Methods for curriculum-based life skill education for soft contained play centers. Embodiments include providing a curriculum defining a plurality of predefined aspects of a life skill and having an associated set of athletic games, wherein success in playing each athletic game is predetermined to be linked to exhibiting one or more aspects of the particular life skill defined by the curriculum; observing a child play the associated set of athletic games in a soft contained play center; and providing a completion award for exhibiting all the aspects of the particular life skill defined by the curriculum while playing the set of athletic games associated with the curriculum.