Activities to improve concentration in children.

Children are naturally curious and full of energy; activities to improve concentration will help channel that energy correctly. Since they are curious, children are distracted with every small thing and it is quite normal. Such activities help children to improve their concentration as they grow. They create a good balance of curiosity and concentration in young children.

Parents have to make sure that the activities that they plan for your child should be light and engaging. Activities that improves concentration aims at improving the brain and train them to stop and think before taking a step further in any task. Concentration activities mostly do not involves much of physical activity but it invokes a sense of challenge in children and inspire them to put an effort mentally equals to what they would do while doing a physical activity.

We have gathered some fun activities that can help your children concentrate.

Remember:  it is important to plan the activities that are age appropriate. If the activities are difficult, children will soon lose interest.

Get your children in to daily routine.

Routines help children get familiar to the tasks they need to perform daily. This is how they know that after the homework is finished they will be allowed to play. They feel secured about their right to play and focus on the homework. More on routine here.

Naps and Goodnight’s sleep.

Goodnight’s sleep and adequate amount of naps refresh the mind & boosts concentration. Even a 20/30 minutes nap after school or in the afternoon can help a lot to increase concentration. More on sleep here.

Deep breathing or Calm breathing.

Deep breathing helps your children’s brain to improve or learn new skills. We have a complete article on Calm breathing, you can read it here.

Standing on one foot at a time.

Ask your child to stand with their hands hanging naturally, close their eyes, and lift one foot (not too high just as it does not touch the floor). Closing the eyes is important because if they cannot see, the brain nerves will control the body’s balance by balancing all the organs. Thus, they have to concentrate on the standing foot. In the start, they will not be able to do it for 5 seconds also but it will improve with time and practice.

Puzzles (age-appropriate)

Puzzles like crossword or pictures can be great for a child’s concentration improvement.

In Picture puzzles, the child has to identify the difference between two pictures or look for things which are hard to locate. Picture puzzles include logo puzzles, how many squares, circles, triangles, faces, animals puzzles etc. In Crosswords Puzzles, children have to put the letters and words together.

Missing numbers

Missing numbers is an amazing game that helps improves concentration and make your children good with numbers.

In Missing Numbers, you have to count in any sequence starting from any number. Miss a specific number while counting.

 For example: “5,6,7,9,10,11,12” and ask your child to call out the number you missed –like the number ‘8’ in this case. If your child becomes good at it, start missing more numbers in a sequence.

Tongue twisters

Tongue twisters are great way to improve your child’s pronunciation and concentration at the same time. Practicing on tongue twisters helps gaining speed and accuracy in speaking.

Here are some examples tongue twisters:

  • Bubble bobble, bubble bobble, bubble bobble.
  • If you want to buy, buy, if you do not want to buy, bye bye!
  • She sells seashells by the seashore.
  • I thought, I thought of thinking of thanking you.
  • Red bulb blue bulb Red bulb blue bulb
  • I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

Sit or Statue.

Making your children to sit in a chair without moving or playing as long they can do it or playing statue where after you say ‘Statue’ your child will have to freeze in whatever position he/she was until you say ‘release’.

By repeatedly playing such games, the child’s brain will get good exercise and it will strengthen mind-body connections and improves focus.

Keep things in reach.

While doing a particular activity, like homework, keep everything that is required in homework (pencils, books, crayons, eraser etc) at hand’s reach so that children does not have to get up to fetch anything and causing distraction.

Few more activities to improve concentration in children.

  • Riddles
  • Spinning ball on figure
  • Sequencing
  • Walking with glass of water on a palm
  • Beat the clock
  • Blocks
  • Drawing

Some things to remember

Give a single toy to play at a time.

It can be proved as the most effective in boosting the child’s concentration. Parents can make their child adapt to the habit of playing with a single toy to play with at a time. Giving your child too many toys to play at the same time will damage their concentration skills and he or she will lose focus and will be confused about which toy to play with.

Control the Electronic Media Exposure.

Electronic media like the TV, video games when in too much amount may damage the concentration in children. Replace their TV time with more fun toys and activities that increases concentration. Though video games may help a great extent in improving concentration but parental discretion is advised, choose a right game for your child.

Please remember that developing the skill of concentration requires a lot of time and patience. Do not lose hope; you can improve your child’s concentration with love and right planning.