Smart Steps Kindergarten
© 1999 DK Multimedia
This is a series of separate grade based CDs, beginning with kindergarten and ending at grade five. We had a chance to play with the first three— Kindergarten, 1st Grade and 2nd Grade, each lightly covering subjects like reading, math, logic, art and music. The format for each CD is the same. Scattered throughout a playroom of objects are activities like puzzle blocks, electronic storybooks, simple coloring books and sequencing activities. Kids will also find some straightforward practice with reading skills like letter and word identification and math skills such as addition and subtraction. The program's strengths include its colorful graphics, the fun puzzle blocks game (in the Kindergarten CD) and the handy menu bar that can easily be turned on or off. Parents also appreciated the record keeping feature that displays how much each activity is played. Figuring out which objects led to the activities was tricky. Kids had to do a great deal of exploring before finding the games. The overzealous narrator was sometimes tough to interrupt and occasionally overdid his job with too many prompts. While some levels of content are built into the reading and math activities, levels for the puzzles and other activities were absent— these would have kept the game play interesting. The coloring books were lacking in features, only letting kids fill the pages with color. The electronic storybooks were also rather primitive without interactive components like animated clickables, highlighted words and other ways to participate in the story. While some of the activities found in each CD are strong, on the whole the programs seem pieced together without strong underlying content or theme. We hope that the 3rd, 4th and 5th Grade CDs will be better.
$19.95, Win 95, 98; Mac OS (CD-ROM)
Teaches: reading, math facts, logic, art, music