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Learning Ladder Pack: Ages 5-8 (Learning Ladder Years 1&2, Learning Ladder Year 3)

Dorling Kindersley
I Spy Spooky Mansion Deluxe

Focus Multimedia Ltd

I spy... Discover a collection of intriguing picture riddles and games while locked inside a dark, mysterious house. Reveal hundreds of hidden objects and thrilling secrets as you uncover three different and surprising ways out. Decode a puzzling message, make your own ghosts, unveil a secret room, and more! Develops a wide range of skills: Problem Solving, Reading, Rhyming, Visual Memory, Logic & Reasoning, Vocabulary. Discover more challenges in I SPYTM Treasure Hunt and I SPYTM School Days. Based on the award-winning and best-selling book, I SPYTM Spooky Night, text by Jean Marzollo, photographs by Walter Wick. PC Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista, Mac 8.6-9.2.2, OS X 10.1.2. Ages 5 to 10.
REVIVAL: LEGO Racers

Focus Multimedia Ltd
Reader Rabbit Junior

Avanquest Software
Bob the Builder: Castle Adventure

BBC Multimedia

Based on the ever popular TV series, Bob the Builder: Castle Adventure sees Bob and friends take a trip to a medieval castle where they embark on a series of fun activities and games. Taking its theme from the Knights of Can a Lot feature-length film, it has you and your child guiding Bob, Lofty, Wendy, Spud and all your favourite characters through 10 activities. Starting at the Gatehouse, there are four castle sections. These offer maze games, moat games, castle wall games and dungeon games. There are also clips from the film included in the software. You get to hear the voices of Neil Morrissey, Richard Briers and Brenda Blethyn throughout.
The interface is child friendly, being colourful, clean and easy to follow. The software is developed in line with the National Curriculum Foundation Stage, with three different skill levels to cover a range of ages and abilities from three years upwards. To start the game you set up a player and have the opportunity to choose a shield. This enables you to have several players using the software without uncovering bonuses, or completing activities and therefore spoiling surprises for a particular child. The games themselves are straightforward, with clear instructions, but good fun. You can replay as many times as you like and when you have completed a task you earn a star. When all tasks are completed you unlock some additional activities. You can also print out a certificate for your child to say that they have helped Bob fix the castle. Nice job, Bob! --Heather Wilson
BBC Balamory

BBC Multimedia

What's the story in Balamory? Invite your kids to join Miss Hooly, Pocket & Sweet, PC Plum, Archie, Spencer and Edie Mcredie in virtual Balamory and they will learn as they play. Based on the popular BBC TV children's programme, the BBC Balamory CD-ROM opens with the colourful introductory song viewers know so well. Children are then presented with a variety of games to test basic pre-school and early years skills.
For younger children (3-4 years) the favourite will no doubt be Josie Jump's Hide and Seek game, where they must find Josie in a field of people, then click on her to make her jump. Equally rewarding for the smallest players is Spencer's Colour Challenge, where youngsters use basic mouse skills and number recognition to match colours with areas of the drawing--a kind of virtual colour by numbers.
All players will love Edie's Delivery Dilemma, which involves Pac-Man-like gameplay as youngsters work against the clock, using the arrow keys to direct Edie's bus around the town and picking up fruit dropped by the delivery van so that Pocket & Sweet can sell it in their shop. PC Plum Investigates asks children to sort through the evidence that is all mixed up on the policeman's desk, so he can sort out his cases--tasks such as "click on the things that are the same colour as the sea" make this game accessible to most players.
Slightly older children, (4-6 years) might like to try Archie's Word Wonder, where they must fill in the missing letters on words so that Archie's Word Machine can produce words for Miss Hooly's stories. The only criticism here is that words are sounded out by name only, and not phonetically, but otherwise this is a fun, testing game. Children of school age will also enjoy Pocket & Sweet's Shopping Spree--a fun shopping game that involves helping Penny and Susie put together all their orders, then adding up the cost at the end. If players tire at any point, they can take a break with one of six Miss Hooly stories.
The production quality is superb: colours are bright and images crisp and the clips from the show run perfectly. Each game is introduced and narrated by the corresponding character from the show, with original voiceovers, and the games are fun, educational and pitched perfectly at the target age-range. There are three difficulty levels for each task, to avoid frustration and aid development. Help is on offer on every screen, and children as young as three or four years old, who possess basic mouse skills, will be able to play the easier games unaided, and the others with assistance. Instructions are read out and printed on-screen, so children can follow as they listen, thus developing valuable reading skills. Great thought has obviously gone into matching characters with tasks, and the variety of games played and skills tested makes this a fantastic all-round package. --Lucie Naylor
DK Explorer Pack - Includes World, Human Body, History, Science & British Isles Explorer

Dorling Kindersley
Favourites Bob the Builder Can we Fix It?

BBC Multimedia

Can We Fix It?. Of course we can, and with this BBC software package little builders will be better equipped than ever!. Featuring the chirpy Bob and his mechanical multitude of talented friends, this fun package is a mixture of educational encouragement and pure out-and-out fun.
Once loaded, you are invited to move the cursor around Wendy's office to select your tasks: hover over the phone, and it rings with a plumbing job; go near the fax, and a job comes in for Roley. Keep moving around, and you will find enough jobs to keep little fingers and minds busy for hours.
In "Hedgehog Rescue", the aim is firstly to help Lofty the Crane build a tunnel to save the scared hedgehogs from crossing the road. Children must match pipe shapes to tunnel shapes, and construct the route. The next, more difficult game, involves Wendy herding the hedgehogs into the tunnel--easier than it sounds, since one particularly persistent hedgehog seems unwilling to go.
In "Travis' Race Day", choose between Scoop or Dizzy to a head-to-head around an obstacle-strewn track. Guide your challenger by mouse or arrow keys--again, not as easy as it sounds, and a great developmental aid for hand-to-eye co-ordination.
"Can We Build It?" involves knocking down an unsafe bridge, then using colour recognition to match the bricks to rebuild it. Roley needs a hand with unruly tarmac in "Bubble Trouble", when you must guide him over the bubbles to even out the road. And in "Scary Spud", you must move Spud around the screen to scare off the crows. But the crowning glory is "Wendy's Birthday", where guests first decorate her cake then join in the fun line dancing. Also included on each game is "Where's Pilchard?", a hide-and-seek game for the shy, blue cat.
Accompanied throughout by Neil Morrisey's narration and the superb music from the TV show, (also now a CD single), this package builds on many elementary educational skills to make little builders into fully fledged Bobs. And while it is not that quick to load (missing plug-ins are provided, but it may take some time) it is well worth the wait.
Testers of around two years old found this package fun and evocative of their favourite TV character, though they did require constant supervision and most of the games were beyond mastering. This is a superb educational aid and lots of fun. (Suitable for ages 2 to 6).--Lucie Naylor
REVIVAL: LEGO Island

Focus Multimedia Ltd
REVIVAL: LEGO Creator

Focus Multimedia Ltd

At first acquaintance, the basic "gaming environment" wherein LEGO Creator's players build their virtual bikes, choppers, cranes and so on, and direct their dinky, cutesy, usually pre-built minifigures, seems a little bit odd and unsettling--even bleak. Bleak enough to confirm the prejudices of parents and others who would consider computerised LEGO a travesty of the hands-on, real-world ethos of the original construction game.
However, after a while, the cleverness of this CD ROM comes to the fore. In the virtual LEGO Creator world you don't just build things and then take them apart; you can make them fly at the touch of a button, give them apposite or ludicrous sounds, change their colour with a single mouse-click, even blow them up (flamboyantly) using the special DESTRUCTA bricks.
You're then able to pilot your figures and vehicles through the very world you have created, guided by an integral LEGO Creator Wizard--who is a bit like a permanently untiring, mega-brainy parent. All in all then, a rather fine and intelligent toy, albeit not one for the very young, or very active, or very easily dismayed. -- Sean Thomas
Reader Rabbit Maths 4-6 years

Avanquest Software
Favourites Teletubbies Favourite Games

BBC Multimedia

Crafted with brilliant colours and the lazy-summer-day pace of the celebrated series, Teletubbies 2: Favourite Games delivers the goods for the toddler set. From the first scene, where the baby-face sun rises across the computer screen, kids will be entranced. Parents will like it too--mostly for the developmental skills the teletubbies teach.
The CD-ROM is based around five games, including "Tuning In," "Gymnastic," and "Making Tubby Custard" (which features appropriately silly sound effects). "Hide and Peep" takes the traditional hide and seek game and adds bright red curtains. "Roly Poly" was a particular favourite; when you click on a teletubby it sends Laa-Laa, Tinky Winky, Dipsy, and Po rolling down gorgeous green hills.
A very big pointer triggers the game's actions, and children should be able to use it easily in developing computer skills. These games also help children to learn how to match (from the hiding game) and create ordered sequences (in the case of the custard game). In addition, the game designers have built in considerate additions for the recommended age group, two to four years old. For example, to quit the game parents need to hit the escape key--a good choice for little fingers that might otherwise click an exit icon by mistake. Charming and colourful--like the television show come to life--Teletubbies 2: Favourite Games will please and delight. --Simon Priestly
Zoombinis Island Odyssey

Avanquest Software
Reader Rabbit Maths 6-8 years

Avanquest Software
Zoombinis Maths Journey

Avanquest Software
Reader Rabbit Reading - Ages 4-6

Avanquest Software
Nancy Drew Secret Of The Old Clock (PC)

Her Interactive
Nancy Drew The Curse Of Blackmoor Manor (PC)

Her Interactive
Reader Rabbit Nursery

Avanquest Software
Learning Ladder Pack: 7-10 (Learning Ladder Year 3, Learning Ladder Year 5)

Dorling Kindersley