10 amazing brain-builders for kids

“During dramatic play, children must hold their own role and the roles of others in mind,” explains Adele Diamond, a professor of developmental cognitive neuroscience at the University of British Columbia.

How it helps: “[This] exercises their working memory. They have to stay in character, which helps with their inhibitory control. And they have to adjust to the twists and turns in the evolving plot, which requires them to think flexibly.”