The game is the main activity of a small person. Through the game he learns, imitates adults and heroes of fairy tales. The game form of training is the best way to develop attention, memory, and thinking. For each age, there are games for attention, which take into account the level of development of the child, his skills and abilities.
What is attention
Attention is a person’s ability to concentrate on something. It can be involuntary - arising by itself, unconscious, and arbitrary - conscious when a person needs to make an effort to concentrate. Arbitrary attention is very important for study and work, therefore, it is necessary to start developing it in childhood, until the moment when the child goes to school. To do this, parents, educators and teachers use special attention-developing games for children.
Features of attention in young children
In early childhood, the child has developed only involuntary attention. It reacts to bright, noisy stimuli. The kid likes toys, attracting with its bright color, which he can manipulate and change their shape and appearance. While he can look at an object of interest to him or play with him for no more than 3-5 minutes, he is quickly distracted and switches his attention as soon as another interesting object or adult appears in the field of vision. By the end of the first year of life, a child can manipulate several objects, bang one toy on another, and fold a small bucket into a large one. Already at this age, one can include in his activity the simplest games to develop attention. Do not miss this moment.
Mastering walking also greatly contributes to the development of voluntary attention: games become more diverse, the baby can now move wherever he wants, and thus more objects and objects can be involved in his field of activity.
Features of attention in children of preschool and primary school age
After 3 years, the child begins to actively learn and use speech. Now he can correctly respond to requests addressed to him, use speech in managing his attention and attract people around him.
In preschool age, attention becomes more stable, now the child can engage in the same activity, without being distracted for about 15 minutes. At this age, he is attracted to people, books and diverse activities, not just bright objects.
Arbitrary attention and its selectivity in older preschoolers and primary schoolchildren are already fully formed, but its properties, such as distribution and switching, are still not sufficiently developed, and they are very important for further educational activities. Therefore, it is imperative to engage with the child and play with him a variety of games to develop attention.
Why is it difficult for a child to concentrate
Classes at school and homework require a child to concentrate and concentrate. For many children, this, unfortunately, is a big problem. They are often distracted by themselves and interfere with other students in the class, causing teacher dissatisfaction. And at home, doing homework, they are looking for reasons for frequent breaks: they constantly want to eat, drink, go to the toilet, and sleep. As a result, headache, nausea, and abdominal pain may appear. Other causes of distraction and difficulty concentrating can be anemia, adenoids, diseases in which the brain is not adequately supplied with oxygen. You should always be careful about all these symptoms. Maybe the child doesn’t come up with, maybe he’s really bad.
And so that such troubles do not arise, it is required to consult doctors in a timely manner and deal with the child, developing his memory, thinking and perseverance. The game is the best way to develop attention in childhood.
Games for young children
Attention games with the smallest are all kinds of nursery rhymes, for example, the well-known “Magpie, crow ...” An adult chant reads a nursery rush and moves a finger over his palm, and then bends the fingers of the baby. During the game, the ability to focus and the ability to listen are trained. Reading small simple tales also trains these skills very well.
Independent games that develop attention include the stringing of rings on the base of the pyramid, even if the rings are strung out of order, folding a tower of cubes, playing with nesting dolls and a pyramid of cups. Even a simple observation of animals or birds on a walk perfectly develops mindfulness.
Games for preschoolers
Attention games for children of younger and older preschool age differ from previous ones in content and forms. Preschool children are very fond of outdoor games.
The game "About legs and feet" requires the child to repeat the movements at a certain pace. She develops such attributes of attention as volume and switching.
Big feet walked along the road:
To-o-p, to-o-p, to-o-p.
To-o-p, to-o-p, to-o-p.
Little legs ran along the path:
Top-top-top-top-top-top!
Top-top-top-top-top-top!
When it comes to big legs - you need to stretch the words and make slow movements, and when about small legs - then speak the text and move fast.
In addition to outdoor games at this age, you can play other interesting, useful and developing attention and memory games for the classification of objects. For example, the presenter asks to name fruit trees (the game "Garden") or vegetables (the game "Garden"), arrange pictures or toys by color, shape, purpose.
The game “Guess” consists in letting the children guess the hidden object without seeing it, but only according to its description, or they themselves describe what they have guessed.
The game “What the artist messed up” consists of cards on which fiction pictures are drawn. The child is required to name all the inconsistencies in the picture and come up with a story on it.
The Noisy Pictures game is an image of intertwining lines, behind which images of objects are hidden. It is required to find and name all hidden objects.
For the game "How much?" You will need a story, fairy tale or poem, in which the plot contains any numbers. After reading, the guys are asked questions on the content of the work, starting with the word “How much”. For example, after reading the tale "The Seven Kids", you need to ask how many kids the goats had.
Attention, logic and memory games for elementary school students
The group game “Follow the Order” is suitable for the whole class, it develops mindfulness and memory. The guys line up in the class in order to receive an order. The host is in the hallway. The first player comes to him and receives an oral order from him. The order must contain requirements to perform certain actions, there must be at least three - the more, the more difficult and interesting to play. The order is read out by the leader once. Then the first player calls the second one and tells him the requirements of the order from memory and leaves for the class to fulfill the tasks of the received order, and the next one leaves the class and receives an order from the second player, and so on, until all players hear the requirements of the order and will fulfill them. The winner is the last one to most correctly convey all the requirements of the original order - he becomes the new leader.
The attention game “Task the other way around” is good at distributing attention. Schoolchildren are sitting at the tables, the adult leader is behind everyone, the children do not look at him. He randomly gives only two commands “Word” and “Line”. At the word “Line” it is necessary to write some predefined word, for example, “winter”, and at the command “Word” - draw a straight line. The winner is the one who made fewer mistakes. The sequence of commands must be written in advance on a piece of paper in order to then verify the correctness of the task.
Song games
Musical classes are often held in kindergartens, in which girls and boys not only learn to sing, dance and move rhythmically. In such classes, children are taught to be careful, because each phrase in the song corresponds to a certain movement that must be performed. And, of course, memory develops - children quickly remember the simple words of songs and can play it at home without musical accompaniment: with parents, brothers, sisters, and even grandparents. The main thing is not to deny the child a request to play with him in something that develops both attention and memory.
In the game "Zayinka, come out!" it is required to perform movements, which are sung in the song. Kids are happy to complete these tasks.
A musical rhythmic game that develops attention, “Cap-cap” to music and the words of L. Mochalova, is another song – game that children really like.
Special allowance classes
For homework in preparation for school, for development, memory, logic, thinking, you can buy special workbooks. They contain a variety of mini-games for attention and memory, exercises that children perform on their own or with the help of an adult. All tasks are gradually becoming more complicated. A child selects an excess object, searches for various patterns, draws by points or cells, draws drawings, thereby not only developing voluntary attention, but also thinking, visual perception and preparing his hand for writing.
For classes in children's institutions, ready-made sets of exercises, tests and games for the development of memory, logic, thinking are used.
How to invent a game for a child from improvised means
Games for children that develop attention, logic, thinking, memory do not have to be bought in stores. In every family there are tools available for making entertaining games. Having acquired two identical colors, you can color the same pictures with several differences and let the child find them - the game "Find Differences" has turned out.
Using a large text in a magazine or newspaper, you can ask a child who knows the letters to circle a certain circle. The next time you can complicate the task by asking to find a few letters: circle one letter, cross the other, and so on.
Any children's book with colorful illustrations can be used as a game that develops attention. Ask the child to describe the picture or find a hero according to your description.
Pictures from magazines - a great guide for games
Do not throw away the read magazines, they can come in handy for playing with a child. They have many bright colorful pictures that can be cut and used in tasks on the classification of objects. If the picture goes bad, it will not be a pity to throw it away and cut out a new one.
Cut cars from magazines about cars can be laid out by color, size, and even by model if the child already understands them.
Women's magazines will be interesting for girls. They have a lot of cosmetics ads. If mom uses mascara, lipstick or cream, then the girl usually knows what it is for. Cutting out the pictures, you can ask the daughter to arrange them according to certain criteria.
Culinary magazines are also great for playing attention with children. Cutting out pictures of food, utensils, ready-made dishes, you can come up with a lot of interesting tasks. A little cook will be happy to put vegetables in a pot and cook soup, make a compote of red berries or decorate a painted cake with fruit.
In magazines for mothers, there is usually a tab for children with interesting tasks. They can also be safely used for the development of memory, thinking.
Any activities with children in preparing them for school should be systematic. Never refuse to perform these exercises, always carefully explain the tasks and help if the baby is unable to cope, do not scold him for his mistakes and be sure to praise him for all his success!