How to Enhance a Child's Visual-Spatial IQ
If your youngster already dreams of becoming an architect, engineer, surgeon or even photographer, visual-spatial skills are indispensable to her future goals. These skills will help her envision a 3-D building and map it out on paper, visualize the structure of a molecule without a microscope, navigate the human body or see an ideal photo opportunity. You can start early by incorporating visual-spatial skills into everyday life and then use a variety of engaging activities to further her skill development as she grows.
Things You'll Need
- Apples or peaches
- Building blocks
- Puzzles and tangrams
- Magazines, photo albums or storybooks
Instructions
Provide your child with a large vocabulary of spatial words. From an early age, use descriptive words, such as big, small, straight, curvy, circular and square, in daily conversation with him and encourage him to use words that describe spatial properties. Instead of pointing to an object when you̵7;re giving directions, explain. For example, when you're asking your child to clean up his toys, don't point to the location they belong. Instead, explain the directions using spatial terms, such as "Please put the large ball in the middle box" or "Please return the little blocks to the top shelf." Involve your child in ordinary activities that involve visual-spatial skills. For example, let your youngster help you figure out which way her bed sheet should be oriented on her bed or have her guess what shape you'll have when you cut an apple or peach into slices and how many cans of vegetables or loaves of bread will fit in a bag at the grocery store. These inquiries will encourage your child to visualize the task at hand. Play with building blocks together and encourage your child to recreate structures from "blueprints" or diagrams. To do so, he will have to visualize how the blocks can be connected to create the structure. Incorporate puzzles and tangrams into playtime, too. These activities can help your child further develop his visual-spatial skills, according to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Enroll your child in an art program or pick up supplies to keep her busy creating masterpieces at home. You can look for programs and classes at a local creation center, find an arts venue that offers programs for children or stock your craft box with paints, pastels, pencil crayons, paint paper, stencils, modeling clay, chenille sticks and any other drawing, painting or crafting material she would like to try. Bury "treasure" and make a treasure map to help your child exercise his visual-spatial skills. Have him hide an object in the living room, playroom, or backyard and then draw a map of the area. When the map is completed, have him mark the location of the hidden object. Finally, help him create clues to guide a treasure seeker to the treasure. Create stories from pictures. Present your child with a single picture from a magazine, photo album or storybook. Ask a variety of questions, such as "Where do you think the picture was taken?" and "What do you think the subject of the picture is doing?" Next, let your child concoct a short story from the information she has gathered from the picture -- she can be as practical or as imaginative as she would like.
