The 9 Best Cognitive Activities for Toddlers
Looking for some easy and engaging cognitive activities for toddlers? Don’t worry, we got you covered!
The best way to help your child develop is to just let them play! Learning through play is exactly how kids grow, especially at this age.
Most of these activities are play-based. As children play, they develop important cognitive abilities like planning, strategizing, problem-solving, reasoning, and critical thinking.
Implementing these 9 cognitive development activities for toddlers into your daily routine is a great way to foster a healthy development.
One little tip when engaging in these activities is to allow your child to be the leader. Research has shown greater benefits when a child initiates the play rather than when adults lead the playtime.
9 Cognitive Activities for Toddlers
While just allowing your toddler to play is great for development, certain activities can help to improve developmental outcomes.
1) Constructive Play
This is one of the best cognitive activities for toddlers.
Whether your child is building a tower with blocks or crafting a castle with Magna-Tiles, they are developing essential skills like problem-solving and critical thinking through creative construction.
During this activity, kids have to plan what they are going to make, gather the supplies, and work out the various problems they run into when building things like a tower or castle.
Constructive play has also been proven to improve mathematical abilities in young children.
2) Pretend Play
Imaginative or pretend play provides your child with so many amazing benefits. As children act out and assume various roles, they develop planning, negotiation, execution, and improvisation skills.
This is also a great language activity for toddlers. Young children tend to actively talk about what they are doing, and what they are planning to do next. This helps to grow the communication, language, and social skills.
During this type of play, parents should ask open-ended questions to further stimulate critical thinking skills.
3) Physical Activity
Physical activity plays a crucial role in supporting cognitive development in toddlers and preschoolers.
Many research studies have shown that increased physical activity results in greater attention, working memory, academic success, and behavior in the classroom.
These studies also showed beneficial effects on language learning since children are communicating with each other during physical play.
Incorporating more physical activity with indoor and outdoor play is a great way to promote healthy development and an active lifestyle.
4) Puzzles
There are so many amazing benefits of puzzles for kids. They help to improve attention span, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
According to a research article from Sciencedaily.com, the type of puzzles a child can do depends on their current cognitive developmental stage. 3-year-olds tend to complete puzzles using a trial-and-error method, whereas 4-year-olds will use the reference picture to complete the puzzle.
Make sure you choose the right puzzle for your child’s age to avoid frustration. As children become more confident, they will seek out more difficult puzzles.
5) Sorting Activities
Sorting and grouping objects and toys is a great educational activity for young children.
Kids learn about similarities and differences and how to categorize. These early learning concepts are very important early math skills.
At this age, children will sort out colors, shapes, and sizes of different objects. Even just sorting different objects by color within your home is a great brain-stimulating activity!
We largely categorize our world, organizing even supermarket foods by type. As children develop their sorting skills, they will gain a better understanding of the world around them.
6) Sensory Bins
Sensory play is one of the best activities to help with cognitive growth.
As children play using their 5 senses, they develop nerve connections within their brain and body. Research shows that as the sensory experience gets richer (using multiple senses at a time), their learning, thought, and creativity patterns are greater.
During sensory play, children also learn how to interact and maneuver different types of objects and matter. If they want to get sand from one container to the other, they have to problem-solve, plan, and implement their strategy to achieve their desired goal.
This is such a great activity because even just a bucket of water, or a pile of sand creates an amazing sensory experience for your child.
7) Arts and Crafts
The importance of arts and crafts in cognitive development shouldn’t be underestimated.
When children work on creative projects, they exercise many skills like planning and decision-making to achieve the outcome they want.
Having a toddler-safe art box with finger paints, washable markers, paper, and playdough is a great way to encourage creativity, and help your toddler develop those important cognitive skills.
8) Music
Listening, singing, and dancing to music is a great cognitive activity! Not only does it help with pattern, and rhythm development, but it is also a great activity for language and literacy growth.
Playing movement songs like Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes, helps improve the mind-body connection. During these songs, kids have to understand and interpret what is being said, and then use their motor skills to associate the words with actions.
9) Reading
Reading to your child daily, even just for a few minutes, is one of the best activities you can do for your child.
A research study from The Ohio State University found that parents who read 5 books a day with their child prior to entering kindergarten were exposed to about 1.4 million more words than children who were never read to.
As you read to your child, you can ask them thought-provoking questions to make it an active and engaging activity. By asking these stimulating questions you are helping your child to develop hypothesizing, analyzing, and problem-solving skills.
Remember…
Children have a natural inclination to play. We must lean into this instinct to help our children develop to their maximum potential.
Implementing any of these 9 easy cognitive activities for toddlers into your daily routine will help set them up for success down the road.
