“Left-brain thinkers are logical thinkers!” We’ve heard all about brain hemispheres and the different cognitive functions they have. These fun activities are geared toward promoting critical thinking skills through all kinds of left-brain exercises. Give your kids’ left hemispheres a boost with language games, puzzle patterns, rhymes, and short-term memory building! The activities are easily adaptable for kids of all ages by simply making the patterns and words long, complex, and more intricate.
1. Pattern Replication
Expand left brain capacity with the help of patterns! Create a colorful popsicle stick pattern and then ask your kids to replicate it. Alternatively, begin a pattern sequence and have your kids continue it until they reach the end of their mat.
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2. Busy Block Puzzles
Your kids need all their cognitive skills to solve these colorful puzzles! After completing the individual cards, see if they can fit the cards together to make large rectangles. Keep the pieces and cards in a busy bag for left brain stimulation on the go!
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3. Paper Plate Lacing Craft
Fine motor skills are centered in the left cerebral hemisphere. This fun back-to-school craft is a great way to practice those skills! For the littlest of learners, use large holes. Older kids with a bigger brain capacity can work with smaller, more intricate patterns.
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4. Peeling Tape
Keep your babies and toddlers occupied with tape peeling! Bright colors are great for optical stimulation while peeling flexes their fine motor skills. Have them peel one color at a time or create new shapes.
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5. Bear Boat Rescue
Boost your learners’ fine motor skills and work on pencil grips with this activity! Using different sizes and colors of bears provides opportunities to work on critical thinking skills by figuring out how to fit the most bears in the boat.
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6. Noun Hunt
The left hemisphere is the seat of language! Boost language skills by sending your kids on a scavenger hunt. Working by themselves or in small groups, they must find a noun for each letter of the alphabet. Double-check their spelling and then use the nouns in sentences.
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7. Punctuation Stick Puppets
Punctuation plays an essential role in language development. Get the kids excited about exclamation marks and commas with adorable puppet sticks! Write different phrases on the board. Then, move the punctuation puppets to different points throughout the sentence and have your learners hear how phrases change when in a question or statement form.
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8. Word Blending Slide
Kids love multisensory activities! Some letter magnets and a paper slide are all you need to work on left brain-centered language development. Introduce your little ones to continuous letters by having them hold them all the way down the slide until they hit the next letters.
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9. Word Building
For older students, this colorful word-building folder is ideal for language comprehension activities on the go! Students can manipulate syllables, sound out words, or make up their own languages.
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10. Grammar Sentence Strips
Help your kids visualize parts of sentences with colorful shapes. These fun prints are excellent for 1st-3rd grade language comprehension lessons. Match shapes to nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, and more!
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11. Nursery Rhymes
What kid doesn’t love singing and dancing? Nursery rhymes are a cute way to build language skills, discover word and music patterns, and get some exercise! They’re also awesome for working on auditory perception which is controlled by the left hemisphere.
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12. What’s Missing
Strengthen your little ones’ short-term memory and promote brain growth! Place a selection of items on the floor. Have your kids close their eyes and remove an object. Ask them to open their eyes and identify what’s missing.
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13. Rocket Ship Clothespin Counting
This easy activity combines number recognition with fine motor skills; both of which are situated in the left hemisphere! Opening the clothespins and attaching the correct number of pins to each rocket ship are great left-brain exercises for preschoolers and kindergartens who are starting to learn numbers.
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14. Racing Through Time Game
Race to the next hour! This fun game engages the left brain’s logical thinking to decode analog clocks and alleviate the social stress of telling time. After each role, have your kids write out the time as it appears on a digital clock.
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15. Build A City
Stimulate neural activity with an awesome math-building activity! As your kids build their cities of different heights, they’ll develop early numeracy skills like number recognition and counting skills. It’s great for building the foundations of linear thinking for more complicated math problems.
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16. Plant Life Sequences
Sequencing activities stimulate left hemisphere brain functions. Complete the sequence together and then see if your kids can remember what goes where on their own! To expel high energy levels and get some fresh air, create a garden of your own to observe.
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17. Cookie Baking
Before indulging in a tasty treat, get your kids’ cognitive skills working by engaging them in a round of baking. Reading and following instructions are prime examples of left-hemisphere activities that kids of all ages can do.
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