atomic structure to children in primary school.

Curricula also need to be sufficiently flexible to allow for variations in the ability of different students of the same age. In Britain, the National Curriculum and Key Stages broadly reflect the stages that Piaget laid down.

For example, egocentrism dominates a child’s thinking in the sensorimotor and preoperational stages. Piaget would therefore predict that using group activities would not be appropriate since children are not capable of understanding the views of others.

However, Smith et al. (1998), point out that some children develop earlier than Piaget predicted and that by using group work children can learn to appreciate the views of others in preparation for the concrete operational stage.

The national curriculum emphasizes the need to use concrete examples in the primary classroom.

Shayer (1997), reported that abstract thought was necessary for success in secondary school (and co-developed the CASE system of teaching science). Recently the National curriculum has been updated to encourage the teaching of some abstract concepts towards the end of primary education, in preparation for secondary courses. (DfEE, 1999).

Child-centered teaching is regarded by some as a child of the ‘liberal sixties.’ In the 1980s the Thatcher government introduced the National Curriculum in an attempt to move away from this and bring more central government control into the teaching of children.

So, although the British National Curriculum in some ways supports the work of Piaget, (in that it dictates the order of teaching), it can also be seen as prescriptive to the point where it counters Piaget’s child-oriented approach.

However, it does still allow for flexibility in teaching methods, allowing teachers to tailor lessons to the needs of their students.

Social Media (Digital Learning)

Jean Piaget could not have anticipated the expansive digital age we now live in.

Today, knowledge dissemination and creation are democratized by the Internet, with platforms like blogs, wikis, and social media allowing for vast collaboration and shared knowledge. This development has prompted a reimagining of the future of education.

Classrooms, traditionally seen as primary sites of learning, are being overshadowed by the rise of mobile technologies and platforms like MOOCs (Passey, 2013).

The millennial generation, defined as the first to grow up with cable TV, the internet, and cell phones, relies heavily on technology.

They view it as an integral part of their identity, with most using it extensively in their daily lives, from keeping in touch with loved ones to consuming news and entertainment (Nielsen, 2014).

Social media platforms offer a dynamic environment conducive to Piaget’s principles. These platforms allow for interactions that nurture knowledge evolution through cognitive processes like assimilation and accommodation.

They emphasize communal interaction and shared activity, fostering both cognitive and socio-cultural constructivism. This shared activity promotes understanding and exploration beyond individual perspectives, enhancing social-emotional learning (Gehlbach, 2010).

A standout advantage of social media in an educational context is its capacity to extend beyond traditional classroom confines. As the material indicates, these platforms can foster more inclusive learning, bridging diverse learner groups.

This inclusivity can equalize learning opportunities, potentially diminishing biases based on factors like race or socio-economic status, resonating with Kegan’s (1982) concept of “recruitability.”

However, there are challenges. While the potential of social media in learning is vast, its practical application necessitates intention and guidance. Cuban, Kirkpatrick, and Peck (2001) note that certain educators and students are hesitant about integrating social media into educational contexts.

This hesitancy can stem from technological complexities or potential distractions. Yet, when harnessed effectively, social media can provide a rich environment for collaborative learning and interpersonal development, fostering a deeper understanding of content.

In essence, the rise of social media aligns seamlessly with constructivist philosophies. Social media platforms act as tools for everyday cognition, merging daily social interactions with the academic world, and providing avenues for diverse, interactive, and engaging learning experiences.

Applications to Parenting

Parents can use Piaget’s stages to have realistic developmental expectations of their children’s behavior and cognitive capabilities.

For instance, understanding that a toddler is in the pre-operational stage can help parents be patient when the child is egocentric.

Play Activities

Recognizing the importance of play in cognitive development, many parents provide toys and games suited for their child’s developmental stage.

Parents can offer activities that are slightly beyond their child’s current abilities, leveraging Vygotsky’s concept of the “Zone of Proximal Development,” which complements Piaget’s ideas.

• Peek-a-boo : Helps with object permanence.
• Texture Touch : Provide different textured materials (soft, rough, bumpy, smooth) for babies to touch and feel.
• Sound Bottles : Fill small bottles with different items like rice, beans, bells, and have children shake and listen to the different sounds.
• Memory Games : Using cards with pictures, place them face down, and ask students to find matching pairs.
• Role Playing and Pretend Play : Let children act out roles or stories that enhance symbolic thinking. Encourage symbolic play with dress-up clothes, playsets, or toy cash registers. Provide prompts or scenarios to extend their imagination.
• Story Sequencing : Give children cards with parts of a story and have them arranged in the correct order.
• Number Line Jumps : Create a number line on the floor with tape. Ask students to jump to the correct answer for math problems.
• Classification Games : Provide a mix of objects and ask students to classify them based on different criteria (e.g., color, size, shape).
• Logical Puzzle Games : Games that involve problem-solving using logic, such as simple Sudoku puzzles or logic grid puzzles.
• Debate and Discussion : Provide a topic and let students debate on pros and cons. This promotes abstract thinking and logical reasoning.
• Hypothesis Testing Games : Present a scenario and have students come up with hypotheses and ways to test them.
• Strategy Board Games : Games like chess, checkers, or Settlers of Catan can help in developing strategic and forward-thinking skills.

Critical Evaluation

• The influence of Piaget’s ideas on developmental psychology has been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children.

He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget’s ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.

• Piaget (1936) was one of the first psychologists to make a systematic study of cognitive development. His contributions include a stage theory of child cognitive development, detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities.
• His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with children, particularly in the field of education (re: Discovery Learning). Piaget’s theory has been applied across education.
• According to Piaget’s theory, educational programs should be designed to correspond to the stages of development.
• Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather not talk about stages at all, preferring to see development as a continuous process. Others have queried the age ranges of the stages. Some studies have shown that progress to the formal operational stage is not guaranteed.

For example, Keating (1979) reported that 40-60% of college students fail at formal operation tasks, and Dasen (1994) states that only one-third of adults ever reach the formal operational stage.

The fact that the formal operational stage is not reached in all cultures and not all individuals within cultures suggests that it might not be biologically based.

• According to Piaget, the rate of cognitive development cannot be accelerated as it is based on biological processes however, direct tuition can speed up the development which suggests that it is not entirely based on biological factors.
• Because Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of cognitive development and biological maturation, he failed to consider the effect that the social setting and culture may have on cognitive development.

Cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological process of maturation.

However, the age at which the stages are reached varies between cultures and individuals which suggests that social and cultural factors and individual differences influence cognitive development.

Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian desert with 8-14-year-old Indigenous Australians. He gave them conservation of liquid tasks and spatial awareness tasks. He found that the ability to conserve came later in the Aboriginal children, between ages of 10 and 13 (as opposed to between 5 and 7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample).

However, he found that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier amongst the Aboriginal children than the Swiss children. Such a study demonstrates cognitive development is not purely dependent on maturation but on cultural factors too – spatial awareness is crucial for nomadic groups of people.

Vygotsky , a contemporary of Piaget, argued that social interaction is crucial for cognitive development. According to Vygotsky the child’s learning always occurs in a social context in cooperation with someone more skillful (MKO). This social interaction provides language opportunities and Vygotsky considered language the foundation of thought.

• Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased interpretation than other methods. Piaget made careful, detailed naturalistic observations of children, and from these, he wrote diary descriptions charting their development. He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations.

Because Piaget conducted the observations alone the data collected are based on his own subjective interpretation of events. It would have been more reliable if Piaget conducted the observations with another researcher and compared the results afterward to check if they are similar (i.e., have inter-rater reliability).

Although clinical interviews allow the researcher to explore data in more depth, the interpretation of the interviewer may be biased.

For example, children may not understand the question/s, they have short attention spans, they cannot express themselves very well, and may be trying to please the experimenter. Such methods meant that Piaget may have formed inaccurate conclusions.

• As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand (e.g., Hughes , 1975).

Piaget failed to distinguish between competence (what a child is capable of doing) and performance (what a child can show when given a particular task). When tasks were altered, performance (and therefore competence) was affected. Therefore, Piaget might have underestimated children’s cognitive abilities.

For example, a child might have object permanence (competence) but still not be able to search for objects (performance). When Piaget hid objects from babies he found that it wasn’t till after nine months that they looked for it.

However, Piaget relied on manual search methods – whether the child was looking for the object or not.

Later, researchers such as Baillargeon and Devos (1991) reported that infants as young as four months looked longer at a moving carrot that didn’t do what it expected, suggesting they had some sense of permanence, otherwise they wouldn’t have had any expectation of what it should or shouldn’t do.

• The concept of schema is incompatible with the theories of Bruner (1966) and Vygotsky (1978). Behaviorism would also refute Piaget’s schema theory because is cannot be directly observed as it is an internal process. Therefore, they would claim it cannot be objectively measured.
• Piaget studied his own children and the children of his colleagues in Geneva to deduce general principles about the intellectual development of all children. His sample was very small and composed solely of European children from families of high socio-economic status. Researchers have, therefore, questioned the generalisability of his data.
• For Piaget, language is considered secondary to action, i.e., thought precedes language. The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) argues that the development of language and thought go together and that the origin of reasoning has more to do with our ability to communicate with others than with our interaction with the material world.

Piaget’s Theory vs Vygotsky

Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations in which children construct knowledge of their own.

Whereas Vygotsky argues that children learn through social interactions, building knowledge by learning from more knowledgeable others such as peers and adults. In other words, Vygotsky believed that culture affects cognitive development.

These factors lead to differences in the education style they recommend: Piaget would argue for the teacher to provide opportunities that challenge the children’s existing schemas and for children to be encouraged to discover for themselves.

Alternatively, Vygotsky would recommend that teachers assist the child to progress through the zone of proximal development by using scaffolding.

However, both theories view children as actively constructing their own knowledge of the world; they are not seen as just passively absorbing knowledge.

They also agree that cognitive development involves qualitative changes in thinking, not only a matter of learning more things.

What is cognitive development?

Cognitive development is how a person’s ability to think, learn, remember, problem-solve, and make decisions changes over time.

This includes the growth and maturation of the brain, as well as the acquisition and refinement of various mental skills and abilities.

Cognitive development is a major aspect of human development, and both genetic and environmental factors heavily influence it. Key domains of cognitive development include attention, memory, language skills, logical reasoning, and problem-solving.

Various theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, provide different perspectives on how this complex process unfolds from infancy through adulthood.

What are the 4 stages of Piaget’s theory?

Piaget divided children’s cognitive development into four stages; each of the stages represents a new way of thinking and understanding the world.

He called them (1) sensorimotor intelligence , (2) preoperational thinking , (3) concrete operational thinking , and (4) formal operational thinking . Each stage is correlated with an age period of childhood, but only approximately.

According to Piaget, intellectual development takes place through stages that occur in a fixed order and which are universal (all children pass through these stages regardless of social or cultural background).

Development can only occur when the brain has matured to a point of “readiness”.

What are some of the weaknesses of Piaget’s theory?

Cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological maturation process.

However, the age at which the stages are reached varies between cultures and individuals, suggesting that social and cultural factors and individual differences influence cognitive development.

What are Piaget’s concepts of schemas?

Schemas are mental structures that contain all of the information relating to one aspect of the world around us.

According to Piaget, we are born with a few primitive schemas, such as sucking, which give us the means to interact with the world.

These are physical, but as the child develops, they become mental schemas. These schemas become more complex with experience.

Baillargeon, R., & DeVos, J. (1991). Object permanence in young infants: Further evidence . Child development , 1227-1246.

Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, Mass.: Belkapp Press.

Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001). High access and low use of technologies in high school classrooms: Explaining an apparent paradox.  American Educational Research Journal ,  38 (4), 813-834.

Dasen, P. (1994). Culture and cognitive development from a Piagetian perspective. In W .J. Lonner & R.S. Malpass (Eds.), Psychology and culture (pp. 145–149). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Gehlbach, H. (2010). The social side of school: Why teachers need social psychology.  Educational Psychology Review ,  22 , 349-362.

Hughes, M. (1975). Egocentrism in preschool children . Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Edinburgh University.

Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence . New York: Basic Books.

Keating, D. (1979). Adolescent thinking. In J. Adelson (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 211-246). New York: Wiley.

Kegan, R. (1982).  The evolving self: Problem and process in human development . Harvard University Press.

Nielsen. 2014. “Millennials: Technology = Social Connection.” http://www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/us/en/insights/news/2014/millennials-technology-social-connecti on.html.

Passey, D. (2013).  Inclusive technology enhanced learning: Overcoming cognitive, physical, emotional, and geographic challenges . Routledge.

Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J. (1945). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood . London: Heinemann.

Piaget, J. (1957). Construction of reality in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J., & Cook, M. T. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children . New York, NY: International University Press.

Piaget, J. (1981).  Intelligence and affectivity: Their relationship during child development.(Trans & Ed TA Brown & CE Kaegi) . Annual Reviews.

Plowden, B. H. P. (1967). Children and their primary schools: A report (Research and Surveys). London, England: HM Stationery Office.

Siegler, R. S., DeLoache, J. S., & Eisenberg, N. (2003). How children develop . New York: Worth.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wadsworth, B. J. (2004). Piaget’s theory of cognitive and affective development: Foundations of constructivism . New York: Longman.

Further Reading

• BBC Radio Broadcast about the Three Mountains Study
• Piagetian stages: A critical review
• Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

Related Articles

Child Psychology

Vygotsky vs. Piaget: A Paradigm Shift

Interactional Synchrony

Internal Working Models of Attachment

Soft Determinism In Psychology

Branches of Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Automatic Processing in Psychology: Definition & Examples

4 Problem-Solving Games for Kids

Problem-Solving Games for Kids

Ever watch your little one furrow their brow, puzzled over some problem? As parents, it can be hard sometimes to not step in and help them, but watching their brains work to find the solution can also be fun. Problem-solving helps your child think on their feet, play nicely with others, and tackle tricky tasks themselves. But how do we help build this skill? 

Check out these problem-solving games for kids. Help your child learn important skills while having fun!

Why are Problem-Solving Skills Key in Child Development?

Problem-solving isn’t just about finding the right piece of the puzzle or deciding which block fits; it’s a critical component of cognitive development within a child. Developing problem-solving skills allows them to become independent thinkers and navigate the world around them. This independence gives them confidence and self-reliance, which are invaluable traits as they grow up. 

Enhanced cognitive abilities will improve their memory, allow them to process information faster, and improve their decision-making skills. Many problem-solving activities require cooperation and communication with others. Through games, children learn to negotiate, collaborate, and communicate more effectively, something some adults can’t even do! 

Lastly, by tackling a variety of challenges, kids learn to think quickly and switch gears swiftly. This adaptability is priceless in our fast-paced world, helping them grow into resilient problem-solvers ready to face life’s ups and downs confidently.

Can Games Help Improve Problem-Solving Skills for Kids?

Studies show different types of problem-solving games, including board games and video games, encourage critical thinking, enhance memory, and boost mental processing speed. Playing games help children learn to make connections between ideas, use what they already know in different situations, and persevere through challenging tasks until they find a solution. Think about how many ways you try to fit one puzzle piece in, but eventually, your persistence pays off, and you snap it into place!

Below are some of the top creative problem-solving games for kids: 

• Puzzles : From simple wooden shape puzzles for toddlers to complex 1,000-piece landscapes for preschool and pre-k aged children, puzzles are the classic problem-solving game. They help children build spatial awareness and critical thinking skills. Logical puzzles like Sudoku are great for older children, where they work through the matrix to solve the number puzzle. 
• Building blocks or LEGOs : These creative problem-solving games are like puzzles but in 3D. Children use blocks or LEGOs to fit together and build a bigger picture and must overcome challenges like making sure their tower is stable or what to do when they run out of certain types of blocks or LEGO bricks. Building with blocks teaches them about shapes, patterns, and symmetry and allows them to use their imagination. Preschool-aged children can try building advanced sets and robotics, which often include following instructions to create more complex projects. 
• Board games : From the classic Guess Who? for young detectives, to chess for strategic thinkers, board games are perfect for teaching kids to think ahead, strategize, and predict others’ moves. Guess Who? teaches deductive reasoning skills as you each take turns guessing. Children learn how to use the process of elimination to solve their problems. In comparison, chess players must think through each of their moves and come up with a game plan or solution to beat their opponent. There are many creative board games for every age to help encourage problem-solving. 
• I-Spy : The perfect on-the-go game, I-Spy encourages children to use their observational skills and process of elimination to find their solution. Just choose an object you see and say, “I spy with my little eyes something that is…” and fill in with the object’s color for a clue. Then, your little one can guess the object by asking yes or no questions.

Let Lightbridge Academy Help

Early childhood education centers , like Lightbridge Academy, understand the importance of developing problem-solving skills from a young age. It’s important for kids to figure out a solution to their problems so they can be self-sufficient. What parent doesn’t love that? At Lightbridge Academy, our curriculum is about preparing little minds for big challenges. Integrating problem-solving games in our preschool and pre-k classrooms in a comprehensive STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) education framework, we help them use logic, creativity, and critical thinking to find the correct answer. Our supportive environment encourages little ones to experiment with different answers and learn from their experiences, which is crucial in developing lifelong problem-solving skills. 

Curious to see how we do it? Why not come and see the magic yourself? Schedule a tour to learn more about what we do.

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Cognitive Development Theory: What Are the Stages?

Sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, formal operational stage.

Cognitive development is the process by which we come to acquire, understand, organize, and learn to use information in various ways. Cognitive development helps a child obtain the skills needed to live a productive life and function as an independent adult.

The late Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget was a major figure in the study of cognitive development theory in children. He believed that it occurs in four stages—sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

This article discusses Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, including important concepts and principles.

FatCamera / Getty Images

History of Cognitive Development

During the 1920s, the psychologist Jean Piaget was given the task of translating English intelligence tests into French. During this process, he observed that children think differently than adults do and have a different view of the world. He began to study children from birth through the teenage years—observing children who were too young to talk, and interviewing older children while he also observed their development.

Piaget published his theory of cognitive development in 1936. This theory is based on the idea that a child’s intelligence changes throughout childhood and cognitive skills—including memory, attention, thinking, problem-solving, logical reasoning, reading, listening, and more—are learned as a child grows and interacts with their environment.

Stages of Cognitive Development

Piaget’s theory suggests that cognitive development occurs in four stages as a child ages. These stages are always completed in order, but last longer for some children than others. Each stage builds on the skills learned in the previous stage.

The four stages of cognitive development include:

• Sensorimotor
• Preoperational
• Concrete operational
• Formal operational

The sensorimotor stage begins at birth and lasts until 18 to 24 months of age. During the sensorimotor stage, children are physically exploring their environment and absorbing information through their senses of smell, sight, touch, taste, and sound.

The most important skill gained in the sensorimotor stage is object permanence, which means that the child knows that an object still exists even when they can't see it anymore. For example, if a toy is covered up by a blanket, the child will know the toy is still there and will look for it. Without this skill, the child thinks that the toy has simply disappeared.

Language skills also begin to develop during the sensorimotor stage.

Activities to Try During the Sensorimotor Stage

Appropriate activities to do during the sensorimotor stage include:

• Playing peek-a-boo
• Reading books
• Providing toys with a variety of textures
• Singing songs
• Playing with musical instruments
• Rolling a ball back and forth

The preoperational stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development occurs between ages 2 and 7 years. Early on in this stage, children learn the skill of symbolic representation. This means that an object or word can stand for something else. For example, a child might play "house" with a cardboard box.

At this stage, children assume that other people see the world and experience emotions the same way they do, and their main focus is on themselves. This is called egocentrism .

Centrism is another characteristic of the preoperational stage. This means that a child is only able to focus on one aspect of a problem or situation. For example, a child might become upset that a friend has more pieces of candy than they do, even if their pieces are bigger.

During this stage, children will often play next to each other—called parallel play—but not with each other. They also believe that inanimate objects, such as toys, have human lives and feelings.

Activities to Try During the Preoperational Stage

Appropriate activities to do during the preoperational stage include:

• Playing "house" or "school"
• Building a fort
• Playing with Play-Doh
• Building with blocks
• Playing charades

The concrete operational stage occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years. During this stage, a child develops the ability to think logically and problem-solve but can only apply these skills to objects they can physically see—things that are "concrete."

Six main concrete operations develop in this stage. These include:

• Conservation : This skill means that a child understands that the amount of something or the number of a particular object stays the same, even when it looks different. For example, a cup of milk in a tall glass looks different than the same amount of milk in a short glass—but the amount did not change.
• Classification : This skill is the ability to sort items by specific classes, such as color, shape, or size.
• Seriation : This skill involves arranging objects in a series, or a logical order. For example, the child could arrange blocks in order from smallest to largest.
• Reversibility : This skill is the understanding that a process can be reversed. For example, a balloon can be blown up with air and then deflated back to the way it started.
• Decentering : This skill allows a child to focus on more than one aspect of a problem or situation at the same time. For example, two candy bars might look the same on the outside, but the child knows that they have different flavors on the inside.
• Transitivity : This skill provides an understanding of how things relate to each other. For example, if John is older than Susan, and Susan is older than Joey, then John is older than Joey.

Activities to Try During the Concrete Operational Stage

Appropriate activities to do during the concrete operational stage include:

• Using measuring cups (for example, demonstrate how one cup of water fills two half-cups)
• Solving simple logic problems
• Practicing basic math
• Doing crossword puzzles
• Playing board games

The last stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive development occurs during the teenage years into adulthood. During this stage, a person learns abstract thinking and hypothetical problem-solving skills.

Deductive reasoning—or the ability to make a conclusion based on information gained from a person's environment—is also learned in this stage. This means, for example, that a person can identify the differences between dogs of various breeds, instead of putting them all in a general category of "dogs."

Activities to Try During the Formal Operational Stage

Appropriate activities to do during the formal operational stage include:

• Learning to cook
• Solving crossword and logic puzzles
• Exploring hobbies
• Playing a musical instrument

Piaget's theory of cognitive development is based on the belief that a child gains thinking skills in four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. These stages roughly correspond to specific ages, from birth to adulthood. Children progress through these stages at different paces, but according to Piaget, they are always completed in order.

National Library of Medicine. Cognitive testing . MedlinePlus.

Oklahoma State University. Cognitive development: The theory of Jean Piaget .

SUNY Cortland. Sensorimotor stage .

Marwaha S, Goswami M, Vashist B. Prevalence of principles of Piaget’s theory among 4-7-year-old children and their correlation with IQ . J Clin Diagn Res. 2017;11(8):ZC111-ZC115. doi:10.7860%2FJCDR%2F2017%2F28435.10513

Börnert-Ringleb M, Wilbert J. The association of strategy use and concrete-operational thinking in primary school . Front Educ. 2018;0. doi:10.3389/feduc.2018.00038

By Aubrey Bailey, PT, DPT, CHT Dr, Bailey is a Virginia-based physical therapist and professor of anatomy and physiology with over a decade of experience.

Cognitive Activities for Preschoolers: Enhancing Learning and Development

Preschoolers are at an age where they are learning and developing rapidly. Their brains are like sponges, soaking up new information and experiences. Cognitive activities for preschoolers can help them develop important skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and memory retention.

These activities can be fun and engaging for preschoolers, while also providing valuable learning opportunities. By engaging in cognitive activities, preschoolers can develop a love for learning and set a strong foundation for future academic success.

Examples of cognitive activities for preschoolers include puzzles, memory games, and matching games. These activities not only help with cognitive development , but also improve fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. By incorporating these activities into a preschooler’s daily routine, parents and educators can help support their growth and development.

Importance of Cognitive Activities

Preschoolers are at a crucial stage of their development, and it’s important to engage them in cognitive activities that promote learning and growth. Cognitive activities help children develop their problem-solving skills, critical thinking, memory, attention, and creativity. These skills are essential for their academic success and overall development.

Research has shown that engaging preschoolers in cognitive activities can have a significant impact on their cognitive development . Children who are exposed to a variety of cognitive activities tend to have better language skills, improved memory, and better problem-solving abilities. They are also more likely to succeed academically and have a positive attitude towards learning.

Moreover, cognitive activities help children develop their social skills. Many cognitive activities involve working in groups, which helps children learn how to communicate, share ideas, and work together towards a common goal. These skills are essential for their social and emotional development and help them build positive relationships with their peers and adults.

Types of Cognitive Activities for Preschoolers

Preschoolers have a natural curiosity and eagerness to learn about the world around them. Cognitive activities can help to develop their thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. Here are some types of cognitive activities that are suitable for preschoolers:

• Puzzles: Completing puzzles can help preschoolers develop their problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Simple jigsaw puzzles with large pieces are a great place to start.
• Matching Games: Matching games can help preschoolers develop their memory and concentration skills. For example, they can match pictures of animals or shapes.
• Building Blocks: Building blocks can help preschoolers develop their spatial awareness and creativity. They can build towers, houses, or other structures using different shapes and sizes of blocks.
• Sorting and Classifying: Sorting and classifying activities can help preschoolers develop their logical thinking and categorization skills. For example, they can sort objects by color, shape, or size.
• Memory Games: Memory games can help preschoolers develop their memory and concentration skills. For example, they can play a game where they have to remember a sequence of colors or numbers.

These are just a few examples of the types of cognitive activities that preschoolers can engage in. It is important to choose activities that are age-appropriate and that match the child’s interests and abilities. By engaging in these activities, preschoolers can develop their cognitive skills and prepare themselves for future learning and academic success.

Benefits of Cognitive Activities for Preschoolers

Cognitive activities are essential for the overall development of preschoolers. These activities help children to develop their thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. Below are some benefits of cognitive activities for preschoolers:

• Improves Memory: Cognitive activities such as memory games, matching games, and puzzles can help preschoolers to develop their memory skills. These activities require children to remember information and recall it later, which can be helpful in their academic and personal lives.
• Enhances Creativity: Cognitive activities such as drawing, painting, and storytelling can help preschoolers to enhance their creativity. These activities allow children to express themselves and their ideas, which can be helpful in developing their imagination and critical thinking skills.
• Develops Problem-Solving Skills: Cognitive activities such as sorting games, maze games, and building blocks can help preschoolers to develop their problem-solving skills. These activities require children to use their critical thinking skills to solve problems and find solutions.
• Increases Attention Span: Cognitive activities such as reading, listening to stories, and playing memory games can help preschoolers to increase their attention span. These activities require children to focus on the task at hand, which can be helpful in their academic and personal lives.

Overall, cognitive activities are beneficial for preschoolers as they help to develop their thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. These skills are essential for their academic and personal lives and can help them to become successful in the future.

Examples of Cognitive Activities for Preschoolers

Preschoolers are at a stage of rapid development and cognitive activities can help them develop their thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. Here are some examples of cognitive activities that can be used for preschoolers:

• Puzzles: Puzzles are a great way to develop problem-solving skills. Children can start with simple puzzles with a few pieces and gradually move on to more complex puzzles with more pieces.
• Memory Games: Memory games can help preschoolers improve their memory and concentration. Simple games like matching pairs of cards can be a good start.
• Sorting and Classifying: Sorting and classifying objects based on their shape, size, color, or texture can help preschoolers develop their classification skills.
• Sequencing: Sequencing activities like putting events in order or arranging pictures in a sequence can help develop a preschooler’s logical thinking skills.
• Counting and Number Recognition: Counting games and activities can help preschoolers learn to count and recognize numbers.
• Storytelling: Storytelling activities can help preschoolers develop their imagination, creativity, and language skills.

These are just a few examples of cognitive activities that can benefit preschoolers. It is important to choose activities that are age-appropriate and engaging for the child. By incorporating these activities into a child’s daily routine, they can help to develop a strong foundation for learning and problem-solving skills that will benefit them throughout their lives.

Tips for Incorporating Cognitive Activities into Daily Routine

Preschoolers are constantly learning and developing new cognitive skills. As a parent or caregiver, it is important to incorporate cognitive activities into their daily routine to help them continue to grow and learn. Here are some tips for incorporating cognitive activities into your preschooler’s daily routine:

• Play games that involve problem-solving and critical thinking, such as puzzles or memory games.
• Encourage imaginative play, such as playing dress-up or pretending to be different characters.
• Read books together and ask your child questions about the story to promote comprehension and critical thinking.
• Engage in activities that require following directions, such as cooking or building with blocks.
• Encourage your child to ask questions and explore their curiosity about the world around them.

It is important to remember that cognitive activities should be fun and engaging for preschoolers. These activities should not feel like work or be too challenging for their developmental level. By incorporating these tips into your preschooler’s daily routine, you can help them develop important cognitive skills while also having fun and spending quality time together.

Preschoolers have a natural curiosity about the world around them, and cognitive activities can help them develop their problem-solving, critical thinking, and memory skills. By engaging in activities that challenge their minds, children can develop a love of learning that will serve them well throughout their lives.

There are many different types of cognitive activities that are appropriate for preschoolers, from puzzles and memory games to storytelling and imaginative play. Parents and caregivers can help support children’s cognitive development by providing a variety of activities that are both fun and educational.

It is important to remember that every child is unique, and what works for one child may not work for another. Parents and caregivers should observe their child’s interests and abilities, and tailor activities to meet their needs. By providing a supportive and engaging environment, parents and caregivers can help children develop the cognitive skills they need to succeed in school and in life.

Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development

The benefits of play in cognitive development.

The Benefits of Play

By Sheri Parris & Christian Hernandez

Play provides a wide variety of benefits for children. Through play, children build and strengthen socio-emotional and cognitive skills. Children at play have agency (control over their own actions) and feel socially and emotionally safe. They express themselves freely, trying out different behaviors or ideas, without fear or anxiety. Peter Gray (2017) defines play as an activity that (1) is self-chosen and self-directed, (2) is motivated more by means than ends, (3) is guided by mental rules, and (4) includes a strong element of imagination.

Gray also notes that children practice different skills during different types of play. Categories of play include (a) physical/locomotor play (e.g., running, climbing, chasing); (b) constructive play (e.g., building things, creating art or music); (c) language play (e.g., infant cooing, puns, rhymes); (d) fantasy or pretend play (e.g., constructing pretend worlds); (e) games with formal rules (e.g., baseball, chess, dominoes); and (f) social play (e.g., any type of play involving 2 or more children).

Play has shown to have many benefits for the brain because it not only engages children in activities that promote cognitive development (e.g., problem-solving, collaboration, mental flexibility, creativity) but it also removes barriers to cognitive development (e.g., fear, anxiety, stress). Likewise, play promotes development of a wide range of socio-emotional skills, such as self-regulation, listening, negotiating, independent thinking, taking other perspectives, persistence, and curiosity.

Lev Vygotsky was a soviet psychologist whose observations about play continue to be validated psychologists over a century later. He found that social make-believe play was the ideal context for cognitive development. For instance, when children create imaginary situations, they increase their ability to follow internal ideas and social rules rather than impulses, and can practice activities they are too young to perform in real life. In these imaginary roles, children can be a parent rocking a doll and telling it a bedtime story, or a firefighter putting out a fire. Also during make-believe play, children engage in ‘private speech’ where they practice using their thoughts to control their actions. During make-believe play, children can try a wide variety of new and challenging activities, acquiring many new competencies. Recent studies have supported Vygotsky’s observations, including one study by Elias and Berk (2002) showing that joint make-believe play with peers improves self-regulation in highly impulsive preschoolers.

When all factors are considered, few, if any, activities are better for children’s overall development than play. Conversely, lack of play in childhood can lead to abnormal social, emotional, and cognitive development. Play generates from within, and cannot be imposed on children. While there is no match for the benefits of free play, there are also benefits to other types of play such as games with rules, as listed above. However, even when engaged in other types of play, children should participate happily of their own accord. Attention should be focused on the activity itself, and not on the end result. Play is not to be judged, critiqued, or graded. Play is to be encouraged, nurtured, and celebrated.

Reference material

Elias, C.L., & Berk, L.E. (2002). Self-regulation in young children: Is there a role for sociodramatic play? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 17 (2), 216-238. Retrieved from:  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885200602001461?via%3Dihub

Gray, P. (2017). What exactly is play, and why is it such a powerful vehicle for learning? Topics in Language Disorders, 37 (3), 217-228. Retrieved from:  https://oce.ovid.com/article/00011363-201707000-00003/HTML

Wenner, M. (2009). The serious need for play. Scientific American Mind, 20 (1), 22-29. Retrieved from:  https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24940063.pdf

Yogman, M., et al. (2018). The power of play: A pediatric role in enhancing development in young children. Pediatrics, 142 (3), e201. Retrieved from: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/142/3/e20182058.long

Christian Hernandez is an undergraduate student in the Department of Psychology at TCU and is a research assistant with KPICD. Christian assists with TBRI Research Projects and is planning to pursue a Master’s degree in Psychology. 

4 Responses to “The Benefits of Play in Cognitive Development”

We have developed a fun and play based learning program involving gross motor and developmental movements that can be incorporated into the school day… half an hour a day every day, simple to set up for early learning kindy and all through the primary school, it covers the upper and lower case alphabet, numbers, spacial and rhythm. Happy learning stays… stressful learning learnig does not, cortisol is a switch off. we so need to be aware of our kids neurological level and for them to succeed at that level, then proceed from their ability, so giving self belief and confidence….failure is confidence and soul destroying.

Hi, can you please suggest some playway methods to teach children with learning disabilities. If you can suggest some websites or books will be highly appreciated. Thank you

I am curious if this research on play for neuro development has been applied to adults for developing new neurological pathways. If it has, do you have research that can be referenced?

Readers might be interested in a very different take on how we humans came to play: “The Phylogeny of Play” at https://www.erasmatazz.com/library/science/the-phylogeny-of-play.html .

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Cognitive Developmental Milestones

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

• Birth to 3 Months
• 3 to 6 Months
• 6 to 9 Months
• 9 to 12 Months
• 1 to 2 Years
• 2 to 3 Years
• 3 to 4 Years
• 4 to 5 Years
• Reaching Cognitive Milestones

Cognitive milestones represent important steps forward in a child's development. Cognitive development refers to how children think, learn, explore, remember, and solve problems.

Historically, babies were often thought of as simple, passive beings. Prior to the 20th-century, children were often seen simply as miniature versions of adults.

It wasn't until psychologists like Jean Piaget proposed that children think differently than adults do that people began to view childhood and adolescence as unique periods of growth and development.

In the past, adults often dismissed the remarkable intellectual skills of infants and very young children, but modern thinkers and researchers have discovered that babies are, in fact, always learning, thinking, and exploring the world around them.

Even newborn infants are actively taking in information and learning new things. In addition to gathering new information about the people and the world around them, babies constantly discover new things about themselves.

This article discusses cognitive milestones that occur between the ages of birth and five years. It also explores what you can do to help encourage your child's cognitive development.

From Birth to 3 Months

The first three months of a child's life are a time of wonder. Major developmental milestones at this age focus on exploring the basic senses and learning more about the body and the environment.

During this period, most infants begin to:

• Demonstrate anticipatory behaviors, like rooting and sucking at the site of a nipple or bottle
• Detect sound differences in pitch and volume
• Discern objects more clearly within a distance of 13 inches
• Focus on moving objects, including the faces of caregivers
• See all colors of the human visual spectrum
• Tell between tastes, from sweet, salty, bitter, and sour
• Use facial expressions to respond to their environment

From 3 to 6 Months

In early infancy, perceptual abilities are still developing. From the age of 3–6 months, infants begin to develop a stronger sense of perception . At this age, most babies begin to:

• Imitate facial expressions
• React to familiar sounds
• Recognize familiar faces
• Respond to the facial expressions of other people

From 6 to 9 Months

Looking inside the mind of an infant is no easy task. After all, researchers cannot just ask a baby what he or she is thinking at any given moment. To learn more about the mental processes of infants, researchers have come up with many creative tasks that reveal the inner workings of the baby's brain.

From the age of 6–9 months, researchers have found that most infants begin to:

• Gaze longer at "impossible" things, such as an object suspended in midair
• Tell the differences between pictures depicting different numbers of objects
• Understand the differences between animate and inanimate objects
• Utilize the relative size of an object to determine how far away it is

From 9 to 12 Months

As infants become more physically adept, they can explore the world around them in greater depth. Sitting up, crawling, and walking are just a few physical milestones that allow babies to gain a greater mental understanding of the world around them.

As they approach one year of age, most infants can:

• Enjoy looking at picture books
• Imitate gestures and some basic actions
• Manipulate objects by turning them over, trying to put one object into another, etc.
• Respond with gestures and sounds
• Understand the concept of object permanence , the idea that an object continues to exist even though it cannot be seen

From 1 to 2 Years

After reaching a year of age, children's physical, social, and cognitive development seems to grow by leaps and bounds. Children at this age spend a tremendous amount of time observing the actions of adults, so it is important for parents and caregivers to set good examples of behavior.

Most one-year-olds begin to:

• Identify objects that are similar
• Imitate the actions and language of adults
• Learn through exploration
• Point out familiar objects and people in picture books
• Tell the difference between "Me" and "You"
• Understand and respond to words

From 2 to 3 Years

At 2 years of age, children are becoming increasingly independent . Since they are now able to better explore the world, a great deal of learning during this stage is the result of their own experiences.

Most two-year-olds are able to:

• Identify their own reflection in the mirror by name
• Imitate more complex adult actions (playing house, pretending to do laundry, etc.)
• Match objects with their uses
• Name objects in a picture book
• Respond to simple directions from parents and caregivers
• Sort objects by category (i.e., animals, flowers, trees, etc.)
• Stack rings on a peg from largest to smallest

From 3 to 4 Years

Children become increasingly capable of analyzing the world around them more complexly. As they observe things, they begin to sort and categorize them into different categories, often referred to as schemas .

Since children are becoming much more active in the learning process, they also begin to pose questions about the world around them. "Why?" becomes a very common question around this age.

At the age of three, most kids are able to:

• Ask "why" questions to gain information
• Demonstrate awareness of the past and present
• Learn by observing and listening to instructions
• Maintain a longer attention span of around 5 to 15 minutes
• Organize objects by size and shape
• Seek answers to questions
• Understand how to group and match objects according to color

From 4 to 5 Years

As they near school age, children become better at using words, imitating adult actions, counting, and other basic activities that are important for school preparedness.

Most four-year-olds are able to:

• Create pictures that they often name and describe
• Count to five
• Draw the shape of a person
• Name and identify many colors
• Tell where they live

Help Kids Reach Cognitive Milestones

Encouraging children's intellectual development is a concern for many parents. Fortunately, children are eager to learn right from the very beginning.

• Cultivate learning experiences at home : While education will soon become an enormous part of a growing child's life, those earliest years are influenced mainly by close family relationships, particularly those with parents and other caregivers. This means that parents are uniquely positioned to help shape how their children learn, think, and develop.
• Encourage children's interest in the world : Parents can encourage their children's intellectual abilities by helping kids make sense of the world around them. When an infant shows interest in an object, parents can help the child touch and explore the object and say what the object is.
• Demonstrate information : For example, when a baby looks intently at a toy rattle, the parent might pick up the item and place it in the infant's hand, saying, "Does Gracie want the rattle?" and then shake the rattle to demonstrate what it does.
• Encourage exploration : Parents should encourage their children to explore the world as they grow older. Try to have patience with young children who seem to have an endless array of questions about each and everything around them. Parents can also pose their own questions to help kids become more creative problem solvers.
• Ask questions : When facing a dilemma, ask questions such as "What do you think would happen if we…?" or "What might happen if we….?" By allowing kids to come up with original solutions to problems, parents can help encourage both intellectual development and self-confidence.

A Word From Verywell

Developmental milestones provide guideposts so that children can better understand whether their child is developing similarly to other children their age. However, it is important for parents to remember that all kids develop at their own pace. Some cognitive milestones may emerge earlier and others later. Talk to your child's doctor if you are concerned about your child's development.

Larcher V.  Children are not small adults: Significance of biological and cognitive development in medical practice .  Handbook Philos Med.  2015. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-8706-2_16-1

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Developmental milestones .

Unicef. Your toddler's developmental milestones at 2 years .

Children's Hospital of Philidelphia. Developmental milestones .

Child Mind Institute. Complete guide to developmental milestones .

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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