After the first cornerstone skills - body awareness, balance, and coordination - mastered, you can move on to activities in which the child has to sequence or plan many actions in a row. This involves, initially, planning movement starting with simple one-step actions like banging a drum, progressing to two-step actions like grabbing a car and moving it in a particular direction, to three-step actions such as moving the car into a house, to four- and five-step actions in a pretend narrative: The child moves the car into the house and back out, then "drives" to the school and then to the grocery store, and so forth. Motor planning involves carrying out two or more actions in a row, up to ten- or twenty-step actions, as in a complicated dance step.
For many children, the process of planning and thinking about their actions in their minds (some consciously and some more intuitively) and then carrying them out is challenging. By fifteen months of age, most toddlers are capable of taking Mommy by the hand, walking toward a desirable treat, pointing to the treat they want, nodding, and giving Mommy a beaming smile after she gives them the treat. This requires taking many sequential actions and is part of the child's repertoire long before she can say, "Mommy, I love you. Go get me the brownie." We have no evidence that the child is actually thinking or using ideas, but we can see that there is pattern recognition and some sort of planning. ADD In Boys
Simon Says or Copycat Games
Many of the simple motor exercises and rhythmic activities that we suggested for motor functioning can also be adapted to help with planning and sequencing.
Rhythmic Movement. This can be marching or jumping or dancing together in step with music.
Simon Says. This game can involve a series of actions, progressively getting more and more complicated. If the child is having difficulty with copying your actions, then first copy whatever the child is doing and do it rhythmically. Then see if the child will copy you: "Now do Mommy" or "Now do Daddy." Try to make it fun. From one-step actions, banging a car on the floor, go to two-step actions, moving the car toward the child and see if the child moves it toward you. Then try a three-step action: getting a chair, sitting on it, and then standing on it. Show the child how you are doing it. Start off with the child doing each component part one at a time, then add in another step, and then three steps, and so on.
As we mentioned, this can also be done with fine motor exercises, like drawing. Make little lines and then squiggly circles, then squares, rectangles, and triangles, and then different sequences of these, starting off with just one, then two, then three or four. See how many the child can remember without looking back at what you have drawn and what she is copying. Again, make this fun, perhaps with little prizes for doing it.
Treasure-Hunt Games
In these games, children can be given three types of directions they need to follow in order to find a desired object.
Showing Where to Look. First, just show the child where to look: look in one place, then two places, and then three places, and the prize is in one of those three places, all while saying what you are doing while doing it. The child has to absorb what you are doing and saying and then copy your actions.
Verbal Clues. Then do the treasure-hunt game using just verbal directions. "It could be anywhere in the room, and here is your clue - it may be in the basket, but if it isn't in the basket, it will be in Mommy's shoe [which she has taken off] or in Daddy's hat [in the far corner of the room]. See if the child can look in all three places with verbal sequencing. Then you can go up to four, five, six, or seven options. The dues could be upstairs or downstairs, so that would take the treasure hunt into the whole house or the backyard.
Visual Clues. Then use visual clues in which you point to the different places the prize could be, first with one or two places, and the child can take a look. Then point to three, then four, five, six, and seven places, upstairs, downstairs, outside, and so on. Eventually, the visual clues can be pictures of where the prize could be. For older children who are more sophisticated, make a map to follow. You can then number the different options where they can look from 1 to 10. You can set up a system where children can lose points if they look somewhere that is not marked, and they get to keep the prize if they follow the road map and check all the different places marked. ADD In Boys
Verbal and Visual Clues Together. Next, the children can graduate to where there are both visual or verbal clues depending on the step - for example, step 1 is a visual clue that leads them to step 2, a verbal clue, which leads them to step 3, and so forth.
Treasure-hunt games can be great fun while also offering practice in motor activity, sequencing, and planning.
Obstacle-Course Games
As part of treasure-hunt games, or independent of them, you can play obstacle-course games where in order to find a hidden object the child has to negotiate an obstacle course.
Simple Obstacle Course. Create an obstacle course where the child has to go over things, under things, through tunnels, around things - requiring multistep actions. He may have to get a stool to get over something or stand on something to reach a shelf to get the next clue.
Increase the Complexity. Add on increasingly complex planned actions that require the child to plan actions while following a verbal or a visual clue or both. She may have to figure out how to get from place A to place G through places B-C-D-E-F. Start slowly and move on to more complex courses, again going through, under, over, and around things, opening and closing objects, and the like.
Instill Creativity. Because you want to instill creativity in planning, have the child create an obstacle course for you to negotiate. Make it a two-way street: The child designs a course that you have to negotiate, and then you design one the child has to carry out. Designing an obstacle course takes every bit as much planning as solving it does.
All these games enable a child to do many actions in a row. He is building a fundamental human ability to plan ahead, to take many steps in a row, to take steps toward a purposeful goal. All of this is part of good concentration and focus. To learn more, you can check out ADD In Boys.
