Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #396 in Software
• Brand: Avanquest Software
• Released on: 2000-06-07
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95

Manufacturer's Description
Part of the Play & Learn mini-series, this disk is designed to encourage and entertain children aged 3 to 5. Packed with fun activities, animated games, colours, shapes and sounds that help develop key literacy and numeracy skills. The program's special child friendly interface enables children to use it without adult supervision.

Customer Reviews

A brilliant and fun package!
As a primary teacher and a parent, I felt I had to write a review for this package.

As with all Dorling Kindersley products it is exceptionally well presented. The sound effects and animations on the program help to make the learning process fun and help maintain the user's interest.

Pupils find the software easy to access and are able to navigate around the programme successfully with little teacher/parental guidance. Only limited IT skills are required.

The software makes use of a number of important literacy and numeracy skills and is aimed at children aged 5 - 7(Key Stage 1) although parts of the software can easily be used in the top year of Early Years (Reception). The material is grouped into eight categories, as laid out in the opening screen: · Counting · Calculating · Reading · Spelling · Thinking · Memorising · Matching · Creating

The choice of categories is well thought out and highly appropriate to the children in the age group for which the software has been written.

Each category branches out into 3 different activities. The content and difficulty of the questions depends upon the level which is selected.

At any stage of the programme, the user may pass onto the next window or return to the previous window by using the bicycles, cars or aeroplanes in the bottom right and left hand corners of the screen.

The software stimulates counting and simple calculations, reading and writing, memory recognition, logical and lateral thinking and creativity. From experience, some of the reading and spelling activities are quite advanced - but I use this package very successfully with children in Reception and Key Stage 1. Younger children are able to access the number, logic and creativity topics on the CD at an earlier stage in their development than the literacy categories.

The main disadvantages of the software are the inability for the teacher/parent to view the success rate of a child when using the program because correct answers are not recorded. Teachers/parents are also unable to view the categories which a child has visited in a session.

Excellent value and doesn't talk down to users
This really appealed to both my boy/girl twins,just turned 4. It has a very low irritation factor - no silly characters popping up and shouting "well done". Instead, completion of each task is rewarded by a humorous graphic. It is easy for a child to find its way from the menu to the desired game so they can play relatively unsupervised. There is a lot of clicking,holding and dragging (eg to put puzzle pieces in place)so might be hard for the twos and young threes. I would also add that our seven year old loves a couple of the games and even the 10 year old has been caught playing with it.

Delivers what it says on the box.
... The CD is easy to run and doesn't need installing on our PC (OS Windows 98 SE). The graphics are of real objects and not cartoons which is really refreshing after the Reader Rabbit and Disney Interactive CD's we have. The sound quality too is excellent and the vocabulary is precise and clear. More to the point, my 5 year old daughter absolutely loves all the activities she has encountered so far and she remains concentrated for over an hour! This is a very impressive piece of software that delivers what it says on the box.