When tidying up the toolbox, it is essential to involve your child in the cleaning so that they can interact with nuts and bolts. Nuts and bolts come in different colors, shapes, sizes, and functions hence, easily enticing the child into playing with them. Engaging kindergarten children in using toys helps them develop their cognitive skills and cuts across all cognitive domains. Therefore, this paper will explore how teachers and parents can enhance the development of cognitive skills of kindergarteners through engagement with nuts and bolts and the making of the mosaic American flag.
Guiding the kindergarten children through playing with nuts and bolts provides an opportunity to practice different thinking skills such as imitation, concentration, reasoning, and creativity. According to Quinn and Rubin (2018), first, the child learns the activity by imitating the teacher or the parents. Successful twisting of the nuts through onto the bolts, focusing, and persevering until completion of the activity needs high levels of concentration. The nuts and bolts are usually in different shapes, colors, and sizes hence, the kindergarteners during the activity, will have to employ reasoning skills in figuring out how to match the nuts and bolts. Creativity skills are developed whereby the kindergartener thinks of different ways of matching and using the nuts and bolts. Therefore, using nuts and bolts is a math activity that enhances cognitive development through thinking skills.
A similar activity that would be appropriate for preschool children is making the mosaic American flag using red, blue, and white jelly beans. Interacting and arranging jelly beans of different colors stimulate cognitive properties and improvement of fine motor skills (Quinn and Rubin, 2018). During grasping the jelly beans, the preschool children must use eye-hand coordination to place a jelly bean and arrange it as per how the mosaic American flag looks like. Similarly, the children must have a better visual comprehension of the American flag. Therefore, making the mosaic American flag engages comprehension, creativity, and concentration skills as well.
Reference
Quinn, J. M., & Rubin, K. H. (2018). The play of handicapped children. In Children’s Play (pp. 63-82). Routledge.