-->

Children learn through play. As an occupational therapist who works with children and youth, I use games and toys almost every day to help develop important cognitive, visual perceptual, motor, sensory, social, play and leisure skills. While many different types of activities can be used in therapy, this blog focuses on off-the-shelf games and toys that are accessible to most. Whether you are a therapist, parent, teacher, or a game lover like me, I hope you discover something useful while you are here. Learn a different way to play a game you already own or discover a new game for your next family game night. Either way, just go play. It's good for you!

The OT Magazine named The Playful Otter one of the Top 5 Pediatric OT Blogs.


Feb 11, 2019

Fantasto

Match the peg size to the hole size.


After doing a little research, I found that Fantasto means fantasy. Selecta is a brand of games manufactured in Germany. Since the vast majority of my games are purchased second hand, I usually don't go looking for anything in particular. It's just whatever I happen to run across. Thus, Fantasto. I always like to find games by Selecta or Haba, because I've come to know those names are synonymous with quality. They often contain wooden pieces and are usually expensive on Amazon, maybe in part because they're imported. Another cool thing about them is that the instructions usually come in many languages (eight for this game). It's interesting to compare them and see how they're similar and different across languages.

There are three picture boards in the game. Each board measures 7" x 7". They are made of wood with some type of decal on the front that covers the whole board (see image), and a shiny coating over that. There are six holes of different sizes cut out of each picture that will match the sizes of the tokens.

There are six different sizes of tokens (the round pieces that fit into the holes in the boards - I would call them pegs), and three tokens of each size. There are six different colors and all tokens of one size are the same color. The die has one color per side.


Object:
Be the first person to fill in all six spaces on your board.

Set up:
Give each person one board. Put all the pieces in the bag.

Play: 
  • Game without die
    • Players take turns putting their hand into the bag and, without sight, pulling out one piece. If they need it they put it on their board. If they don't need it they put it back into the bag and their turn is over. Play until someone fills their board.
  • Game with die
    • Players take turns throwing the die, then attempt to draw one piece out of the bag of that color, without sight. If you need it, keep it, if you don't, put it back. Seems to me you could see if you are going to need that color, after throwing the die, and without pulling a piece out of the bag. 
Try this:
  • Play with the pieces ahead of time, looking at the different sizes and fitting them into the holes. Talk about how the biggest piece is red and the smallest piece is orange, trying to focus on size and color.
  • Skip the game. Just work to fit each piece into a correct sized hole. 
  • Skip the game. Put either just the six necessary pieces or additional pieces into the bag. Try to pull out only one of each color and fill one board. Continue until you have filled all three boards.
  • Call the color you expect to pull out of the bag before drawing a piece out.
  • Place a board in front of the individual. Starting with the biggest piece and then working down in size, one by one, give the individual the pieces to place. If you go from biggest to smallest, there will only be one place each time that the piece will fit.
  • Work on visual discrimination, tactile discrimination, manual dexterity, fine motor, size comparisons, process skills, executive functioning skills, socialization skills, play and leisure exploration and participation
  •  
  • In the box: 3 picture boards, 18 tokens, 1 color die, 1 little pouch

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment.