Some of the tests that students can take in their quest to qualify for gifted services require spatial reasoning. I am frequently astounded by the performance of some students on these tests as they whip through the pages at lightning speed, ending up with nearly perfect scores. Spatial reasoning has never been my strong suit, and even the questions on tests for 6 year olds can make me go cross-eyed.
When you think about it, however, we don’t usually practice a lot of spatial reasoning during a typical school day. After all, aside from geometry and map skills, it’s not generally a part of state standardized tests. According to this article from MindShift, though, we should consider integrating more spatial reasoning into our curriculum.
What kinds of activities can we do to build spatial reasoning skills in school? Here are some suggestions in an article directed to parents from Parenting Science.
Programming and 3d design also require spatial reasoning. Creative building projects like you can find on PBS or on DIY.org are also great ways to practice this type of thinking.
Here are some of the blog posts that I’ve done in the past, recommending games and apps to develop spatial reasoning.
I tried some of these Zukei puzzles, and learned that I really need to work on this skill myself. If you think those are easy, then try the angle puzzles here.
Considering I have to use the Waze app to find my way out of a parking lot, I think I probably should spend a few hours a week sharpening my brain on these types of challenges (or just resort to online shopping for the rest of my life).
