Flexible Thinking Game Cards

Feb 13

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Use this playful movement-based activity to strengthen the skills needed for learning, social success, and emotional regulation. Try the Flexible Thinking Freeze Game: a dynamic, brain-building game designed to support executive functioning in a developmentally appropriate way.

What Is Flexible Thinking?

Flexible thinking is the ability to:

Adjust when plans change
Follow new directions
Switch strategies when something isn’t working
Stay regulated when the unexpected happens

These skills are essential for classroom success, peer relationships, and everyday problem-solving.

How the Game Works

Children move to music using different actions like animal walks, hopping, or tiptoeing. When the music stops, they “freeze.” But that’s just the beginning.

Throughout the game, we introduce rule-change cards such as:

Switch direction
Move in slow motion
Do the opposite
Mirror a friend
Add a second instruction

As rules change, children practice adapting in real time. This strengthens cognitive flexibility, impulse control, working memory, and social awareness, all while having fun.

What Skills Are We Targeting?

This activity supports:

Executive functioning
Inhibitory control (pause before acting)
Working memory (remembering multi-step directions)
Motor planning
Frustration tolerance
Social referencing and turn-taking

We also build in short regulation breaks to help children notice when their brain feels “stuck” and practice strategies to reset.

Why Movement Matters

Many children learn best when their bodies are involved. Movement activates attention systems in the brain and makes abstract concepts, like flexibility and self-control, concrete and accessible.

By embedding executive function training into play, we create meaningful learning that sticks.