Planning and reasoning games for kids

Planning and reasoning mean thinking ahead and finding the rule — working out the order of steps for a Lego build, packing a bag so everything fits, or spotting the pattern in a row of shapes.

In Fruit Tower your child moves fruit between baskets to match a goal in as few moves as possible. In What Comes Next? they find the piece that completes a pattern. Puzzles get longer and trickier as your child succeeds.

What the research says

Simons and colleagues (2016) found that brain-training practice reliably improves the trained puzzles and similar ones, but there is little evidence it raises general reasoning, IQ or school results.

Diamond and Ling (2016) reached a similar view for executive functions in children. So these games are a fun way to practise puzzle solving — and puzzles, board games and real planning at home count just as much.

Sources:

• Simons et al. (2016), Psychological Science in the Public Interest: do brain-training programs work?
• Diamond & Ling (2016), Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: what improves executive functions

Try it at home, off-screen

• Plan the route for a walk on a map before you go.
• Write a checklist and pack your school bag from it.
• Make a pattern with buttons or beads for someone else to continue.