How Does Your Brain Control Your Body?

This week your child learned about the brain’s role in receiving information from the senses, processing that information, and then controlling the body's muscles to enable movement. We played a game in which we tested our reflexes. The fact that our reflexes always have a slight delay helped your child to see that there are real pathways (nerves) on which messages from the brain have to travel.

One thing you can do to support your child’s curiosity is to play a round of the “reflex” game together at home. All you need is a ruler or cooking spoon—ask your child to explain the rules of the game to you. Ask your child about the “dollar bill” challenge too! As you play these games, there's an opportunity for a great discussion about how the brain requires time to send a message to your fingers.