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5 games that help your kids focus

11 May 2020

“Mrs Sharma I need to tell you
something. Your child Ishaan is lazy in class. He often gets zoned
out and starts day dreaming. Even after calling his name multiple
times, he never pays attention to the class. I think you should do
something about it”, said the Teacher.

Students often get distracted easily. A
minor laugh of classmates or some foreigner entering the class or
even a buzzing bee or may be sometimes the actions of teacher makes
them loose their focus. Some children find it difficult to
concentrate in class. Either the subject is too boring for them or
they don’t feel like studying. They might start day dreaming or
sleep or start looking out of the window. We often find children get
fidgety at the dinner table or act without thinking. And they are
then termed lazy, trouble makers or undisciplined and just like Mrs
Sharma, someday teacher might call you for a meeting.

These symptoms may account for normal
behaviour of your child but what if these are alarming bells. Yes,
you read it right these can be alarm calls of something dangerous.
Inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity are also signs of
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), sometimes known as
attention deficit disorder or ADD.

ADHD is a common neurodevelopmental
disorder that typically appears in early childhood, usually before
the age of seven. ADHD makes it difficult for children to inhibit
their spontaneous responses—responses that can involve everything
from movement to speech to attentiveness.

Children with ADHD may be:

Inattentive, but not hyperactive
or impulsive.
Hyperactive and impulsive, but
able to pay attention.
Inattentive, hyperactive, and
impulsive (the most common form of ADHD).

We can only treat the symptoms of ADHD
but not completely this disease. So now you see how serious can be
your child’s inattentiveness.

Unised International understands your
concern and especially your child’s mental fitness. As a parent we
understand your liabilities and as Institution we understand ours.
Hence we found a very easy and effective method of improving your
child’s focus. Even if your child isn’t diseased still we have to
start working on his concentration power right from the start. So
that we can assure that he grasps all that he learns at school.

“Teacher, I don’t know how to
handle this. I never noticed that my child was suffering through such
problem. Can you please help me out with this?” exclaimed Mrs
Sharma.

Teacher replied, “Don’t worry Mrs
Sharma. We are here to help you. Unised International focuses on each
and every child effectively. It was our duty to make you aware of
what was going on with your child. I’ll let you go through the
complete curriculum that Unised International has designed to help
your child focus.”

Unised International has witnessed the
power of play. Play is the work of children! Games with rules or a
little structure have the added bonus of helping children
practice important
self-regulation skills such as working
memory, inhibitory
control, and cognitive
flexibility. Children need to listen and remember
instructions, pay attention to the adult leading the game and, in
some games, resist the natural inclinations to stop/go/run or shout
out. The
key to successfully strengthening children’s ability to
self-regulate is to start the games in a
simple way and then gradually build in complexity with rules,
variations or extra challenges. All of these games have a physical
activity component and can be adapted for a
classroom, a gymnasium or be played outside.

Hence we have come up with five games
which will boost up your child’s concentration skills.

1.Simon Says and Follow the
Leader:

In either version of this game, a
leader models different actions to be imitated. This builds impulse
control, observation, imitation skills, and emotional regulation.

With Simon Says, children must
listening carefully because when Simon “does” an action but
doesn’t say it, they shouldn’t follow!

Up the ante by introducing actions that
have multiple steps.

Try having two groups going on at the
same time, with two Simon’s or “leaders.” When a child gets
mixed up with their actions, they simply join the other group and
follow a new leader (instead of being “out”)

.2.Head-Shoulders-Knees-&
Toes:

This classic activity requires children
to work on their self-regulation skills by overriding automatic
responses as the song is changed.

Begin by having students point to their
head, shoulders, knees and toes while singing the song.

Challenge them by omitting body parts
in the sequence and/or by asking students to point to incongruent
body parts. For example, tell students “when I say to touch your
head, touch your TOES!!" or "When I say touch your
tummy, touch your ears."

3.Jigsaw Puzzles

Jigsaw puzzles need no introduction.
Starting from 18 months, age appropriate jigsaw puzzles do wonders to
your child’s attention span and visual and spatial intelligence.
The best part about them is that they offer instant reward to your
child in form of finished object every time they finish a piece.

4.Memory Games

Whether you are an adult or a child,
memory games are a fantastic way to keep your brain sharp and
focused.

The simplest and most popular memory
game is that of keeping cards/pictures face down and finding matching
pairs. Each player gets to open two cards at a time. If cards match
they are yours. Else you close them and next player plays his turn.
At the end of game, player with maximum pairs wins. At introductory
level, start with 4 pairs. You can gradually move up the numbers of
pairs you play with.

Any picture matching, shadow matching,
opposite matching, gender matching etc game can be used to play a
memory game.

5.Peanut Butter Jelly Games

Sitting on the floor in a large circle, have one ball represent the peanut butter and the other ball represent the jelly. The object of the game is to always throw the peanut butter ball and roll the jelly ball.

The child holding the peanut butter ball throws it to anyone in the circle, and the child holding the jelly ball rolls it to anyone in the circle. Whoever receives the peanut butter ball must continue to throw it to someone else, whereas the jelly ball must be rolled.