Squigly's Games for Kids

On day one of my class on Gaming and Media Design for learning my teacher challenged us to find some educational games simply by going to a search engine. I went to Google and typed in “Interactive Games for Kids” and ended up with numerous websites that offer games for all ages. As a PE teacher, my objective is to find educational health and physical activity games that I could use in my classroom. I started by clicking on a website that is called “Squigly’s Playhouse” with tons of games for kids. I initially wasn’t sure I would find many games that could be considered educational although there were hundreds of games offered just on this one website. I checked out a few of the sports games and was somewhat right in my initial opinion and somewhat wrong. The first game I played was called “Just a Volley” which I hoped would have some educational aspects related to our unit on striking or to rules involved in actual games of volleyball. The computer completely destroyed me in the game. The score was 15+ to 0 which just put me to shame. My parents did not buy us video games when we were kids and I haven’t played more than a handful in my life. Although this game was addicting, it unfortunately did not have much educational value. I would like to see the game at least stick to true volleyball scoring rules or limit each player to hitting the ball just once in order to get it over the net. I was not impressed with this game and will not use it in my classroom. The second game I played was called “Putt It In.” This game was a simulation game of miniature golf. There were a few aspects of this game that I liked. First, even as a complete novice in gaming I was able to do pretty well in this game using my knowledge of the angles that are required for making successful putts. It required coordination and strategy by being sensitive to the amount of power used and angle needed for putting the ball. I might have my students play this game during our Striking with Long Handled Implements Unit. We work on putting and often are limited with the types of obstacles we can create in the gym. I think this game would be good practice for my students in the cognitive aspects of putting in golf. I’m pleasantly surprised that I found a game that I could use with my students! http://www.squiglysplayhouse.com/Games/index.html (This game is copyrighted 2008-2011 by Barb Willner.)