According to research by NCBI, 90% of brain development happens in the first four to five years of a child. Explains why experiences during these beginner years are quite impactful.
As parents or anyone who tends to a child, it is our responsibility to form his brain effectively and positively.
Realizing that these years are instrumental in building a foundation of a child’s life, we can introduce them to things that will assist learning. Remember that things taught in these years stay ingrained in the memory, shaping a person’s intellect.
LEARNING FOR LITTLE ONES THROUGH THE GAMING MEDIUM?
Parents naturally feel frustrated if their kids play games on devices, but you can lessen your worry by keeping a check on what games they are exposed to.
Your best bet would be to take advantage of this technological advancement. Convince them to play for a limited time each day, and introduce some good learning games to them so that their brain development can be enhanced.
Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning.
~Mr. Fred Rogers
Below, I have advised some fantastic games with appropriate learning activities that can actually be very beneficial for early childhood learning. They will help develop fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, conversation skills, and also increase their learning potential.
1. Letter trace game
If your goal is to help build phonological awareness in your kid, the Letter Trace game by ABCya will do the job in a fun way.
Tracing is a simple activity that preschoolers enjoy a lot. It seems simple to them, and they get familiar with letters and numbers very quickly. The game has options like tracing lower case, upper case, capital letters, or numbers. You can set the desired option and hand the game over to your kid.
2. Arty mouse build me
Another classic game that boosts memory development and creativity is the Artsy mouse build me game by Unlimited Gamez Mo.
Kids easily get hooked to the simple interface of the game. As your child begins to play, he will be shown a character to look closely and memorize its parts. Later, the same character will be shown incomplete, leaving it up to the child’s memory skills, whether they can correctly complete it or not.
3. Homer
Available on iOS, Android, and Amazon, this app is developed by Homer Learning. It is the ultimate language and art game.
Children learn the best when they are given a chance to express themselves. The colorful and engaging user interface of the game keeps your child busy with immense learning opportunities.
I would sum up this game by saying that it gives the majority of benefits that children can get from early childhood learning. With complete guided lessons for phonics, storytelling, and sight words, this game enhances the inquisitive skills of beginners.
4. Create a mosaic with shapes
Introduce your kids to the ‘Create mosaic with shapes game’ by Education.com. It is a fun game to help your child with two-dimensional shape recognition. This game will be your child’s first geometry lesson, as they would acquire skills to build a mosaic by placing various shapes in suitable spaces.
5. Count me to sheep
Want to teach your little one counting in a fun way? Let him play Count me to sheep by Sesame Street.
The character Telly needs to sleep, and the kid will count sheep until he goes to sleep. Ask your child about how many sheep do Telly needs to count to go to sleep. This guessing involved will intrigue your kid to play this game even more.
6. Prodigy math game
Who doesn’t hate Mathematics as a child?
But ever wondered if wizards loved Math?
This game turns the participants into wizards who obtain their power through solving tricky math questions. Prodigy by SMARTeacher Inc enables personalized learning as it provides content based on your child’s strengths and weaknesses.
Various incentives boost the confidence level of the child, enabling them to perform better each time. Children can reinforce necessary mathematical skills at an early age, that too with their own preferences.
7. Fast finder
Something is intriguing about puzzle games, regardless of age. Fast Finder by Dunken Cuthbertson is all about how fast your reflexes are!
The timer on the game goes quickly as you find the missing object on the screen. This game enhances the cognitive skills of your child, enabling them to finish a task at a given time. In addition to that, these types of games build concrete motor skills.
8. Sorting and learning game for kids
An easy drag and drop game, Sorting and learning game by Abuzz, strikes a balance between learning and playing.
Children are exposed to sorting and pattern building skills through this game. The emphasis on forming patterns enables the child to recognize systematic education and associative learning skills. It will develop their cognitive and fine motor skills.
9. Vocabulary Memory Match
Parents are always in search of good games that can build their child’s vocabulary.
As informed by a professor from the University of Cambridge, Professor Usher Go swami, on average, a child’s vocabulary expands from 55 words at 16 months.
By the time he is 30 months old, it increases to 573 words. The Vocabulary Memory Match game by Vocabulary Spelling city is apt for this purpose.
The game is straightforward yet highly capable of helping a child learn and understand new words. They will be shown a series of cards, and they will need to match the image with a relevant word. Memory skills, along with other cognitive benefits, can be developed through this game.
Also, Oyen and Bebko, in their 1996 study, gave empirical evidence that through the use of mnemonics, games can be used to aid a child’s memorizing strategy.
10. The scout and friends and You
Building social, emotional skills via an online game?
Seems impractical, right?
Not after you let your child play “The Scout and friend and You” by Leapfrog Enterprises.
The game interface introduces various emotions and feelings to the kids. They need to identify a particular emotion that the character might be feeling.
FINAL WORDS
In the words of Dr. Seuss, children want the same things we want, like laughing, being challenged, being entertained, and being delighted. For this, parents should carve a pathway that could help them flourish.
Many online games and apps can help you target multiple aspects of early childhood development. Therefore, do try introducing some of the games, as mentioned earlier to your kids.
I hope this list might have been of some help to you. We are an app development company, therefore, if you wish to get something like this developed we may be able to help you. In order to send us an enquiry mail us at [email protected]. We have also written an article over “How do apps make money?“, therefore to check it out click on the link provided. We hope this article may have been of some help to you. Also, thank you for reading it until the end.
Author Bio
Andrea Bell is a blogger by choice. She loves to discover the world around her. She likes to share her discoveries, experiences and express herself through her blogs. You can find her on Twitter:@IM_AndreaBell
