Grow Your Child's Potential
Tips and Activities to Develop Your Kid’s Smartness and Intelligence
Sep 14, 2009
Based on Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, educators in early childhood education today assess their pupils' abilities in a number of areas. It is equally important for parents, once they have determined the core intelligence of their children, to foster their natural strengths and develop the weaker areas.
Linguistic Intelligence
Have a lot of books and magazines around the house or take the kids to the library regularly. Read to them and with them. Encourage them to write in a diary about their daily activities and discoveries and share them aloud. Expose them to foreign languages or enroll them in language programmes. Play word games like Boggle or Scrabble and partake in a little creativity by making up new words.
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
Play categorisation games with colours, shapes and sizes such as counting the number of rectangular or yellow objects in a room. They will love problem solving puzzles or logical games such as chess. Get them to calculate the family’s grocery shopping budget and create a diet plan using the nutritional information on food labels. Make travelling on the road fun by adding the numbers on car license plates.
Musical Intelligence
Expose them to a variety of musical genres and play music around the house. Watch movies together and discuss how the directors use distinctive musical scores to affect moods and emotions. Encourage them to create their own music using everyday items such as chairs, pails and utensils. When in a noisy public place close their eyes and count the different sounds and where they emanate from.
Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
Develop the child’s gross motor skills through activities such as riding a bike or imitating the actions of animals. Play family games like Charades, Twister or building sandcastles and encourage them to explore the world of drama. Sporting and outdoor activities also serve them well and they can also create things through woodwork, sewing, baking or building model airplanes.
Visual-Spatial Intelligence
Give the child creative freedom with lots of art materials to draw or paint with. In this technologically advanced age digital cameras and graphic designing software can also keep them occupied and build their picture smartness. Let children decide how their bedroom arrangement should be like and play jigsaw puzzles with them. Before stepping out of the house, pore over a map and have them chart their route.
Interpersonal Intelligence
Ensure maximum opportunity for interactions with other children such as play groups, study groups or activity clubs. Let them take on leadership roles such as helping to take care of siblings or volunteering to help the less fortunate. Encourage them to explore different points of views; how others may be feeling and why they choose a particular course of action.
Intrapersonal Intelligence
Nurture a safe and non-judgmental environment for the child to express his or her feelings. Seemingly shy, they may simply be quietly reflective. Giving them time alone and a diary to pen their thoughts and feelings would be useful. Allow the child to take time to think before making choices and help them ascertain their own strengths and weaknesses.
Naturalist Intelligence
Give children ample opportunity to explore nature. Let them run barefoot in the park or in the woods and go to the bird park and zoo together. Blindfold them and have them identify all the different sounds of the creatures. Engage them in gardening activities and where possible let them be responsible in caring for a pet.
By engaging in the different activities, the child’s full potential can be nurtured and he can discover the many ways to learn and be smart.
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