How To Sharpen Your Child’s Brain Through Play: Lesson 5

Play five (5): Bottle covering and opening for kids under nine (9) months

Introduction

Making good use of anything that could be considered a waste is an added value. Making good use of a disposable item to sharpen the brain of your child would be an added legacy. As an adult, reading this, what is the direction to turn your key while opening a door? Out of practice and frequency of opening a door, adults who have not answered this specific question before regarding the direction to turn a key while opening a door might consider it an examination question though there are only two (2) possible answers. Left or right? A door that has become difficult to open suddenly can confuse an adult about the direction to turn a key while opening that difficult door. Training a child to do a task that even an adult could have a challenge with would be a way to sharpen the child’s brain. Sharpening a child’s brain is only a process of introducing a child to a task that is a little above the average performance or compression of his or her age.

Covering and opening bottles play

The bottle covering play involves the act of encouraging your child to cover a bottle to fit properly. Opening a bottle is to encourage the child to open the cover with ease. A bottle that is covered by an adult could leak. The cover may be tilted/slanted. In short, it may not be as simple for even adults to cover a bottle properly. Playing with kids to cover or open bottles may be mind teasing for the child. He or she may wonder why turning the cover of the bottle to one direction leads to closing of the bottle and turning the cover to the other direction leads to opening the bottle. At the beginning, the child will not know there are two different directions involved in the activity. At another stage, the child would know there are two different directions but would not know which direction leads to opening or closing. Later in the play, the child would start picking signals to determine which direction leads to opening or closing. Certain signals like a firm application of force in a particular direction cause no effect on the covering or opening of the bottle. One way to bait a child to play this bottle covering and opening game is using his or her favourite bottles. Especially when the content is in it. Feeding bottles, drinking water bottles and drinking mineral bottles are perfect bottles. Handing over a bottle which is slightly covered with some contents in it would motivate the child to attempt opening it. If the child can not open it, the caregiver or parent will have to hold the child’s hand to open the bottle. At this stage, for a child under nine (9) months, you do not open any bottle (feeding or water bottles) for the child without his or her hands being part of opening or closing the bottle, unless in an emergency or the child is extremely hungry. Some of the lessons that would be learnt from this play are as follows.

a. Direction

b. Memory and recollection

c. Concentration

d. Strengthening of fingers

e. Patients

f. Effort and reward

a. Directions

The child will notice earlier in life that there are forward and backward directions or front and back directions or left and right directions. Without this play, the child during crawling will notice left or right directions but it will take him or her some more time to notice backwards direction. Though the child would notice sideways directions during crawling, he or she may not have applied any critical or mental thing to identify such left and right directions. Such directions are noticed by the child with their sight. This bottle game will be very beneficial to children when dealing with true or false questions either later in school or analysis of personal situations.

b. Memory and recollection

The bottle covering and opening game would force the child to memorize things. At least, there are forward and backward direction even if it is done unconsciously. Whether the child consciously identifies the left or right directions or not, the child would be forced also to attempt recollection of which direction leads to the opening or closing of bottles whenever the child face a challenge opening or closing the bottle. The same process adults go through when they have difficulty opening their doors. A child going through the process of recollection of the direction of turning his hands would be an application of critical thinking and the ability to memorize and recollect. A very good memory is what academics mostly need while not overlooking other aspects of life.

c. Concentration

Bottle covering and opening games for kids under nine (9) months can help develop the child’s ability to concentrate. Asking a child of this age to open or close a bottle continuously for three (3) minutes a day in which he or she joyfully participates just to be able to feed will undoubtedly be an ability to concentrate. Especially when the child gets used to playing and opens or closes the bottles as expected. The ability to concentrate is one feature that is needed in both vocation or skills training as well as academics.

d. Strengthening of fingers

The child needs strong or firm fingers to open the bottle. Firm fingers are needed to hold pencils or crayons in pre-school. Asking a child of under nine (9) months to firmly hold the cover of a bottle to open or close it would strengthen the fingers of the child earlier than normal, which would be useful in creche or pre-school and put your child ahead of his or her peers.

e. Patients

Patients as good virtues are difficult to acquire in adulthood. Introducing the child to a bottle closing and opening game can also highlight the temperament of a child early in life. And the bottle game could also be used to try correcting impatient children. Asking the child playfully with smiles to wait while both of you keep your hands on the bottle to open it so he or she can feed it might be a solution to the child’s impatience. The child may not be ready to wait for the bottle opening game to eat at the beginning, but with time, he or she will get used to it. She or he would realize he or she did not need to get angry to feed.

f. Effort and reward

Open to eat or open to drink a favorite mineral. This part of the game is played with snacks when the child is not hungry or thirsty. A child training with the mentality of rewards coming out of personal effort will be an added virtue.

With or without these bottles covering and closing, harmful substances or chemicals or medicines are supposed to be kept out of reach of children. Otherwise, the kids would attempt playing with it. That might lead them to consuming it. A bottle with harmful substances can break on the floor where the child could leak it. As usual with all other play methods of sharpening the brain of your child, you do not expect to complete the final achievement of the play within a day. All parents or caregivers need to do is about three (3) minutes a day to have this play with the child. Children have short concentrations and so children who are not ready to play must be allowed to choose their next play. However, when the child’s favourite bottles have some contents, the game may definitely take place.

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