Top 10 Games That Boost Children's Intelligence

Role-Playing Games stimulate children's imagination. These games not only enhance their creativity but also help expand their vocabulary and develop basic social skills. For example, you can play along with your child. You might pretend to be a patient while your child plays the role of a doctor in a medical examination game, or you could pretend to be a shopper and your child the shopkeeper. You can even simulate a market scenario to encourage your child to practice bargaining and making payments. There's no need to set rules on how or for how long to play—let your child’s preferences guide the play.

Parents can also prepare a few stuffed animals, dolls, or puppets and assign roles with the child, each acting out different characters while conversing with each other. You and your child can create a story or situation together, and be sure to use expressive tones to captivate your child’s attention. This type of Role-Playing Game enhances language skills and imagination. Additionally, the stories you share will teach your child valuable life lessons, and parents may even learn a few things along the way.

Playing the Phone Call Game is a popular choice among many parents. In today's modern life, phones have become an integral part of family life. This game helps children develop communication skills, recognize letters, and improve finger dexterity. For children under 2 years old, you can provide them with a toy phone. You can read out phone numbers while guiding them to press the phone's buttons to dial.

You can simulate the sound of a phone ringing with a "ring ring" sound, and then guide your child to pick up the phone and say, "Hello, I’m listening." Over time, you can encourage your child to dial the number first. When your child turns 3 or older, you can let them use a real phone to call distant relatives. You can teach them the number's layout, and slowly read the digits so they can press the corresponding buttons. This game is highly enjoyable for children and helps them recognize numbers more easily.

Once you notice your child can firmly hold an object, it’s time to get them a set of colored pencils to spark their creativity. Additionally, you can provide them with a blank notebook where they can start drawing. You can guide their hand to draw simple lines. Through this activity, your child will create drawings with their fingers. Seeing the lines, colors, and shapes on paper will excite them, stimulating their imagination and creativity in every artwork. Try using your own creativity to guess what your child is drawing. Be sure to praise them with words of encouragement, a kiss, or a round of applause.

Children are naturally drawn to bright and vivid colors. That’s why many intellectual games for kids focus on colors. With a drawing activity on paper, parents can give their child a sheet of paper and some colorful pens, letting them freely express their imagination. Parents can also suggest familiar themes to draw, like family, flowers, animals, or toys. Always encourage your child, even if the drawings are just scribbles, as it helps foster their thinking, creativity, and understanding of the world. Drawing on paper enhances their observational skills and ability to identify distinct features of objects. Through this game, children develop a more active mindset, creative thinking, and a sense of perception.

Apart from the lessons in books, intellectual games for children can help them improve their observation, calculation, and thinking skills. Therefore, smart games for kids are crucial for their brain development. You can use various games to stimulate children's intelligence, such as identifying the body parts of their own body. This game can be played anytime, anywhere, and with any child, whether a boy or a girl, right?

In this game, you can play with the child, guiding them to explore the organs on their body like the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hands, and legs. You might ask, "Where are your eyes?" This type of question will help the child distinguish these parts and learn their names. For a child, understanding that their body has two symmetrical sides—right and left—is challenging. Each child will discover which side they prefer, which means using one hand over the other in a similar action to feel more comfortable. This will enhance the child's understanding of their own body parts and the potential abilities within them.

This game is ideal for children aged 12 months and older. It stimulates their intelligence in a fun way. Choose small objects that your child is familiar with, like a ball, a spoon, or a teddy bear, and place them in a basket. Let your child see the object you want them to find, then put it in the basket and ask them to retrieve it. This game helps with memory development. If your child starts to get frustrated from not finding the object, show it to them immediately to avoid stress or irritability. Additionally, this game helps build patience in your child.

Finding the Way in the Maze is a game designed to improve problem-solving skills, patience, and observation. It not only enhances intellectual development but also fosters various other abilities. Parents can print a maze for their child and give them a colored pencil and an eraser to trace or correct the path. Depending on the maze, parents can set challenges to engage the child, such as: 'Help the caterpillar find its way home.' To keep the child motivated, consider rewarding them with a small gift after completing the task.

Among all the games that promote intellectual growth in children, shape sorting is one of the best for teaching math concepts, thanks to the different sizes and shapes. Using shape sorting games will introduce your child to basic concepts of size and shape, helping them easily classify objects. The game is simple: parents arrange wooden blocks in order from smallest to largest or vice versa, and then teach the child to distinguish which one is bigger. You can explain why one is bigger and ask your child if they can recognize the difference.

Once the child grasps the concept of size, you can guide them in sorting shapes based on their form (square, circle, triangle, etc.), which will help the child recognize images better. Set aside some time each day for this activity, and your child will gradually acquire basic mathematical concepts. For this game, parents can prepare colorful paper shapes and let their child freely explore their imagination and intelligence to create various patterns.

Paper tearing is a popular game overseas and many parents in Vietnam are familiar with it. However, few are able to fully utilize the benefits it offers when playing with their child. This game is not only cost-effective, but also helps improve a child's dexterity. By combining harmonious colors, it can also improve memory when done correctly. However, when playing the paper tearing game, remind your child to tear the paper and glue it according to their preferences and imagination, and to avoid discarding or chewing the paper.

Games that stimulate creativity, such as cardboard boxes, are also excellent suggestions for intellectual development games that parents should not overlook. With cardboard boxes, parents can help their child create various toys in different shapes, such as houses or animals. This game not only stimulates creativity but also strengthens the bond between parent and child. Moreover, making toys from cardboard requires patience and attention to detail, so in addition to intellectual development, it helps children cultivate meticulousness and perseverance.

Loto is a game that offers numerous benefits for brain development, cognitive thinking, and also contributes to a child's overall speech development. It directly impacts reinforcing knowledge and enhancing the child's awareness. Loto for kids consists of images of objects, food, animals, and people, with the rules being as flexible as the parents' imagination. For example: Prepare pictures of insects from books, magazines, or printouts from the Internet. Allow your child to observe the entire picture, then let them focus on the small pictures and comment on each one (you can let your child comment). Place the small pictures face down. Pick one picture and ask if it matches the larger picture. This game helps children develop quick observation skills, focus, analysis, and color differentiation, as well as logical thinking.

The Loto game is believed to have originated from the Western game of Bingo. It emerged in the 16th century. The 1980s were considered the golden era for Loto, with many Loto troupes being formed. During the New Year, Loto performances were quite popular in many provinces, especially in rural areas. Although Loto is not as popular today, it remains a beloved game for many people. The Loto game not only serves as entertainment and a mental relaxation activity but also strengthens the emotional bonds of teams and families. This is a perfect suggestion for family fun during the New Year. Nowadays, many Loto game sets use a spinning cage and numbered balls instead of traditional tokens and cloth bags, offering players even more engaging experiences.

This is an exercise for the quick-thinking skills of little architects. Prepare 4 counting sticks and arrange them into a square shape on the table. Let your child help you arrange the sticks. Then, double the number of sticks and let your child create a square shape with 8 sticks. You can give hints by arranging 1 or 2 sides of the square. For the rest, let your child do it independently. You can repeat this game by creating other shapes, such as triangles, parallelograms, or two squares. With counting sticks, children can build a variety of shapes on the table together with parents.

Shape building games are always a great choice when making toys for children because they significantly contribute to the child's development. Shape-building activities help children improve their memory, imagination, perseverance, and focus. They also enhance observation skills, shape recognition, stimulate brain development, creativity, and positively affect children's learning processes. Surely, all parents wish their children watch less TV, use iPads less, and stop staring at computer or phone screens, but this can be quite difficult. So, parents should try this shape-building game. All you need are some counting sticks and creative drawings, and children of any age will absolutely love it.

This is a game that develops logic and imagination for children. Prepare pictures of trees and their fruits, such as apples, custard apples, bananas, etc. First, show the child the pictures of the trees. Then, place the fruits in a bag. Ask the child to pull out the fruits from the bag based on your descriptions. For example, you might say: "Which tree does the round, red fruit belong to?" – "The apple tree." Keep asking your child about all the fruits in the bag. If your child is not tired and wants to continue, you can place the fruits in the wrong spots on the tree and ask the child to place them correctly. Remember to praise your child when they do it right. You can also create fruit shapes with your child and say the names of the fruits as you go. The child will remember the fruit names as they arrange them.

Additionally, you can tell stories to your child, which will stimulate brain development. This is quite different from just listening to stories or looking at picture books. Playing storytelling games with your child requires them to pay attention and stay focused for extended periods. This greatly aids in developing their memory, helping them follow characters in the story and anticipate the events that will unfold. Storytelling also helps improve language skills, vocabulary, and confidence. Therefore, parents should connect with their child and express things clearly. For children aged 6 and above, this will help develop independent thinking and self-confidence.