“Right-brained people are creative geniuses!” Give your kids’ creative sides a boost with one of these awesome activities! This collection of right brain-centered activities and games will stimulate abstract thinking, indulge imaginative story time, and get kids learning about the human body through movement. Left-handed people, who are right-brain dominant, won’t have to worry about smudges or writing neatly either. Even though the human brain is a complex organ, the listed activities are super simple to set up and enjoyable to complete.
1. Focused Breathing
Kick off your right brain-centered activities with some deep breathing exercises. Breathing practices shift left-brain dominance to the right. Deep breathing also helps kids relax and destress, which is an important part of maintaining a healthy brain and developing cognitive functions!
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2. Finger Painting
What kid doesn’t love messy painting? Finger painting is a wonderful medium to engage both brain hemispheres! While the left hemisphere is working on fine motor skills, your little ones’ right hemisphere will be growing leaps and bounds as it plays with color and designs.
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3. Drawing To Music
Brain research has shown a correlation between listening to music and an increase in creativity and productivity! Drawing to music is an awesome activity to work on art skills and discover tonality. It’s also a great introduction to discussions on feelings and emotional well-being.
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4. Salt Tray Art
A simple and inexpensive way to express right-brain thinking! Pour salt into a large tray and let your little ones draw and design to their heart’s content. The blank slate is a great visual field for envisioning new shapes, creatures, and stories.
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5. Art Journals
Use beautiful illustrations as a starting point for your kids’ writing journeys! Work on writing a sentence about daily life and add an illustration! Alternatively, start with a picture and flex some critical thinking skills to craft a sentence with new vocabulary words.
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6. Mandalas
Combine art with brain games to strengthen your kids’ right cerebral hemisphere! Mandalas are an excellent activity for developing big-picture pattern recognition skills and boosting memory capacity. Show your kids the colored mandala. Then, see if they can copy the color pattern from memory.
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7. Identifying Tones
Music and tones are understood through the right brain hemisphere. Experimenting with consonant and dissonant tones is a fantastic activity for developing musical literacy and cognitive skills. Play different music pieces and get a thumbs up for pleasant sounds or a thumbs down for dissonant tones!
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8. Water Xylophones
Explore tonality with this fun science experiment! Fill glass jars with different levels of water. Gently tap each to hear the different tones. Then, have your kids arrange them from highest to lowest. Experiment with different liquids to hear their effect on tones.
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9. Map Symbols
Right-brained thinkers tend to think in visual fields and symbols. Cultivate this style of thinking by exploring different kinds of symbols kids see in daily life. Create colorful maps using only symbols. Then, give symbol directions to a secret location!
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10. Adapting Books with Widgets
Adapt reading time to suit right-brain thinkers. Adding symbols to books makes reading an interactive activity that keeps kids focused. Online widget software allows you to create symbols for any word in your kids’ favorite books. They can also learn to create their own!
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11. Visualizing Spatial Shapes
The right brain hemisphere loves spatial design brain exercises! Grab toothpicks and your kids’ favorite gummy candy or marshmallows. Spend playtime building 3D shapes or creating brand-new designs for buildings and bridges. Enjoy a tasty treat after demolition!
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12. Linking Memory Game
The right brain is great at doing multiple things simultaneously! This activity works on that skill by making-up absurd stories through image sequences. Use each image to create part of a story. As kids retell the story, they’ll be able to remember the layout with ease!
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13. The Memory Grid Game
Large memory grids are super fun brain games that exercise the right brain’s love of pictures, illustrations, and looking at the big picture. Lay the squares face up and memorize where each face is. Flip them over and try to find specific faces or match pairs!
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14. The Cups Game
Improve your little ones’ visual memory with fun brain puzzle games! Hide sets of matching toys under cups and see how fast your students can find the pairs. It’s an amusing challenge for your kid’s big-picture observation skills.
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15. Hands and Feet Hopscotch
The right brain is all about gross motor skills! Build these skills with active playtime. Print and lay out a mix of feet and hands in random patterns. As your kids move down the field, they’ll also work on symbol recognition skills!
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16. Obstacle Courses
Exercise is essential for good brain health and strong bodies! Obstacle courses are an entertaining way to engage the right brain’s gross motor skills. This course adds bells to build your kids’ sense of sound and test their dexterity.
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17. Imaginative Playtime
Imaginative playtime is wonderful for developing social skills, growing creativity, and working through scary real-life situations (like going to the dentist). Add cardboard boxes to playtime for even more excitement and imaginative exploration!
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18. Improv Games
Improv is a unique way to make kids feel comfortable with person-to-person interactions while stimulating their right brain imaginations. Improv games are also great for exploring spontaneity and thinking outside the box!
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