Friday Post - The Playroom

The Playroom is a game from the '80s by a company called Broderbund. We played it a lot when I was a kid, and I still have the disks. I used it to teach my daughter how to use a mouse. My daughter couldn't draw well at the time (we weren't worried or anything, as she was on track for her age). She wasn't looking where she was putting the crayon before she starts scribbling. She wasn't going slowly. But she really wanted to draw letters.  She would draw the first two lines for an A, then stop because they weren't anywhere near each other, and then proceed to throw all of her crayons and yell.

I felt that if she had a bit of interaction, maybe she'd slow down a bit and be more careful.

The first bit of success we had was getting her to pop the balloon.  I would click on the drawer to let out a balloon, and then pass the mouse to her.  She would move the mouse around and try to make it touch the balloon, which would make it pop.

After two days of playing this game (a few minutes each day), she could move the mouse to any object and click on it.

There are a lot of mini games in the Playroom.  There's a spelling game where you find letters on the keyboard which doesn't require the mouse.  There's also a counting game that I would play with her, but that she can now play on her own.  Most games have varying levels of difficulty.

Some of the games like the storybook scene pictured here, and another game with a clock, are a little too advanced for us, but will be great in a year or two when her control of the mouse and her ability to understand time will have improved considerably.

It's worth noting that while my daughter has enjoyed this game immensely, and likes to be on the computer with me, she doesn't like to be abandoned at the computer, nor does she prefer computer time to books or puzzles.  So we haven't turned her into an addict or anything.

It's also worth noting that learning to use a mouse did have a pretty big effect on her drawing.  No, she still can't do an A.  But between the Playroom and the Toddler Fun app, she can now draw, not only a handful of simple letters, but also some blobby body shapes with a number of appendages sticking out of them.