My Secret Circle Giveaway Winner
Thank you to all who entered the contest. The winner is Michele Dortch of Integrated Mother. Please email me your address as soon as possible. Thanks again!
JumpStart Your Child’s Interest in Learning
As a homeschooling mom, I am often looking for educational aids that my daughter will find interesting and will give her me the opportunity to track her progress. I was recently given the opportunity to review JumpStart Virtual World, an online and CD-based 3-D gaming world children ages 3-10, created by Knowledge Adventurewho is known for the award winning JumpStart and Master Blaster series of educational games.
There are currently two worlds which provide different games and activities in reading, writing, critical skills, math, and art. StoryLand, for preschoolers offers children the opportunity to designs their own homes, read-along with stories and play games like Concentration (which encourages memory), sorting items based on letters, shapes, and colors, arranging items based on size, and completing various puzzles.
While JumpStart has been in beta since December 2008, there are many additions to it’s world. Adventure Land, for children ages 5-8, includes a number of new games in which “kids are invited to explore a mysterious lost island off the coast of JumpStart.” On the island, children will have to survives missions and explore a number of mysterious discoveries using a combinations of speed, logic, and problem-solving to outsmart the villains determined to thwart their attempts at success. And there is so much more to the world. There are arcade games, music and videos, fun slides, space games and more.
So what do I think of the game? It’s amazing. The online worlds and the the cd-based games offer numerous opportunities for parents to engage their children in learning. It is proof the learning does not have to be tedious and stressful. My only complaint is that my daughter, 3, has a difficult time using the mouse to play the games on her… Continue reading
The First Ever Mom on the Rise/Kristina Reviews Giveaway
Hey, wanna win a copy of your very own Mia-Reading: The Bugaboo Bugs? All you have to do is leave a comment here telling me why you love reading and I will then randomly choose a winner and KUTOKA will send you a copy of this game free of charge.
You are allowed 1 entry only, however, if you post a link to this contest on your blog AND a link to the review below you will be eligible for 2 more entries. Good Luck and Have Fun!!!! Contest ends June 11, 2008.
Product Review: The Bugaboo Bugs
I am always interested in games that promote literacy skills. Mia-Reading: The Bugaboo Bugs is a great computer adventure game focused on helping your child develop his/her reading skills. The game is made by Kutoka, an innovative company that strives to provide children with a fun and exciting ways to learn math and reading. As a teacher it is great to see that there are some good computer games for children. I am absolutely sick of the shoot-em-up games that are thrown in our faces on a daily basis.
Kutoka lists this game as appropriate for ages 5-9. However, I would have to say that children even younger can benefit from it’s easy to follow story and simplistic activities when accompanied by an adult and used on the least-advanced setting. After all, it is never to early to begin teaching your child computer skills and what better way to do so than using an educational game that practices sight-words, phonics, comprehension, and following directions.
My biggest complaint about the Mia-Reading: The Bugaboo Bugs game is that it is a memory and resources hog. I have a Powerbook G4 (Mac) and the game does not run well on my computer. I had to use it on my work computer (a Windows PC) because my home computer did not have enough available resources. That fact that it is so graphically-dependent also explains the somewhat long installation time and the fact that my computer did freeze while trying to start-up the game. On the positive side, the game is compatible with both Macs and PCs.