brain gamesCan Brain Games Make You Smarter?
The answer seems to be “yes.” Dr. Silvia Bunge, a neuro-scientist at UC Berkley, recently conducted a study using a mix of games to test children’s reasoning and cognitive ability. She and her team brought the games to an Oakland elementary school with traditionally low state test scores, asking groups of 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders to stay after school to play.
Twice a week, kids played games for an hour and fifteen minutes, rotating every fifteen minutes to play something new. After only eight weeks - just 20 total hours of game playing - the team saw something astounding. Kids’ reasoning scores had jumped, on average, 32%. That means an IQ boost of around 13 points. To compare, IQ scores usually increase 12 points after an entire year of school!
Brain Games
Download and print these fun worksheets for younger kids. They'll love the challenge.
Ages 3-5
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Download Stick Puppets Cut out the characters and make popsicle stick puppets. |
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Download Parrot Parts Find and color the letters and numbers. |
Ages 5-8
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Download Secret Message Cut out the characters and make popsicle stick puppets. |
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Download Vocabulary Match Up Read the words and link them to the matching picture. |
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Download Silent E Telephone Read the words and link them to the matching picture. |
Resources
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http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/nurtureshock/archive/2009/12/10/new- research-13-christmas-gifts-13-point-gain-in-kids-iq.aspx |
