Happy Stones

The applications are designed for the Motioncube interactive floors.

Interactive floor applications are controlled by body movement, by walking, running, jumping, touching and other forms of movement on the floor.

In addition, the applications have been adapted for interactive whiteboards and touch screens.

The Happy Stones application collection is designed to support the physical, social, cognitive and emotional development of a child in early childhood education. The app collection is intended for the organization of activities supporting the multidirectional activity of children, increasing the level of sensory integration and shaping the ability to use the developing cognitive processes.

The proposed exercises stimulate, in particular, visual analysis and synthesis on thematic and athematic content, the ability to categorize, memory and concentration, analog thinking and movement planning (gross motor skills). The games support the development of language skills and encourage children to take initiative and action, including those related to social activation, through the possibility of working in a group.

The applications included in the package are used for multidirectional activation: motor, auditory, linguistic and visual. They also encourage the observation and analysis of problems and the search for solutions. Including them in educational situations, in particular in revalidation classes, enables experimenting and gaining experience as well as polysensory cognition, stimulating the child's development in all areas: physical, emotional, social and cognitive.

The participant will be guided through a variety of exercises in the land of shapes, colours, patterns, and pictures of known objects from the simplest to more complex forms that will be able to interpret, i.e. recognize, distinguish, find symmetry, similarity.

The authors of the app collection tried to respond to the developmental needs of preschool and early school age children, focusing on supporting motor and sensory skills during organized, safe and motion games.

The Happy Stones package contains sixteen interactive applications supporting the child's multidirectional activity.

Among the applications, the following can be distinguished:

• logic puzzles involving matching pieces in a puzzle; looking for, pointing to or collecting needed items, choosing pairs of items, arranging the order objects in the sequence or completion of patterns and rhythms;
• memory games consisting in finding pairs of items;
• creative games consisting in painting, designing;
• movement games involving catching, moving objects;
• sound games involving playing the rhythm.

The exercises are based on athematic content: athematic pictures consisting of shape, colour, pattern, and thematic pictures of known objects like toys, cookies, animals, and sounds with simultaneous activation of body movement.

The applications in the Happy Stones package have been prepared with the different developmental needs of children and support in mind a teacher in the organization of safe exercises and movement games.

• Fun on the floor, in a large space.
• Movement interaction with the application on the interactive floor.
• Possibility to include a group of users in the exercises.
• Simultaneous motor, visual and auditory activation.
• Logical, rhythmic, pictorial and creative games.

Various levels of exercise difficulty, complexity

The applications differ slightly in the level of difficulty, and most of the exercises offer a choice of topics or degree of difficulty. Thanks to this, the exercise can be adapted to the individual needs of users.

• Differentiate the complexity of the exercises at the package level.
• Grading the difficulty of exercises within the application.

Interface Availability

• Bilingualism - commands and messages are available in Polish and English.
• The graphic representation of the difficulty levels of the exercises is conducive to the attractiveness, legibility, and facilitates the selection of the range.
• Exercises take place on the floor, a natural playground for children.
• Exercises are also available on monitors and touch screens.
• Simple communication with the application on the floor by means of movement - walking, running, jumping, rolling, hand movements.
• For users on four wheels, it is possible to interact with the application on the floor using long light pens.
• No imposed pattern of movements, freedom in the way of playing and solving the boards.
• Possibility to develop many scenarios of work with the application, compatible with the logic of the exercise.

Consistent application operation logic

• The exercise begins with a teacher's screen explaining the purpose of the exercise with the option to select the difficulty level, complexity. The set of tasks includes help for the teacher in the form of instructions and hints on how way you can work with your child using a given exercise.
• The second screen in the application is prepared for use by a child. Includes simple instructions - aimed at the young user a tip that he can read on his own or with the help of a tutor.
• The app communicates audibly and visually the correct solution while allowing the child to make mistakes no are particularly emphasized, they are simply part of the process of arriving at a solution.
• In creative applications, all solutions are correct, and games of this type are especially supportive thinking, encourage experimentation and taking action.
• After solving the board, the user sees a screen with congratulations and the choice to continue the exercise or return it application list.

Adapted exercise dynamics

• In the applications, the dynamics of exercises is adjusted to individual needs and possibilities. Most applications this the child and the teacher decide on the speed of the exercises and impose the dynamics of actions on the boards through the movement performed. In the case of classic movement games, a slightly slower pace of movement of elements was used on boards and a smaller number of them than in the standard versions of these games.
• After solving a task or series of tasks, the teacher or guardian may decide to introduce a short mini-game, having fun. Using the available applications in this or another package (eg Little Steps, Balls & Goals) can make suggestions a fun with a purely entertaining function that allows the user more freedom of action without imposing none requirements to be met.

Graphics - appetite for patterns and colours

• The simple shapes used, combined with patterns and colours, create an original graphic, but at the same time coherent and easy to interpret. Grading of difficulty at the level of visual / visual perception is obtained by appropriate selection of the size and number of elements on the board and a combination of colours and patterns - from simple forms to complex.
• The exercises are accompanied by a uniform background, without unnecessary distractors.
• The palette of colors used consists of a fixed set of colours, with the dominance of cold colours - blue, gray, green, purple, which are conducive to peace, tranquility and concentration, as well as muted warm colors.
• The visual forms selected in the collection mainly refer to real objects known to the child from everyday life - example of sweets, animals, toys or geometric shapes. This allows you to use names that are known, or is within the scope of the basic knowledge to be learned. This solution also makes it easier to understand the commands.