Child Development

All family members, even newborns can enjoy and learn from playing Goof Balls. Although the benefits to infant development is more obvious once babies are mobile, even the youngest babies can enjoy being part of the game. Baby will enjoy watching adults and children make noise, laugh and move around while playing. As babies grow older here are some specific ways that Goof Balls encourages skills development.

Visual Tracking

Visual tracking is the ability to follow an object with your eyes. Although young babies have poor eyesight, older babies and toddlers will develop better visual tracking skills by watching the colourful pom poms flying by. As babies begin to crawl after or chase the pom poms it will encourage them to watch where the pom poms are landing.

Fine Motor Skills

Interacting with the pom pom pieces will help develop many aspects of fine motor skills for infants. Our pom poms are the perfect size for babies to hold with their palm while leaving the thumb and fore fingers free to manipulate other objects. This is called separation of the sides of the hand which is a precursor skill to using scissors, using a zipper and holding a pencil. Our pom poms are also ideal for babies to work on other find motor skills including pincer grasp, in-hand manipulation, finger isolation and hand-eye coordination.

Gross Motor Skills

Playing Goof Balls will encourage the Finklestien players to improve their gross motor skills as well. During the game many pom poms will be tossed all over the place, making a wonderful little hunt for babies learning to get around. Finding pom poms on the floor and under furniture helps little ones explore and motivates them to build those gross locomotive skills.

Toddlers can continue to play as Finklestein as long as they are enjoying it. During this time they will continue to develop their visual tracking and fine and gross motor skills as described above in the Infant Skill Development section. Once they are ready to play the game in a more structured way they can start playing as The Shadow. Here are some developmental skills they will learn while playing as The Shadow.

Strategy and Cognitive Skills

The Shadow role is a great way to get kids beginning to strategize without having too many constraints on them. These young players don't need to worry about beating the tossers and the tossers don't need to let the young players win. At first kids will place their pom poms randomly on the bubble board, but as they gain experience with the game from the reactions of other players, they will begin to strategize where to place their pieces. This starting of strategic thinking will stimulate children's cognitive capacity and improve their attention and concentration.

Manipulative Skills (Throwing)

Shadow players will often begin by placing their pom poms on the bubble board, but as they master that skill they will be able to move on to practicing their throwing skills. Although throwing seems like an isolated skill on its own it actually benefits children in many aspects. Throwing is important for developing integrated movement (using your whole body to preform a task), hand-eye coordination, learning about gravity & properties of objects (how objects behave when they land on surfaces), bilateral skills (coordinating both sides of the body), and, visual perception & control (gauging distance and power needed).

Social Skills

Learning to navigate life with others is hard, especially for toddlers and preschoolers. Playing as The Shadow will help children ease into the roles and responsibilities needed to play social and cooperative games. As The Shadow players will have to start following a few rules like taking turns and only touching their pieces. These are important first steps in learning how to cooperate and collaborate with others.

Strategy Skills

Playing Goof Balls is a great introduction into basic strategy for younger children. In the game they will need to be able to plan their next moves to get points for themselves or to block their opponent. They will also learn to adjust their tossing strategy based on where their pom poms land. The strategy is simple enough that even young children can participate, but the game is unpredictable enough to stay interesting for older players as well.

Growth Mindset

Goof Balls is an excellent mix of strategy and skill. Many games appeal to children either for the interesting strategies or because they require physical skills. Children can begin to tend towards one type of game that suits their strengths because that is where they feel successful. However, Goof Balls encourage development in both strategy and physical ability, helping children expand their skill set. The game also has enough of a random factor that even very skilled players will make mistakes and have bad shots often. This will help children build resilience and perseverance, another integral part of building a growth mindset.

Social Skills

Cooperation and collaboration skills are important for children to develop to be successful. Goof Balls will help develop these important social skills in subtle and more deliberate ways. Pom poms will often go astray and players will benefit by passing the pom poms back to their opponents. This is especially true if there is a Finklestein wandering around in search of pom poms to take. Children will quickly learn that if they return their opponents pom poms their opponent is more likely to return theirs as well. If there are four players you can also play in teams of 2 which gives kids the opportunity to work collaboratively with their partner while also getting to make their own shots. This is a helpful introduction to cooperative play for young players.

STEAM

STEAM stand for Science Technology Engineering Arts Mathematics. The intention of STEAM learning is to inspire curiosity encouraging using questions to solve real-world problems. With the catapult upgrade children are using and building important STEAM skills. As opposed to being provided the catapult, the kids get to build it themselves with easy to follow instructions. Kids also have access to an educational video helping them learn and explore the physics concepts related to catapults. Children should be encouraged to make modifications and improvements to their catapults to build their problem solving skills.

Playing with Baby

As a parent it is difficult to find time to play entertaining games for yourself. Trying to play a complex board game with a baby or toddler around is a mess waiting to happen. We all know what's going to happen as soon as the kiddo gets ahold of the board game and sends pieces flying everywhere. But with Goof Balls that can't happen because "messing up" the game is part of the fun. Parents can now relax while they get to play with their baby!

No Holding Back

It's always a tricky balance when playing with kids. You don't want to crush their spirit by beating them, but you don't want to let them win all the time either. Also it's not very entertaining to have to pull your punches so to speak. Luckily with Goof Balls there is so much unpredictability with which way the pom poms will bounce even when you're trying your hardest your kid may still beat you. So go ahead and try your best and when your 5 year old beats you remember to show them how to lose gracefully ;-)

Fun for all Ages

Adults of every age can enjoy Goof Balls, so make sure to include Grandma or Grandpa too. It's wonderful for grandparents to get to play with their grandkids and creates great memories for everyone. The Grandparent bonus is that they can play in comfort on the couch while the kids crawl around and getting the pom poms for them that rolled under the couch.