So, I am always amazed at what good enrollers kids are. They do it naturally. Yes, we have our agenda that we want to get through to them however their agenda always manages to sneak in as well. For instance, I use a lot of different motivation techniques, especially for my 5-7 year olds and as a result I now find myself hooked on Smurf Village and Zombie Takeover (not from my choosing but because its what works with our kids). As if I didn’t have enough to do on my ‘off’ hours, I am now monitoring Zombies and Smurfs because if I didn’t the kids would notice. For instance, I walked into the clinic today and the first question out of my 7 year old kiddo’s mouth was ‘Did you get the Zombie Cheerleader yet?’. We also have intense discussions about what crops we should plant on the Smurf Village based on time left in the session. I know these sound like silly games but they are amazingly motivating for the kids. You’d be amazed at what a child will do in order to harvest the next crop or feed a zombie.
In addition to being motivating for the kids it also works on finger isolation and precision for pointing. They get to learn limits (they are not allowed to spend Smurf Berries) and we can talk about do we want to earn more XP’s to get to a higher level faster or more coins to be able to add things to the village. In addition we work on standing balance, cross body reaching while having them tap on the screen, and visual attention while doing gross motor tasks to name a few. They also get to talk about strategy in terms of what is most important to do first and prioritize on each game, its great to see their reasoning skills.
I am sure there are a ton of other games out there like these although I don’t know if I want to know about them because I don’t think I can handle overseeing another set of creatures on a daily basis – my Smurfs and Zombies are keeping my hands full!