Cognition
Week 70
The human brain can solve complicated problems and generate solutions
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 solve problems.
Sample content and conversation with children
- We have been discovering how God made us so differently than the animals. Today we will discover that God made us with a marvelous brain that is so far above any animal’s brain. Our brain was made in such a wonderful way that we can solve problems. When there is a problem or if something is wrong, we are able to stop and think and come up with a way to fix the problem.
- You can choose a few of the following scenes and activities to highlight how the children are able to problem solve:
- [Show picture #1, or if in person, you can spill some milk/ on the floor] What happened here? [Let the children discuss what happened] If this happened at your home, what would you do? [Let the children talk and try to find ways to fix the problem~ e.g. call mom, get a paper towel and clean it up, etc.]
- [Show picture #2] Look at this little one. What does it want to do? [Let the children discuss what the little one wants] How is he going to get the ball? What would you do? [Examples of answers- get the ball and hand it over the safety gate to the child, the little one could stand up holding the ball and bring it to the top of the safety gate.]
- [Show picture #3? What can we do so we can play but not wake up the baby with our noise? [Let the children discuss various solutions – go outside to play, stay in the shade outside and play with toys, color, find a book, or play with playdough.]
- [Present the following situation while holding a ball] Let’s say you all want to play with this ball but there are # of you and only one ball. What can you do? [Let the children discuss what they could do – e.g. take turns playing with the ball, play a game that can involve all the children and one ball, they can take turns kicking it to one another, etc.]
- [Show Picture #4] What animal is this? [Let the children answer] Crows are very smart animals, and they can solve simple problems. What is this crow doing? [Let the children discuss what they see~ the crow is trying to get food. It is using a stick to get to its food] Crows can solve simple problems, but they don’t spend a lot of time sitting and thinking about what they could do. They just do what they can to get to their food or to protect themselves. They might be able to find ways to get their food but they will never solve problems like we did today. God did not create any animal like us! We can figure out so many kinds of problems. The smartest animal can only figure out little things.
- God has made us in such a wonderful way that we have the ability to think things through and solve problems more than any animal ever could.
Suggested activity
[Show picture #5.Provide the children with a crumpled piece of paper and put down two lines of masking tape on either side. Ask the children to move the crumpled piece of paper out of the lines without using your hands. Let the children try different things and talk about what they’re doing~ e.g. use your foot or elbow or head to move it, blowing it, etc.]
Songs
Wonderf’lly, Wonderf’lly
Would You Like to Thank the Lord
Pictures
#1: Spilled milk
#2: Child reaching for ball
#3: Sleeping baby
#4: Crow trying to get food
#5: Crumpled paper and masking tape
