Executive Function Development Activities for Children Aged 7-12

The activities below help school-aged children develop their brain's executive function and self-regulation skills. Consistently increasing the complexity of games and activities is essential for this age group.

Board Games

• Card Games: Games where children must track the cards in play enhance working memory, planning, and strategy development, boosting cognitive flexibility. For younger children, games that involve matching cards by suits or numbers are effective for testing cognitive flexibility.
• Strategy Games: Any game that requires strategic planning, remembering complex moves, anticipating future moves, and adjusting strategies is great for stimulating attention and quick decision-making skills. Chess is a classic example, as it enhances cognitive flexibility and working memory.
• Imaginative Role-Playing Games: Games like Minecraft and Dungeons & Dragons encourage children to remember complex information, such as rules, imaginative worlds, and how to use specific materials. These games enhance working memory, imagination, and strategic planning.

Physical Games

• Coordination Games: Games requiring attention to rules, self-control, quick decision-making, and adaptability, such as soccer, have been shown to improve executive functions.
• Jump Rope Games: These games demand working memory and focus. Kids enjoy jumping rope at this age, adding challenges to improve memory and coordination.
• Monitoring and Response Games: Games that require constant environmental monitoring and quick responses develop selective attention, self-control, and inhibition. For younger kids, hide-and-seek games in the dark can be fun, while older kids might enjoy activities like paintball.
Carefully selected video games can also enhance selective attention, control, and inhibition but should avoid violent themes and include reasonable time limits.
Music, Singing, and Dance
• Playing Instruments: Learning an instrument tests selective attention and self-control. Beyond developing physical skills, it requires working memory to remember melodies and coordination, especially when using both hands, which is beneficial for brain development.
• Group Singing: Singing in a choir or group helps build working memory, coordination, monitoring skills, and selective attention.
• Dancing: Dance offers many opportunities to practice attention, self-control, and working memory. Remembering choreography and coordinating with music develop these skills.
Puzzles
• Puzzles and Brain Teasers: Solving puzzles that require working memory and manipulation of information, such as crossword puzzles, develops cognitive flexibility. Crossword puzzles, which exist at various difficulty levels, help children practice manipulating letters and words in working memory. Classic spatial puzzles like the Rubik’s Cube demand cognitive flexibility and spatial awareness.

These activities are based on the publication by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.