Thinkin' Things: Galactic Brain Benders
© 1999 Riverdeep, Inc.
Formerly called Thinkin' Things Collection 3, this program features the same problem sets housed within new graphics. Like the original, it's a terrific CD, offering unlimited opportunity for creative exploration and logical thinking. The six activities are both fun and challenging. Kids plan and execute "half-time" shows by programming marching bands and using their powers of logic to make successful trades in a global stock exchange. There's an onscreen physics lab where children can manipulate balls, ramps and grooves to experiment with gravity, friction and motion. Deductive reasoning is emphasized in a game where kids must place aliens in appropriate craters based on their attributes. In other activities, creativity is emphasized. For instance, there's a photo manipulation area where kids can use 22 special effects to create outrageous images. Each of the activities have both open-ended and goal directed components, and "grow-slides" automatically adjust the difficulty level. An Internet component expands the problem sets with new challenges weekly. Our testers thoroughly enjoyed the program and especially liked "fooling around" with all the onscreen manipulatives and experiments. They barely realized they were learning to analyze, synthesize, predict and deduce! Kids liked the automatically adjusting difficulty levels and the silly Fripple characters. Sometimes the puzzles get pretty tricky requiring some adult assistance. Overall, though, we highly recommend the software to both homes and schools, as a means of enhancing children's creativity and logical thinking abilities.
$29.95, Win 95, 98; Mac OS (CD-ROM)
Teaches: logic, science, math, programming, creativity