The Danish nursery, Børnehuset Taarnborg, has worked with WizeFloor for the last three years. The children ask for it as soon as the employees enter the nursery, and now the WizeFloor is only referred to as “The floor”.
The kids love the many different games. The floor is easy to operate and after a few minutes the kids are able to handle it themselves, and they can even create new games for the floor by a phone or iPad.
– Although this solution is a significant expense and requires space, it fully meets our requirements and expectations. We have had our WizeFloor for three years now, and we are still happy and we keep getting impressed. When I am in the media room, I can get an overview of the activities going on. Some days the children are allowed to choose activities. And one thing is for sure, WizeFloor is always in action. The children love the floor, says Kristina Juel Overgaard from Børnehuset Taarnborg. She is absolutely pleased with the investment they made in the interactive floor three years ago.
– We have good experience of making memory games and jigsaw puzzles with our own photos from excursions we have made. When a group in the house has been working on a topic, for example body parts, we bring out our skeleton, Lucy, and include her in both memory games, puzzles and balloon games, she explains.
AN INCLUSIVE TOOL
According to Kristina the floor is an excellent way of including the children. Many children may play on the floor at the same time, and when you ask in the right way if the child you want to be included in the community can join in, you always get a positive answer.
The games do not put high demands on the individual child, but if the teacher sets the framework for the group of children, the floor will be a excellent educational tool, which the children will love to play with. Another advantage is that it contains a lot of learning.
She also sees that children with challenges love the floor. They can relate to the games and to the well-defined framework.
THE CHILDREN CAN HANDLE THE GAMES
The kids are able to handle the WizeFloor themselves – start it, select the games etc. It only requires an adult to help decide, when it is time for the next group to play. Because it is hard to let go of the floor when it is someone else’s turn. The fact that the adult is mainly needed for timekeeping allows him to concentrate on other activities.
Games such as balloon games in different editions are very popular. Here the kids have created Pokémon, Frozen and Gangnam Style balloon games. The games can be based on popular music or themes that appeal to the children.
“The Pokémon balloon game is another way of catching Pokémons, it is very successful and you can hear shouts of joy when someone catches Pikachu, and the girls start singing while jumping on the balloons to the music from Frozen,” says Kristina.
The children can manage these games by themselves. The youngest children need support for some of the other games to begin with, but over time they get familiar with them. The good thing about the floor size is that it encourages the children to help each other. This often happens automatically without any involvement of the adults.
WizeFloor also enables us to include the local environment as we can create games with photos from the children’s neighbourhood, which they can identify with. In conclusion, WizeFloor is a splendid educational tool with many possibilities for activities, explains Kristina.
