Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Activities besides Chess / Piano

Hi,

Our young child plays piano and is learning to play chess. Any suggestions for other activities / games with similar cognitive benefits?

Thank you.

You could look at the Ultimate Game Thread.

Knitting

Debate. Children are never too young to learn rhetoric!

In addition to piano and chess, my child also learns Soroban math from a tutor. I hear that it's cognitive benefits to the right brain are comparable to that of Chess. In our case, the "slow processing speed" issues that my child had in the math area are a thing of the past after he gained expertise in the Anzan mental calculation method.

Lego! (not sure about the cognitive benefits but it's fun).

Also language classes. We have a wonderful local teacher who does a play based language class with very small groups. The kids to arts/crafts play w/ toys, but they do it all in a foreign languag (Your mileage may vary on this one - it is very teacher dependent and we have lucked out with out teacher(s)).

And as long as there are no small children around who may eat the pieces, how about the Asian game "go". (I want to learn but need to wait till DD is a bit older).

LOL

How about adult level card games? You make have to make some modification to account for small hands: for example our kids were playing Canasta (when other kids their age were playing "go fish" and "war") and they used an extra chair tucked under the table to spread out the cards that would have been held in their hands (you can accumulate lots of cards in your hand in this game and they simply couldn't hold them all). Canasta is great for strategic thinking and math skills, among other things.

Origami is another good activity - it works fine motor, sequential and visual spatial skills. My daughter was obsessed for awhile and our house was filled with her creations

I've got a piano/ chess kid. DS8 is less interested in chess these days... music is his passion.

How about a sport? Our son really enjoyed karate - they memorize katas and that was right up his alley. I know UCSD was running a brain development study on children and karate was one of the enrichment activities they were using in longitudinal studies.

We recently switched him to swimming just for an easier schedule. He enjoys that- swims with a USA Swimming Team and gets to compete. It's not about winning every race because what they stress is improving by dropping time. And it's a life skill (everyone really should know how to swim).

I'd encourage something that promotes public speaking skills, something that promotes team skills, and some form of community service.

The reason I suggest these things are because of the typical problems you'll read about in these forums as well as those found often in gifted students when reaching the job market....yes, I know, it's pretty early to be concerned about the job market, however, life skills need to be promoted early in life if possible.

We often see amazingly intelligent students but they're also often unable or simply freeze up when they need to speak in public and share their blessings of knowledge.

We often see frustration in gifted students when working in groups, best to learn how to deal with that early by teaching effective teamwork.

We sometimes see gifted students who have trouble developing empathy, community service as well as being active in religion most often help people to feel blessed for their gifts rather than being frustrated with others for their lack of those same gifts.

I totally agree with Old Dad.

For early public speaking, "show-and-tell" has passed the test of time and provides a great opportunity for even the youngest children to practice listening (as an audience member), speaking about something of interest, and also being responsive to the questions and feedback of others.