Teachers can use Hopster Saturday Club: Empathy as a starting point for a unit on empathy, but they’ll want to extend what their kids do with the app. For example, when children collect and identify new emotions in a matching game, talk about when they experienced that emotion. Discuss what other situations make someone feel that way. Educators can then introduce strategies for controlling strong emotions such as anger and fear, and ask learners how they deal with strong emotions. Kids can also role-play to drill deeper and practice strategy. For educators to use the diary feature, each student should have their own device. Collect emotions for a week and listen to how their emotions changed (or didn’t change) during the week.
Emotions are introduced superficially, but there is enough variety of emotions and activities to make Hopster Saturday Club: Empathy an interesting option to start a discussion about emotions. A silly and highly emotional character exhibits a relatively balanced collection of emotions, from happy to angry, focused, excited, and grumpy. Each of the 15 emotions included is represented by 4 different letters to help children recognize how similar emoting traits are across different people. However, it’s not always easy to confidently identify emotions in these simple cartoon drawings. Matching games are great because they not only engage children in recognizing and naming emotions, but also exploring situations in which someone feels that emotion. It is up to the teacher to introduce strategies for self-regulation.
Diaries are an easy way for kids to express and track their emotions, but options are limited to the 15 choices included. The simplest and most disappointing game is the face making game for children. For example, it would be nice if children had more control over possible expressions and could label and document what they created. Hopstar Saturday Club: Empathy can stand on its own, but when used to spark conversations about emotions, it’s most likely a learning resource.
Website: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1457196744?uo=4&at=10laCG&ct=website
User’s overall consensus about the app
student involvement
The cartoon faces and silly scenarios are very kid-friendly. Some of the activities are repetitive, but daily diary entries give children room to mix it up.
Curriculum and instruction
Children work on identifying emotions and matching them to appropriate facial expressions. You can also practice expressing your emotions in your daily diary.
customer support
Since there is no text, the game is accessible to pre-readers. Children can collect emotions, track them in a diary, and revisit them. Teachers must bridge learning to off-screen scenarios.
