How to Develop a Child's Right and Left Brain Coordination

Install an indoor or outdoor play area for your child to move, dance, exercise, and crawl on hands and knees through tunnels and over sports mats. Encourage your child to use the play area devices for physical exercise several times a day. Select activity stations that integrate movement, depth perception, and the senses of sight and hearing to force your child to use these as part of the activity. Some games that integrate the senses include a mini basketball court that uses a sound or flashing light to signal your child to take the shot with a toy ball.

Make and play word and image games that ask your child to use both brain hemispheres. Cut out words and photos or drawings to illustrate the words. Attach the name of an object to a card and an image of the object on a separate card. Put different numbers on the back. Collect a variety of images and words and attach these to new cards. Shuffle the cards and expose only the numbers. Ask your child to turn over two cards at a time and concentrate on finding a word-image match.

Play crawling games around the house and outdoors with your children. Crawling is a complex action that involves coordination and thoughtful organization of all four limbs. Different types of crawling, such as the crab walk that pushes the child forward with one arm and a leg coordinating together, use all four limbs in an effort that works both the left and right brain hemispheres. Activities that involve crawling at different speeds help children develop both sides of the brain, according to the International Parenting Association.

Teach your child to drum or mimic drumming actions using drumsticks and other objects in the home, such as buckets or shoeboxes, as a substitute for drums. Start with a basic rhythm pattern and ask your child to repeat it. Add more complexity as your child remembers the rhythms. Drumming, according to the Children's Hemiplegia and Stroke Association, helps the right and left sides of the brain communicate through action and memory and also allows your child to learn to recognize patterns.

Swim with your child daily. Select places with clean water, and choose warm water for young children who need increased temperatures to maintain body heat while exercising. Swimming asks kids to use physical action and visualize the movement.