Set up a color scavenger hunt activity to exercise the concentration muscle, and specifically auditory concentration and memory.
Educational experts define concentration as being able to focus on a specific task for a reasonable period of time. Concentration is like a muscle that requires regular exercise to strengthen. Some kids are born “stronger” in this area than others, but all kids can learn strategies and engage in practices that help improve their ability to focus and sustain their attention.
Young children (age 4-5) can usually concentrate for somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes, depending on the task. It is amazing how they can watch a whole movie without moving or build LEGO for 30 minutes but cannot concentrate for 2 minutes when we try to teach them to write a letter of the alphabet. The reason for this is simply that different skills are used for different activities. This color hunt activity focusses on developing the auditory memory and concentration skills (Assuming your child knows his color names).
Make use of different colored pins or beads even LEGO/block pieces. Categorize the colors together in groups and use about 4 of each color.
Place each group of a color in a different room in the house. For example, all the blue ones in the kitchen, orange in the bathroom etc.
Ready to play! Give your child an instruction, for example: “Go get 3 green pieces in the TV room and 2 yellow ones in my bedroom”. If he gets it wrong give the same instruction again until he gets it right. He then returns with the pins and you give the next instruction.
This can then continue until he collected all the colors in the different rooms.
Older children can receive more than 2 instructions at a time such as “get 2 blue in the kitchen, 1 red in your room and 2 orange in the bathroom”. If your child is competitive, add a timer to see how quick he can execute the tasks.
This color scavenger hunt is great to improve listening and concentration skills and the kids enjoy it so much they don’t even know we are exercising these important skills!
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