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My daughter used to beat me all the time at memory games and enjoyed that a lot when she was younger – but what exactly were the benefits of these games for her apart from the excitement of winning against me?
So how do memory games help children? They obviously help them develop their working memory, but have other benefits as well such as developing social and cognitive skills, including visualization, visual discrimination, attention, and concentration.
Working memory
refers to the ability of the brain to hold the information for a very short time and decide whether it will be useful in the future or not.
The Ideal Memory Games for Children
Since the attention span and needs of children vary as they age, it is important to choose games that are appropriate to their age.
Some memory games require adult guidance for object manipulation while others sustain excitement if played with a friend. In other words, it is wise to choose a game that fits their cognitive and social skills at a certain age. If you are interested to dig deeper into how these skills evolve at each age, you can find interesting information in this interesting post by Amy Morin about cognitive and social development milestones.
Play “Now You See, Now You Don’t” Games to Test Infant’s Memory From Birth to 3 Months
This type of baby memory game is similar to Peekaboo. However, it introduces babies to a variety of objects in different locations. The idea is to help them recognize familiar things by showing an item and then hiding it.
They don’t understand what they are seeing, so judge your baby’s reaction. Does the baby smile, or becomes upset?
Be predictable in showing the item again. Say aloud “It’s here” with a cheerful voice and a funny facial expression. Repeat the process. Repetition helps form memory.
This game helps infants remember the items you show them by associating cues to your voice and movement because, at this stage, infants can :
- Recognize sound differences in pitch and volume
- Distinguish objects more clearly if they are near
- Focus on moving objects
You will know that your baby recognizes the item through their facial expressions. Babies during this period use facial expressions to respond to their environment.
Therefore, grab this chance to play an interactive game with your baby. However, make sure that you secure them in a comfortable position since you need both hands to move freely. You can use toys or other familiar objects that your baby is surrounded with.
Flash “Drawings of Smiling Faces” To Reinforce Facial Recognition From 3 to 6 Months
This type of memory game helps babies remember and copy the facial expressions of other people. They recognize the eyes, nose, and mouth first.
By showing them flashcards of smiling faces, they become used to seeing different faces. They practice looking and learning. I recommend printing pictures of people that take care of your baby on various occasions.
To do this game, show the picture and tell who it is. Wait for your baby to produce a reaction. Mimic it in a funny way to encourage more reactions from your baby.
You can tell if your baby remembers the faces you’ve shown them when they see the real person.
It will be enjoyable to put the picture beside the actual person and assess your baby’s reaction.
Slowly, you can introduce other pictures but don’t introduce soft pastel colors yet because at this stage they are just starting to develop their color vision.
The game helps
- Babies develop a stronger perception of things in their environment through constant exposure to pictures or flashcards
- You distinguish if your child can react to the facial expressions of other people and produce responses
- Lessen separation and stranger anxiety that babies develop at 5 months
Play “Musical Face Game Face” to Increase Visual Discrimination From 6 to 9 Months
This game requires you to be creative in producing sounds for each part of your face. For instance, a sneeze for your nose or a popping sound with your lips.
To do this, sit with your baby facing you and then touch your nose and sneeze. Do a different sound for each part of your face until you cover the chin, eyes, ears, and eyebrows. Let your child touch your face. As they do, do the “sounds” and name the parts. Then, touch your child’s nose and see if they make the sound, too.
This memory game is effective in increasing visual discrimination because your child becomes attentive to the details you attach to the parts of your face. If your child was successful in copying your actions or expressions, then, it shows that the game was a good memory-enhancing tool.
Aside from playing Musical game face, you can start playing memory matching games as well because infants start to:
- Spot the differences in pictures
- Tell the difference between animate and inanimate objects
- Focus longer on unexpected objects like flying a balloon or a paper airplane
By this stage, you have an idea of how your baby reacts to their environment through various stimulation of their senses.
Start Reading Picture Books and Play “Treasure Basket” to Expand Memory Capacity From 9 to 12 Months
These two memory-enhancing activities allow babies to remember the details of the items you present to them through constant exposure and manipulation.
Out of the two, playing “Treasure Basket” helps babies to memorize the items easily because they can learn about colors, shapes, sizes, and textures through a tactile experience. It increases their ability to remember multiple individual items which later on will help them in classifying these objects into categories.
To play this brain-building game, place a variety of objects on the floor. It can be a combination of natural items like fruits or vegetables, and non-toxic materials like school supplies, cloth, toys, and more.
Grab a toy on the floor, show it to the baby, and tell what it is. Ask the child to repeat the name of the object. Then, throw it on the basket. You can take turns in throwing the item on the basket but make sure that the baby repeats the name of the item correctly.
Let your baby throw things, sort objects, and bang items on the floor or against other objects.
You can tweak this game by hiding some of the items that your baby remembers correctly. Let your baby search for them before throwing them on the basket.
In this way, you are engaging them in the activity by utilizing the baby’s motor skills as well.
As babies approach one year of age, their curiosity to explore their surroundings was aided by their physical ability to sit, stand, crawl and walk. Overall, as they play this memory game, you will notice that they display the following milestones:
- Enjoy looking at picture books
- Copy gestures and simple actions
- Manipulate objects
- React with gestures and sounds
- Grasp the concept of object permanence which means an object exists even if they cannot see it
Play The “Magic Cup “ Game to Increase Concentration From 1 to 2 Years
It is more exciting to introduce a variety of memory games in this stage because the child’s development is not limited to monitoring their cognitive abilities but also their physical and social skills as well. Amusingly, most 1-year-olds get adult’s attention by
- Identifying similar objects
- Following the actions and language of adults
- Telling familiar objects and people in picture books
- Being familiar with the concept of “Me” and “You”
- Responding to words
This is the stage where a child’s long-term memory starts to develop. Engaging them in conversations about interesting objects helps toddlers attach meanings to the objects they see. Moreover, listening to music or rhymes with them boost their memory. As they expand their vocabulary, they start to communicate using two to four-word responses.
Playing the “Magic Cup” game can help enhance a toddler’s ability to focus and recall the latest piece of information because they must either guess correctly where the object is or remember the cup that carries the item.
In this game, you will need at least three cups and a small item, perhaps, a coin or a toy. Place the item under any of the cups and remember it. Move around the cups in front of your toddler and let them point out which cup has the object. Do it slowly at first then increase the difficulty as the child gets excited.
Boost Your Kid’s Visualization Skills And Language Ability With “Picture Fun” From 2 to 3 Years
Toddlers at this age can be expected to explore their surroundings with increased independence. Notably, they learn things faster as a result of their own experience. Therefore, stimulating their interest is easier if the activity asks them to:
- Match objects with their uses
- Name objects in a picture book
- Respond to simple directions
- Sort objects by color, shape, and size
- Manipulate objects from largest to smallest
One of the memory games that lets you do these things is Picture Fun. In this game, show a picture of an object to the toddler. Talk a little about it. Create sounds to make it more stimulating and memorable. Then, ask “What is it?” or the sound it creates. Help them repeat the sound until they make it right. Show them a couple of more pictures, and then go back to the first picture and check if they remember it. Do this repeatedly until they memorize all the pictures you showed.
You can start with a book of animal sounds.
Play Multi-Sensory Memory Games to Exercise The Mind From 3 to 4 Years
Reading books together and singing counting songs are ideal memory-enhancing activities at this stage. Introducing number blocks or toys that require stacking and building things also aids memory.
One example of a multi-sensory memory game that your child can play is Alphabet Hunt. Hide the alphabet letters in a bin full of other objects such as buttons, gems, or any of the following: colored rice, sand, or water. Bury the letters deep into the bin and ask your child to recite aloud each letter they got until the alphabet was complete. Aside from memorizing the letters of the alphabet, you can challenge your child to memorize the correct order of the letters or spell simple words like “cat” or “dog” by taking out the correct letter from the bin.
You can tweak this game by replacing alphabet letters with number blocks, plastic farm animals, and other toys.
Children at this stage analyze their environment by creating themes and organizing them into categories called “Schemas”. Children also take an active role in studying their surroundings by asking a lot of questions.
To be more specific, kids can:
- Ask “why” to get information
- Tell the difference between past and present
- Learn by listening to instructions
- Gain new knowledge by observing other people
- Demonstrate a longer attention span of around 5 to 15 minutes
- Find answers to questions
- Know how to group and match object according to color
Stretch Your Child’s Brain With The Following Memory Games From 4 to 5 Years
Children are ready to go to school during this period because they can interact with simple words and actions. Here are some of the basic activities that make them prepared to attend a formal school:
- Draw pictures of things they can name and describe
- Count to five
- Draw the shape of a person
- Name and distinguish many colors
- Rhyme
- Tell where they live
Because of these multiple milestones, parents have a lot of choices when it comes to choosing games. They can introduce games that have easy-to-follow mechanics or exciting gameplay experiences. They can also check the genre, topics, and aesthetics. The following are some examples:
You can enhance the child’s visual memory by playing memory games with art and history themes. Studying American Art is possible for preschoolers using Ditto American Art. In this game, all they have to do is match the tiles of 24 works of art correctly.
Memory games are good for reinforcing a balance between autonomy and self-correction too. Children in kindergarten age can enjoy these benefits by playing tactile puzzles.
Memory games are not limited to increasing children’s concentration through visual presentation. Some offer auditory learning through rhymes. From the above-list of rhyming card games, I highly recommend Rhyming Match Me Card and Photo Rhymes because they introduce kids to an activity that requires sharp listening skills.
Conclusion
Long-term memory development kicks in at 1 year old but it doesn’t mean that one should not introduce memory games. The knowledge base of children can be improved using the games on this list.
Memory games offer specific benefits in various stages of a child’s development. Paying attention to the kind of game to introduce at a certain age builds the child’s confidence in participating in the activity with enjoyment and effective learning.
In a nutshell, memory games help children :
- Gain familiarity with their environment which helps them to react accordingly
- Enhance visual memory
- Develop visual discrimination and sustained attention
- Improve visualization and language skills simultaneously
- Exercise the mind
- Test memory capacity
Without a doubt, there’s a lot to gain in using memory games in supporting a child’s development.
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