This is a new week for holiday tips. This week will focus on the visual sensory system.
In earlier weeks of Holiday Tips, we explored other sensory systems. Since all games engage multiple senses rather than just one, the visual system has already played a significant role in several of the activities mentioned before.
The visual sensory system is significantly related to the vestibular, proprioceptive, and auditory sensory systems. It provides the brain with essential information about the environment regarding orientation and movement. Vision supports spatial awareness, spatial orientation, and hand-eye and foot-eye coordination.
Good visual processing is essential for activities such as writing, catching a ball, copying text from a blackboard, or cutting with scissors.
These are some ideas for involving the visual system in summer games with kids:
Clouds watching
This activity involves spotting familiar shapes in clouds. It’s an easy and enjoyable way to spend time outdoors, simply looking at the sky and letting kids’ imaginations wander.
What is under the blanket?
Visual memory with objects in the garden or at home. Gather various items form home or natural elements such as flowers or leaves and arrange them on the ground like a mosaic. After observing them for a few seconds, cover them with a blanket or towel. Then, each family member must rememeber and name the objects they saw. You can keep adding objets and changing the location of all in every round.
Pop soap bubbles
Making bubbles, tracking them, and popping them one by one with different parts of the body. Kids can start with the hand, with different fingers, and move on to more difficult parts of the body like the elbow, knee, or foot!
Sports in the garden:
Playing all kinds of sports that use equipment, such as a racket, a paddle, a stick and a ball,… as volleyball, badminton, table tennis, hockey, frisbee… aim games…in which kids need to coordinate eye and hand/foot.
Next week will be foused on the Auditory system…
See you on the next Holiday Tips post!