JumpStart Advanced Preschool

$29.99, Win, Mac

Teaches: numbers, letters, sequencing, creativity, music, rhyming

CTR Review

This boppy new JumpStart program is one of four in the all new series (denoted by the word "Advanced" in the title). It consists of eight activities (several with three levels), a pretest option that automatically adjusts the game levels, and a new tutorial mode that explains concepts in different ways. Unfortunately, the game is flawed by too many instructions, hundreds of sugary reinforcements, and not enough opportunities for a child to control the action. After they sign in, children have the option of taking the pretest, with about 24 multiple-choice questions. Next, they are asked to select a pet to take care of. They then can earn treats for their pets by playing the eight games, which vary in quality. Bubble Pop is a letter recognition game where kids click on matching letters that float by. Balloon Animals is a counting game, but testers didn't always know where to drag their correct answers. The idea behind Music Maker is that children can mix and match different tracks of music, although preschoolers have no idea where to start. Magic Chalk is a letter/sound matching game, but it uses a "wait until the right letter is shown" method, which is confusing to preschoolers. Shape Tag is one of the strongest activities... kids click on moving shapes as fast as they can. Rhyme Time lets children match rhyming words, and Picture Perfect is about patterns, but doesn't let children make patterns in reverse order. The only open-ended activity, Animal Mask, is a fun creativity activity that lets children select different eyes, ears and outlines, and then color them and print them out. There's also a playroom where kids can listen to some great music, watch videos or entertain their pet with the rewards. For example, if kids win a brush, they can watch as the computer brushes their rabbit. Unfortunately, kids can't brush the rabbit themselves, which is a problem indicative of the whole program. It doesn't matter how cute the graphics are or how good the music is-- when you take away child control, you weaken the experience. There is also a Teacher Edition which runs on two computers.