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08/08/2004 |
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My First CD-ROM Toddler School Fun for even the youngest of children
Aimed at ages 1½ to 3, from the moment it started it held our testers attention. It opens with some great music and Zac the jack in the box waving at you. Our tester loved this and waved back. You’re then given the option of six activities. Pop and Peek is a guess and learn game. Each object is covered by a balloon and you have to click on the balloon to pop it. The easier levels have just one balloon but the later levels have lots of balloons. After you have uncovered each item it comes to life. Our two year old tester’s attention was held for over an hour with this. It teaches them new words and associates each word with an object. Partners and Pairs involves matching related items such as buckets and spades so is really more suited to the older end of the target audience. On the other hand, Song and Dance had universal appeal. It features a dancing springy dog toy and a choice of 6 nursery rhymes to sing along to. Our testers absolutely loved this and we played it over and over again.
Who's There involves clicking on a door then Zac asks who is behind the door. You have to guess by the sound before clicking to see what is there. This is great as a flash-card game although we didn’t like the use of a dog and wolf. We think most children under 4 would not understand the difference. There was also a little too much repetition such as a cow followed by another cow. A similar game was Picture Show where you click on a big red button to make an animal or object appear with a voice over telling you what it is. Our two year old tester watched the screen with great interest for about 30 minutes and started trying to say some of the items so very fast results there. Each activity also had a printables section and variable skill levels that affected the controls as well as difficulty. A minor irritation was that you couldn’t use the mouse until any talking or animation had finished which may frustrate. Apart from that though this is a fantastic title. If you only buy your toddler one CD-ROM, make it this one.
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