Summer Fun That Helps Your Child’s Development
It’s almost summer! Which leaves most parents wondering what to do with their kids for three months. This is the perfect time to work on visual skills with your kids.
Some important visual skills include visual tracking, depth perception, peripheral vision, eye focusing, visual memory, convergence, saccades, and more. All of which we work on here at Brighter Outlook Vision. Visual skills are important for everyday functions such as reading, math, sports, and various hobbies. Not only are these fun activities that your child will enjoy, but they’re educationally beneficial as well!
Always remember to wear sunglasses when you’re outside to protect your eyes from ultraviolet rays from the sun.
Here are 10 fun outdoor activities to do with your children to improve their vision/visual skills. Children who spend time outdoors are significantly less likely to have myopia (nearsighted)!
1. Play catch.
Play catch outdoors with your child to strengthen their depth perception. Depth perception is the ability to see things in 3D, their size, and how far away they are, as well as improving hand-eye coordination.
2. Set up an obstacle course.
An obstacle course helps your child develop space coordination and perception.
3. Play mini golf.
Mini golf helps your child not only focus on the ball, but also to adjust their eyes to various distances (accommodation). Accommodation is the eye’s ability to focus to see objects clearly at different distances.
4. Take a hike or walk outside.
This allows your child to point out things that are near and far.
5. Pop bubbles.
Blow bubbles and encourage your child to pop/catch the bubbles to work on visual tracking. Visual tracking is the ability to move your eyes up and down and left and right, focus on a moving object, and switch focus from one object to another. Visual tracking is crucial when reading to not skip words and helps with understanding.
6. Play with water balloons.
Make a target and have your child throw the water balloon from short and long distances to work on hand-eye coordination. Hand-eye coordination is the motor control of eye movement with hand movement, a multisensory integration.
7. Make a scavenger hunt.
Set up a scavenger hunt in your backyard as a way for your child to work on visual memory, visual matching, and scanning skills.
8. Play make believe outside.
Are you a knight guarding a castle? Maybe an adventurer or paleontologist? Studies have shown that more time outdoors protects people from myopia.
9. Go bird watching.
Finding birds in the trees amongst leaves and flowers takes visual attention. Visual attention is the ability to focus on important visual information and filter out unimportant background visual information.
10. Walk on the beach.
Look for shells or rocks and compare the likeness and differences in them (visual discrimination). More variations include lining things up in size order or finding matching objects.
Bonus tip:
Book an eye exam! Eye exams should be part of your annual exam list. Summer is the perfect time so your kids don’t miss school, especially if they are struggling with school or there is concern they may have a learning problem.
