Ballyland: A Fun Keyboarding Game for Early Desktop Learners
Keyboarding is the most essential skill that every parent must teach their kids. This skill will help them in long term. Teaching kids new skills isn't an easy task. It requires a fun way of teaching to engage them. Ballyland games will engage your kids to learn keyboarding. Here are few fun games like spacebar clicker games, listening skills developing games, and more. Go through the full article to learn more.
Ballyland Intro
Sonokids' apps and programs are based on the fictional world of Ballyland. Ballyland is inhabited by five familiar characters. The five characters are Ballicopter, Babballoony, Tinkleball, Squeaky, and Wheelie. Children enjoy the fun and familiar characters and are generally motivated to participate in digital learning activities.
Brief Recap of Ballyland Keyboarding
You can download the program from the Sonokids website (please see the resources section for the direct link). In addition to the full version, there is a free trial that opens three times and includes only the first two games in the full version. The review is based on the full version of the program.
As soon as you open the program, you will see a dialogue box asking if your keyboard has a number pad. Upon selecting the option applicable to your setup, you will be taken to the main screen where a song introducing the Ballylanders begins (you can skip the intro by pressing any key).
The main menu appears after the song ends. In this game, you'll be able to choose from eight games, each one focusing on a particular skill or keyboard key. In this article, we will discuss only the first three games on the menu.
Ballyland Games
Any Key Goes
With this game, the student hears a sound, sees a picture, and hears a voice telling them what the sound and picture mean. The keys are each assigned a distinctive sound, which reinforces the concept that every key serves a purpose despite a person's inability to read or spell the letters.
The teacher or parent can assist children in reinforcing concepts and lessons through a variety of activities in conjunction with this game. Memory games and sound associations are examples of such activities.
Spacebar Keygame
We'll explore another game called Spacebar Keygame next. Ballicopter hovers over tall grass in this game. A random sound plays when the player presses the spacebar (and only the spacebar).
The game controls are entirely dependent on the spacebar. Hence children need more spacebar clicking speed to score higher in this game. Spacebar test will help your kids to increase spacebar speed.
As the ballicopter lands on the duck, the Ballylanders cheer "hooray!" and instruct the player to "listen for the duck".” Whatever sound Ballicopter lands on, the player may continue the game until an adult exits the game by using the appropriate key command or clicking the "Quit" button on the bottom right of the screen.
Students will learn how to use the spacebar and locate it on a keyboard by playing this game. However, the game is flexible enough for a teacher or parent to work with a child on other skills while playing it, such as turn taking (when appropriate), sound identification, counting, or pretty much anything else they feel is relevant to the game.
Escape Key Game
The third and final game we will examine in detail is the Escape Key Game. A train stops at several stations in this game, and Babballoony rides it. Upon stopping the train, the player presses the escape key so that Babballoony can get off at a given station.
He disembarks to a short soundtrack that corresponds to the name of the station for 20-30 seconds, then gets back on the train and can get off again at another stop if the player so chooses.
Babballoony will not get off the train if the player does not press the escape key (and the escape key alone). It will continue to the next station if the player does not press the escape key.
Teachers or parents can pair the game with appropriate activities for the student, such as following directions or taking turns, as they did with the other two games.
Games Not Listed
The remaining three keys are the focus of five other games. With Tinkleball's game, you need to press Enter, while with Wheelie's you need to press the Right Arrow, and with Squeaky's you need to press the Left Arrow. Squeaky and Wheelie are included in another game that contains both Right Arrows and Left Arrows.
There is also a final game that ties everything together. In The Sun Game, players are asked to press the key associated with each Ballylander to help him or her get back into the basket for the end of the day. A nice song plays during the game, and when everyone is back in the basket, the screen dims and the song fades.
Configuration
Teachers and parents need to know it exists and what it does, but the program's settings are pretty self-explanatory.
Either click the "settings" button in the bottom corner of the screen or press Shift + S at any time to get to the settings.
The menu on that page lists the keyboard shortcuts an adult can use to facilitate the use of the game (the same keystrokes can be found on the website for Sonokids).
Additionally, there is a toggle switch at the top that turns on or off the program's self-voice.
A general impression
This may seem like a very simple program, and it is, but part of its appeal is that the teacher or parent can create all sorts of different games that reinforce not only the keyboarding skills they are working on but other skills as well.
In the Spacebar Keygame, if Ballicopter lands on a sound other than the duck, the adult can ask the child to perform another action (touch your nose for a cow, clap your hands for a dog, etc). You can add these extra little games to keep the child entertained while waiting or you can continue to play the game.
A student with low vision can quite likely enjoy the animations, at least to some extent, even if some games are more visually complex than others. Students with CVI will likely have some difficulty understanding the more complex visuals, but this does not prevent them from enjoying the opportunity to process what is happening before reacting.
For some students, the visuals are too stimulating. In this case, the monitor can be disengaged so that the child is only exposed to the sounds (assuming the monitor doesn't have built-in speakers). As a result, he or she may be able to streamline their focus and focus on listening without visual distractions.
A game called Any Key Goes could be implemented in future versions by developers. The sound played when you press a key might be fun to associate with the letter the key represents. Assign the toothbrushing sound to the letter T, or the airplane sound to the letter A. I know it's just a simple thought, but the game works just fine as-is and has many uses on its own.
One idea that might be fun and interesting for consumers is to connect a switch to the PC and assign a keyboard key to it. Students with special needs can play the game and get the same fun feedback as other students. The author has not personally explored this idea, but it is certainly worth exploring.
It is an excellent program that can be used with children with special needs or even children without special needs. An activity like this promotes inclusion across environments and allows kids to bond over a shared experience.