I Spy School Days - PC/Mac

Description

Product Description Help Clifford's owner handle all her chores before the Big Red Dog's birthday party! / Ages 4-8 Review Inspired by the "I Spy" series of books, this collection of nine activities combines the trademark I-Spy rhyming riddles with collections of small photographs of objects, animals and other things to create brain teasers that exercise problem solving skills, word play and creativity. Though a little like a one-punchline story, these visually rich games range from Oops Hoops, where kids sort different objects according to types, to Woodblock City, where kids search for items mentioned in riddles in a scrollable woodblock urban center. Graphics are intriguing, a real delight just to look at, especially in the Find Me activity which is wonderfully illustrated with a chalkboard cluttered with drawings, pictures, objects and words. The Nature game uses a magnifying glass to scour for hidden objects, and the challenging Make Your Own I Spy lets kids choose from more than 200 objects and mix them in with their own riddles. Scenes tend to be busy enough to make the search eventful, but redundancy here makes the law of diminishing return applicable-especially to the older end of the age range. A 2000 Parents' Choice® Silver Honor.Reviewed by Don Oldenburg, Parents' Choice® 2000 -- From Parents' Choice®Kids love pouring over the photo collages in search of each hidden object in this new I Spy CD, derived from Jean Marzallo's enjoyable book, I Spy School Days. Like the others in the series, the transition to CD-ROM is a nice one. There are still seven types of puzzles to solve, each one containing all-new object and word searches. Some games ask kids to find the objects in a riddle, for instance "I spy a pretzel, some beans in a hand, Red corn, eight candles, a BUS TRIP planned," with each riddle read aloud. The objects in question are colorful and interesting, and the search pages are plentiful, with fresh riddles each time kids play. The other puzzles are challenging and fun, keeping kids engaged. There's a Balloon Popper game in which children find the missing piece that sets a "Rube Goldberg" type contraption in motion. One puzzle has kids sorting objects into progressively harder Venn diagrams and another has them finding pictures to break secret codes. Testers favorite is still the "Make-Your-Own" I Spy activity where players create collages of objects and then write their own riddles for friends to solve, even recording their own voices if they wish. These can be saved, or printed for use away from the computer. While this may sound like just a lot of fun and games, there are many opportunities for learning. Vocabulary is reinforced and there are several chances for children to use listening and problem solving skills. This CD is even more responsive than previous versions, letting players interrupt the narration. Our testers thoroughly enjoyed the program, and their parents and teachers commented that it gets kids thinking and having fun at the same time.Teaches: reading, logic, classification, visual memory, matching Age Range: 5-8 -- From Children's Software Revue® -- "Subscribe Now!"