Flying Colors v. 2.11
© 2001 Magic Mouse Productions
One of our favorite products, Flying Colors, has been re-released, which is good news for everyone. The content remains the same in this new version; compatibility issues were resolved and additional language options (Japanese, Swedish, Netherlands) were added. For a knock-your-socks-off creativity experience, you can't beat this draw and paint program. This version has over 30 art tools, 250 colors and gradients and an absolutely amazing array of over 3100 stamps. The stamps include categories like animals, people, foods and dinosaurs and can be placed either on a blank drawing screen, or on one of over 100 backgrounds. Neat stamp sets let kids assemble dino skeletons or create their own cars, planes and boats. Our testers' favorite was a set of construction stamps that let them design and build houses and other structures piece by piece. While all these tools and options take some time to learn, the program is fairly easy to use. Narrated lessons and demo projects speed the learning process along. The special features built in to this product make it a standout next to competition like Kid Pix Studio. The program can be set to four skill levels ranging from Preschool to Advanced. When Preschool is activated, any click of the mouse or tap on the keyboard makes something happen onscreen. Background scenes include maps of the 50 states– great for school projects– and game boards for playing checkers, chess, etc. Pictures can be easily printed or saved as bitmap (BMP) images but GIF and JPG formats are not supported.
$29, Win, Mac, Win XP
Teaches: creativity, art, drawing and painting