Cognition
Week 65
Our brains have the capacity to focus while we do various things
Cognitive skills, or cognitive abilities, are the ways that your brain remembers, reasons, holds attention, solves problems, thinks, reads, and learns. Logic and reasoning skills help you solve problems and generate ideas. This cognitive ability is part of the preciousness of our humanity. God has endowed us with the ability to think logically well beyond any animal. There is a huge gulf between our cognition and that of animals. Animals mostly live by instinct and inborn behaviors.
Point to emphasize
We can focus our attention while we do various things.
Sample content and conversation with children
[Before the meeting: Ask parents to have on hand some beads or cheerios, fruit loops, pasta, and a string, yarn, shoelace or pipe cleaner for a threading activity.]
- We have been discovering how God made us so differently than the animals. Now we will discover that God made us with a marvelous brain that is so far above any animal’s brain.
- Today we are going to see that we can focus our attention while we are doing many of the things we do every day.
- We asked your parents to have some beads or cheerios, fruit loops, pasta, and a string, yarn, shoelace or pipe cleaner. We will do a threading activity together using what you have on hand. [See sample pictures #1-3 to have an idea of what the children will do. Children can do any combination depending on what materials you have at home.] Let’s see how you do this. You all look so focused! [Let the children continue threading for 2 or 3 minutes. If the children in your group are older, to make the activity more challenging, you can direct them to thread following a specific pattern. For example, do cheerio-macaroni-cheerio or red-red-purple-red-red-purple. While they are working, encourage them and point out what a great job they are doing because they are concentrating.] You have been threading the Cheerios a few minutes already! You have focused on this while you were working on it! God created us with a brain that can concentrate on one thing for a long period of time!
- What other things do we concentrate on? [Lead the children to discover that they focus when they are drawing, brushing teeth, playing with a ball, etc.] Let’s look at some pictures and see how they focus. [If in-person, you may use the items to demonstrate how we focus while we use them]:
- [Show picture #4.] What is this child doing? See, he is really concentrating on putting this puzzle together.
- [Show picture #5.] What is this child doing? Yes. When you brush your teeth, you also need to pay attention so that you clean your teeth properly.
- [Show picture #6.] What are these children doing? Are they paying attention to how they are building the tower? Right now they are only building a tower. But, what else can you build with these blocks? [Lead the children to tell you schools, buildings, farms, spaceships, bridges, etc.]
- Look at this swallow building a nest! [Show video #1. If playing continuously, seconds 20-50 are best.] A swallow can only concentrate when doing only a few things like building a nest. Many other animals are like this. They do this by instinct. It knows how by birth. One bird does not show another bird how it is done. All the swallows build the same kind of nests, every time. But we have the ability to pay attention when we are doing so many things!
- I am so happy God gave us a brain that can concentrate while we are doing things!
Songs
Oh, I’m just too young to drive a car
Suggested activities
For Zoom meetings:
- Copy Cat: One person does something like winking or jumping on one foot and everyone else must watch and then copy it.
- What’s Missing?: You can line up 5 items and have the children look at them briefly. Then turn off the camera and remove one of the items. See if the children can remember what’s missing.
For in-person meetings:
Musical chairs: Arrange chairs in a circle with the seats facing outwards. Play children meetings songs or have someone sing/play an instrument and have the children walk around the chairs. When the music stops, everyone must immediately sit in a chair. The one child left standing is out. Remove another chair and continue until one child is left.
Videos
#1: Swallow building a nest
(https://www.youtube.com/embed/hmFkYh8DcEY?rel=0)
Pictures
#1: Threading Cherrios
#2: Threading beads or dry pasta
#3: Threading colored cereal following a pattern
#4: Child making a puzzle
#5: Brushing teeth
#6: Building blocks
