What's Missing There?

What's missing there is a fun memory game to practice observation, memory skills and improve attention span. We used to play this game back in school as part of school game competitions. It is played by placing a few items on a table and let children memorize them. Once they are ready then they are asked to close their eyes before taking one or two items. When they open their eyes, they need to tell the missing item.

As kids grow up and head towards school age, the importance of learning through playing increases. Through games and playing, children can nurture their imagination, improve their ability to listen, as well as develop important cognitive skills that will aid their future development. And memory games such as What's Missing are a vital part of this.

Everyone has played some kind of memory game at some point. Whether that’s spot the difference, simple pairing games using playing cards, or even doing a crossword. They all require the players to use their memory to complete the game. And in doing so, users are developing their key skills.

Playing memory games can improve other brain functions, such as attention, concentration, and focus. Memory games give space to critical thinking and help children nurture their attention to detail.

Memory games can improve visual recognition. With many memory games based on spotting differences, or linking two related images, children improve their visual discrimination. This will lead to an acceleration in distinguishing images from one and another.

Short-term memory is key to playing memory games and playing them often will improve function in this area. A good short-term memory can improve a person's long-term memory too. Both are linked and being able to move things from your short-term memory into long-term will improve learning in other areas.

To play this game with kids at home, place a few items fruits, crayons, pens, toys or anything you find on a table one by one while saying the item name. Once finish placing all the items, ask them to close their eyes and then remove one item and hide it behind. Then they must identify the missing item. Start with 3 items and increase the items depending on how they playing. Give points based on how many turns they take to remember the missing item.

As specified earlier there are a lot of benefits for kids to play memory games. Specifically, with What's Missing Game kids could improve


- Attention span or a concentration span is a child's ability to give undivided attention to a specific task. Kids now a days lack these skills due to numerous amounts of distractions from screens. During a school day, children need to concentrate repeatedly on different tasks, in an environment that can be very overstimulating for some. Monitor your child’s concentration span during their preschool years and make sure it is increasing slowly with time. School will become extremely difficult and exhausting for a child who struggles to focus.

- Auditory memory is one aspect of auditory perception. It involves being able to remember what is heard and recall it later.

- Sequence memory is an ability to remember the order of the items and recall them later.

- Visual memory is only one aspect of visual perception and is the ability to remember what is seen. Visual perception involves understanding what you see. When you see something, your eyes send signals to your brain, which then needs to unravel and understand what is sent. The other parts of visual perception are Visual discrimination, Sequential memory, Visual comprehension, Perception of shapes, Depth perception, Figure-ground perception, Visual analysis and synthesis, Visual closure.