School Furniture Blog

Worthington Direct has all the top school furniture brands to create a top notch computer lab for your school or learning center.  Whether for playing educational video games or teaching students how to program their own video games, visit www.WorthingtonDirect.com today for 10% off select technology tables.

After a summer of fun and games, it can be tough to get your kids ready for school. But no need to force your little ones to part with the video games yet: Brain-building titles can give your kids a kick start for the new school year.

Sure, educational games are probably about as popular with your kids as cleaning their rooms. But there are a few games for the handheld Sony PSP and Nintendo DS systems that are so fun, your kids won’t even realize they’re learning. And with price tags ranging from $20 to $30, they’re easy on your wallet, too.

Midway’s “Hot Brain” ($29.99) is an exclusive PSP title sure to spark the back-to-school fire in many kids. This rated-E game tests their brains in logic, mathematics, concentration, memory and language. Kids can challenge themselves, or play against up to three players head-to-head via a wireless connection. Only have one PSP? No problem. My son and I take turns seeing who can top the other. I almost always lose.

Do your kids have problems with memory? Help is here — in the form of a rapping cartoon dog. Sony’s “PaRappa the Rapper” pushes your child to remember sequences and timing of various lights and sounds — sort of like that old tabletop game “Simon.” If players are successful, they hear a rap and advance to the next level. If not, they’re given another try. Players that reach the final level are rewarded with an alternate ending and a bonus song. This is a memory workout as well as a musical experience. Rated E for everyone, this game retails for $29.99. continue reading

Children don’t often yell in excitement when they are let into class, but as the doors opened to the upper level of the gym at South Middle School here one recent Monday, the assembled students let out a chorus of shrieks. In they rushed, past the Ping-Pong table, past the balance beams and the wrestling mats stacked unused. They sprinted past the ghosts of Gym Class Past toward two TV sets looming over square plastic mats on the floor.  Whether mobile or locking, schools can get TV carts of all kinds from Worthington Direct, www.worthingtondirect.com. 

In less than a minute a dozen seventh graders were dancing in furiously kinetic union to the thumps of a techno song called “Speed Over Beethoven.” Bill Hines, a physical education teacher at the school for 27 years, shook his head a little, smiled and said, “I’ll tell you one thing: they don’t run in here like that for basketball.” It is a scene being repeated across the country as schools deploy the blood-pumping video game Dance Dance Revolution as the latest weapon in the nation’s battle against the epidemic of childhood obesity.

While traditional video games are often criticized for contributing to the expanding waistlines of the nation’s children, at least several hundred schools in at least 10 states are now using Dance Dance Revolution, or D.D.R., as a regular part of their physical education curriculum. Based on current plans, more than 1,500 schools are expected to be using the game by the end of the decade.

Born nine years ago in the arcades of Japan, D.D.R. has become a small craze among a generation of young Americans who appear less enamored of traditional team sports than their parents were and more amenable to the personal pursuits enabled by modern technology. Incorporating D.D.R. into gym class is part of a general shift in physical education, with school districts de-emphasizing traditional sports in favor of less competitive activities. “Traditionally, physical education was about team sports and was very skills oriented,” said Chad Fenwick, who oversees physical education for the Los Angeles Unified School District, where about 40 schools now use Dance Dance Revolution. “What you’re seeing is a move toward activities where you don’t need to be so great at catching and throwing and things like that, so we can appeal to a wider range of kids.”

A basic D.D.R. system, including a television and game console, can be had for less than $500, but most schools that use the game choose to spend from $70 to $800 each for more robust mats, rather than rip apart the relatively flimsy versions meant for home use. In a study last year, researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found that children playing Dance Dance Revolution expended significantly more energy than children watching television and playing traditional video games. West Virginia, which ranks among the nation’s leaders in obesity, diabetes and hypertension, has sponsored its own study and has taken the lead in deploying the game, which requires players to dance in ever more complicated and strenuous patterns in time with electronic dance music. continue reading