Cognitive Games to build Cognisant Minds

In my previous blog (, I highlighted several cognitive and ‘age old’ games for your elementary and middle school kids. This month, we are playing similar games for the younger age group. I was eager to find out how to get our preschoolers to play the same games, and here are the creative ideas that popped out of my mind.

Ideal for ages: 3.5 years – 6years (based on maturity level of the child)

Requires: All the activities require at least:

  1. An Adult and one Child
  2. Pen and paper + images per person + glue sticks

Winner: It can be just a fun game for this age group but if you decide to have kids compete, make sure they are all at similar age and level. For every game, winner is the person or group with most correct answers or points.

Since not all children can read well under age 6, we are going to use visual and verbal aids for most parts. This indeed makes it a lot of fun!


Have the below table ready for each child. Read out the titles and explain what they mean using the picture below it. “The row on the left shows us the letter we are working with. We have 4 columns and under each column we have the related photograph. First, we are working with the letter A. So under the title ‘NAME’ we have Amitabh Bachan because Amitabh starts with letter ‘A’, under place we have…”

A  Amitabh  Atlas  Armadillo  apple


Here, first give them an empty chart and all the images separately. Once they get the chart and images, they must glue the image in the correct column. An image whose word has only 3 letters must go in the 3 letter word column and so on.

You may choose to write the name of the object on the picture itself so that they can count the number of letters on it. For smarter kids, you can hide the name of the object (this is optional). You can use black and white images so that they get a chance to color the objects too!


3 letter word 4 letter word 5 letter word
3 letter word 4 letter word 5 letter word
 bat  pear  train

Activity 3: WORD RACE

Kids are given an empty chart with random letters written on the left column of the chart. Different images are mixed and handed out. Kids must know which image must go under which alphabet to win or complete the game. You may assist them by writing the initial alphabet on top of the image if needed.

A anteater aeroplane
P  pear  pencil
S  see saw  spring  strawberry
T  train  tree


 Adult or the kid choses a word in his head (not shared with anyone) e.g. LEGO

He must now describe his word by using related words that will help the other player guess the answer LEGO. E.g. is a toy, use to build, is a movie too, etc.

Ideally, adult and child can take turns to be on the guessing side.

Activity 5: Word play variations

Adult gives a simple word to the child. Child must make rhyming words. Eventually with practice adult can venture to time the child or even challenge the child to make a song with those rhyming words.

rhyming words
Make your own variations. These activities make great fun at any point of time, even while driving or having sleepovers.

Published by Rima Desai


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