Cognitive development activities for infants deals with brain. When we say cognitive development it means uses of brain or working of brain. If child gives response, asking questions, sharing ideas, speaking, talking, understanding properly then we can say that the child ‘s cognitive development is good.
However if adults give them exposure of their environment child will use their cognitive skills. The more they use their cognitive skills the more they will be polished.
Now a question arise that what are cognitive skills?
Cognitive skills are problem solving, critical thinking, reasoning, ordering things, decision making, creating things, making models, evaluating and finding out conclusions, sequencing etc.
We should start work on cognitive development from birth of child. We think that new born child can’t understand us and we ignore him .We always concentrate on his/her (feeding, sleeping) all physical needs. Although baby starts to feel and understand when its brain is developed during pregnancy.
Whatsoever mother thinks, hear, read and watch all these factors affect her baby’s brain. Being a parent it’s our responsibility that we should be vigilant about cognitive development of child before birth. Mother should perform healthy activities.
Activities for infants (1 to 3 years) are being mentioned below through which we can polish cognitive skills.
At early year, I would prefer hands on material instead of worksheets. Because with hands on experiences students feel the objects with hands and through muscular memory child save the image or information in mind which remain in mind for long term. Following are the Cognitive Development Activities for Infants.
Table of Contents
Building Tower
3 to 5 pieces of Tower with different sizes and colors are given to child to arrange accordingly. This activity will develop hand and eye coordination. And on the side problem solving skills, discrimination of sizes and colors, concentration span, fine motor skills will be catered. Child will learn from errors. Tower .Child will not be able make tower properly until he uses correct piece. So he will make errors and learn from it. The more they make errors the more they will use their brain and learn effectively that effects their cognitive development.
Completing Puzzles
Different types of puzzles are available in the market eg: fruits puzzles, birds puzzles, animals puzzles, human body puzzle, transport puzzle, Tree puzzle etc.
Every puzzle has different pieces. So choose puzzle s according to the age of your child. As a beginner picture of puzzle is given to child as reference. Child will complete puzzle with the help of picture. After extensive practice child is able to complete puzzle without picture.
One more important point tries to add new and challenging puzzles according to child’s ability. So that his interest level remains high and never gets bored.
During completing puzzles child thinks on different angles and uses different techniques. Through this process he learns from experiences and keeps the correct sequence of puzzle in mind. When he will be making the same puzzle 3rd or 4th times it will be easiest for him. Because patterns of puzzles have been made in his mind.
It can be puzzles apps. Now a day’s children use Android apps. There are thousands of puzzles for different levels on play store. However extensive use of mobile is not good for health.
Sorting Colors
Colors attract children and they become excited to play with them. Different types of materials are used of sorting colors.
- Students will thread speggetee in matching colored Barb Q stick. eg: if child chooses reds Bar b Q stick then child will thread only red spaghetti-
2: Put small balls of different colors in appropriate basket having same colors.
3: Colorful ice-cream sticks will be given for sorting colors. Children make collect in colored plates or can make a tower in same color
4: We can use colorful buttons for sorting activity. We can make cut outs of shirts with colorful charts paper and child will place buttons according to the shirt color.
This activity will boost up thinking skills of children
Sequencing items or pictures
- We can give them things of different sizes to arrange them according to the sizes.
- We can provide Flashcards of life cycle of butterfly to place them in sequence according to the life cycle.
Complete Patterns
There are thousands of patterns available in our environment. We can use our house hold thing for patterns. Make your own pattern for your child .He will observe pattern first then they will complete them.
After extensive practice and exposure children makes their own patterns.
In these activity students observational skills are developed.
Describe Pictures
Mostly big story books should be used for picture description. This activity enhance child’s critical thinking .They start to make predictions and make their conclusion.
I would prefer bed time stories. It gives peace and calm feelings to your child and side by side child’s mind become relaxed. With relaxing mind they ask questions.
Ask questions like what is happening in this picture?
Why is he sad/ why is she happy?
Use what, when, where and how key words for description of pictures. Students will share their ideas and feelings. They will find out solution of problems?
Pick the Odd one Out
This activity enhances the observational skills of a child. He becomes keen observer. Different types of real objects are placed and they have to pick one picture out that is different in group.
Retelling stories
Retelling stories polish child’s memory. Child will keep sequence of the story in mind. He will tell you the whole story according to events.
Sometimes children add their own moments in stories and from this point their creativity starts.
Find out difference
Two objects are given to the students and they will observe the objects properly and share the difference. In this way child thinks on different angles color, shape, material, design and use. Young children always need help and assistance in the beginning. It depends on adults how they facilitate the thinking process.
Question is the key of treasure. The more questions you ask from child the more his mind will work.
Building Blocks
Children love to construct buildings or objects with blocks. They create their own designs by using different blocks. They use critical thinking and make different blocks
In short, we should facilitate cognitive development at the early age because whole personality has been developed during 0-6 years. The speed at which a child can learn in this age will not be able to learn with this speed and quality in the years to come. Therefore, we need to work on it from the beginning. These all are Cognitive Development Activities for Infants.
