Disney�s/Pixar�s Buzz Lightyear 1st Grade

$19.99, Win, Mac OS (CD-ROM)

Teaches: math, geography facts, spelling, creativity, telling time, music

CTR Review

Eight solid activities playfully reinforce typical first grade school content. The program starts with a view of Andy's room. By clicking on one of the toys, kids can launch one of the activities. Note that unlike similar programs such as JumpStart 1st Grade, there is no sign-in feature. Instead, each activity is designed to start at a very easy level, and then automatically increase in difficulty if correct answers are given. A major drawback to this is that a child must always start from scratch with each play. Also, there is no overall goal connecting the various activities. We suspect this was the reason some children lost interest sooner than expected.The main strength is in the activities, which quickly give kids a positive experience with some tricky concepts. A tester as young as five, for instance, was able to successfully add the green soldiers in Sarge's Math Maneuvers because of excellent visual clues. Other especially nice activities include Jessie's Time Teaser, a playful clock tutorial which works up to practice with quarter hours. Another creative game is Looking With Lenny, an "I Spy" type of game where Buzz Lightyear asks a child to search for a "green cone" or a "pile of coins that add up to 25�." Overall, there's a nice variety of things to do, and the Toy Story graphics and sounds are just amazing. For the reasonable price, this is an excellent way to let children try out a variety of school content.