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...Children's Fun & Learning

Jump Ahead Year 2 Reading, Maths, Geography & more

Focus Multimedia Ltd

This is a very comprehensive, excellent software program for children in year two, aged six to seven years, which supports the National Curriculum and covers reading, maths, geography, history, the solar system, art and music.
The activities are not classroom based, as in the case of many other CD-ROMs in this range, but they are built around adventures that begin when school ends. CJ the Frog and his friend Newton begin a journey to their secret clubhouse. Your child can develop maths skills (addition, subtraction, multiplication, money value, measuring and logic) while racing sharks and crossing dangerous rivers. Reading and comprehension skills are also covered, including spelling, parts of speech, nouns, verbs and adjectives, and the countries can be discovered while learning about the people and events in history. All activities are presented in a fun way and are offered at different levels with progress reports, assessments and a printable workbook included. There is also a pamphlet containing basic technical and installation information, which should be read before starting. --Susan Naylor
Bear & Penguin's Big Maths Adventure

Dorling Kindersley

Bear and Penguin's Big Maths Adventure is a fun and easy-to-use program designed to develop young children's addition and subtraction skills. This program would be excellent to use with 5-7 year olds.
There are five different games to choose from, all of them clearly explained so that children can develop their independence when using the computer. The games, which can be played at three different levels, have been carefully developed to practice the skills that children are learning as part of the numeracy hour in school. It is advised that the games are played in the numbered order so that there is a progression of skills development. The maths adventure involves, for example, filling in the missing numbers on the maths machine and painting a picture by answering addition and subtraction sums. After playing all of the games children are allowed to play the Super game which helps to consolidate the skills that they have been learning with mental arithmetic against the clock. Some more able children may find the maths a little easy, but for most children this would be an excellent way of developing and consolidating addition and subtraction to 20.
There is an excellent guide for parents which discusses the skills the games focus on. A range of very good worksheets can be printed out and used with children to consolidate the maths that they have been doing.
If children fancy a break from maths, there is also an excellent printing section where children can make their own stationary and create door signs, birthday cards, letterheads and invitations. This is a brilliant way to encourage children to write for a range of different purposes.
Bear and Penguin's Big Maths Adventure is another excellent Dorling Kindersley program and would be an excellent buy for parents or teachers to use with children aged 5-7 years. --Amanda York
Bear & Penguin's Big Reading Adventure

Dorling Kindersley

Bear and Penguin's Big Reading Adventure is another excellent program developed by Dorling Kindersley. It is aimed at children aged 5-7 years old and helps to develop a wide range of literacy skills through four fun games.
There are very clear instructions and each game is initially demonstrated, so children will quickly be able to develop confidence and independence. The games, which can be played at three different levels, have been carefully developed to practice the skills that children are learning as part of the literacy hour in school; for example, spelling words by choosing the missing sounds and putting words in the correct order to create a sentence. There are also two storybooks that children can choose to read together or alone. If children want a break from the games there is also an excellent printing section where children can make their own stationary and create lists, cards, writing paper and signs. This is a brilliant way to encourage children to write for a range of different purposes.
As children play the games they collect snowflakes and they are then rewarded with a sticker for their sticker album. When all the stickers have been collected they can print out a certificate and listen to the reward song.
There is an excellent guide for parents that discusses the skills the games are developing. The child profile shows parents how many times children have played each game and at what level and also suggests follow-on worksheets that can be printed out and used with children.
Bear and Penguin's Big Reading Adventure would be an excellent buy for parents or teachers to use with children aged 5-7 years. --Amanda York
Play and Learn: Reading & Counting

Dorling Kindersley

Early learning through play! Simple, fun, and effective games to help children read and count. 101 games to help your youngsterread and count including phonics, number, shapes and memory puzzles. Ages 3 to 5. Windows 95/98.
Jump Ahead Year 1 Reading & Maths

Focus Multimedia Ltd

Jump Ahead Year One supports the National Curriculum for five to six-year-olds. The CD-ROM is another excellent program by Focus Multimedia in their "Children" series, "a range of educational entertainment that not only keeps the little ones quiet, but teaches them essential core skills and tentatively introduces them into the realms of computing."
Franky the Dog has been enlisted to help in the classroom, making recipes, serving up lunch, among other fun activities, all of which teach basic maths skills (addition and subtraction, simple fractions, telling the time, money value and quantities); reading skills (stories and poems, reading comprehension, vocabulary, rhyme, language skills and visual discrimination); and art and music (creativity, music and memory, listening to songs on the jukebox, basic composition skills and listening skills). All these activities are presented in a fun way and offer opportunities at different levels with progress reports, assessments and a printable workbook. There is also a pamphlet containing basic technical and installation information, which should be read before starting. This is an updated version of the award-winning original and is well worth investing in as it will occupy and educate children effortlessly. --Susan Naylor
Learning Ladder: Year 3

Dorling Kindersley
Learning Ladder Year 4

Dorling Kindersley

Learning Ladder Year 4 is a fantastic CD-ROM aimed at Year 4 children. It is structured so that children listen to a lesson and then carry out exercises that help to consolidate the literacy and numeracy they are learning as part of the school curriculum.
Exercises can be done at five different levels of difficulty, so that children are challenged and continue to make progress. For every 400 points that a child scores, they are rewarded with new pictures to use with the printing machine. As they gather more pictures they can enjoy making their own cards, invitations and labels, which can be printed out.
Children can also have lots of fun navigating around Science City and learning lots of facts along the way. For example, they can have a go at the science quiz and find out about roots, leaves and flowers. The progress tracker clearly shows how each child is getting on with a system of green and red lights. This would quickly show parents where more help is needed. --Amanda York
Learning Ladder: Years 1 & 2

Dorling Kindersley
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
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
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
Play and Learn: Science Experiments

Dorling Kindersley

Play and Learn Reader Rabbit products are designed specifically to encourage your child's development. Since 1984 Reader Rabbit has helped more than 10 million children learn to reading, number and general skills. Includes multiple difficulty levels Tutor Technology with progress reporting. Windows 9x/ME/XP.
Play and Learn: Writing & Calculating

Dorling Kindersley
Art Attack Double Pack (Art Attack Original & Make It Double Pack)

Europress
Star Wars Episode 1: Yoda's Challenge

Lucas Learning

Young Jedis can explore an entire galaxy with this creative activity pack. Decidedly not another Star Wars arcade game, this software incorporates music, vocabulary, critical-thinking skills, geometry and map reading in six different activities with four different difficulty levels. When all the levels are completed, you can print out an official Yoda-endorsed certificate--Luke Skywalker never got this kind of reinforcement!
You can jam with the Cantina Band or create your own songs, all the while drumming with Jar Jar to outwit the battle droids. This program contains tricky tangrams; when they're complete, each picture turns into a real scene from Episode I. It's also possible to print your own illustrated stories in the process of programming C3PO's memory. With extraordinary graphics, great sound, and so many different puzzles and printables, all of these content-rich games are sure to delight and challenge the Padawan learners in your galaxy. --Jill Lightner
Disney Learning: Adventures in Typing with Timon & Pumbaa

Softkey

Gentle jungle murmurings overlaid with Robert Guillaume's gleeful voice give the solid, well-conceived typing program, Adventures in Typing with Timon & Pumbaa, an unusual degree of appeal and staying power. While the program will have your child smacking bugs, catching grubs and scampering away from dangerous enemies, children are actually practising the same fundamental skill-based keyboard activities as covered by such adult titles as Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.
Some terrific components of this program include shadows that display which finger should be used to hit each key, a timer that counts the seconds in each two-minute game and the blissful fact that hitting the space bar will fast-forward you past the opening and closing credits. The mysterious, leafy jungle setting is delightfully alive, yet you'll probably need to turn the brightness on your monitor way up to see all the vital buttons hidden in the dark corners of the scene. Be forewarned: to truly conquer touch-typing, you need to drive those keyboard strokes deep into the body's muscular memory. Endless repetition is the only proven method for this. That means that while this program boasts five unique activities (for example, Rafiki gives "lessons" while Timon and Pumbaa play "games"), it is all keyboard practice, again and again. Kids receive encouragement with an enticing visual environment, progress reports, certificates and frequent enthusiastic comments from Guillaume but it is ultimately going to fall upon the parents to see that their children continue with this when the going gets, well, boring. Don't expect your child to see this through without your support. Stay involved and they will. (Ages six to 10) --Jean Lenihan
Mr Men & Little Miss The Adventures of Mr Tickle

Avanquest Software

The Adventures of Mr Tickle is a point-and-click adventure and puzzle-solving game for children of 4-8 years, set in the Mr Men village where everything has somehow got completely mixed up, rather as if Mr Muddle had designed it. The trees are orange, the sky green, birds fly backwards, sheep fall asleep in trees, cows toot like car horns and horses quack like ducks.
The game opens with three characters in the square. Miss Somersault has a special spray can which can respray everything the right colour, Mr Noisy hoovers up all the sounds that have become trapped in the wrong animals and then redistributes them, while Miss Busy puts animals, trees and houses back in their correct places.
The three games are designed to teach kids some simple logical thinking about the colours of animals and objects, the sounds they make and their natural place in the village. There are other challenges too--for example, when Mr Noisy tries to help the bird that's sitting on the telephone wire, he's not tall enough and has to go into the phone box and call for help, picking the Mr Man that's going to be able to reach the bird (hint: it's probably not Mr Greedy).
The characterisation is lots of fun, the animation excellent and two levels of difficulty make it suitable for the target age group. It's also set in the same environment as The Adventures of Little Miss Scatterbrain and The Adventures of Mr Greedy and kids who've played one game will be able to navigate round the others more easily. --Rob Beattie
BBC Toybox Compendium

BBC Multimedia
Rainbow Fish Interactive Storybook

Dorling Kindersley

Bring the underwater adventures of Rainbow Fish to life on your PC with this wonderful interactive children's CD-ROM. With an assortment of charming characters and a huge variety of games, musical fun and activities children aged 3 to 7 years will be instantly spellbound.
Poor Rainbow Fish has had his scales stolen and only you can help. Solve the puzzles and complete the challenges to find the thieves and make him beautiful again. You'll meet friends along the way such as Head and Toe (the twin fish) and there are numerous games and activities to keep young minds entertained while teaching valuable skills such as recognition, problem solving, experimentation, logical thinking and creativity. A print shop lets you colour pictures on screen or print for later, and two difficulty levels make sure that younger children are able to join in the fun.
Easily installed, the simple interface ensures that navigation is a breeze (vital for younger PC users) and the help menu is available at all times. Use of the mouse and cursor will help develop computer skills and hand-eye coordination, and the print applications available will provide additional PC skills. With the educational benefits you would expect from Dorling Kindersley, Rainbow Fish will surely become a child's favourite. --Amber Harbour
Sabrina The Teenage Witch: Brat Attack

Vivendi Universal

Help your favourite teenage witch recover the Beanie of Ultimate Power in Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Brat Attack, a magical adventure game. It all starts with a package that should have been delivered to someone else. In it is the all-powerful propeller beanie, and Sabrina's cat, Salem, gets locked in a cage when her cousin Amanda decides she simply must have that hat. It's Sabrina's job to recover the cat and the hat from the Other Realm and defeat Amanda and her brat pack.
The "Labtop" contains all of Sabrina's spells, and throughout the game, you can store new magical ingredients and spells for later use. Also, make sure to stock up on plenty of energy along the way or you could get sent back to Limbo in the laundry cupboard!
There's five different worlds to explore: Sabrina's house, the Spelleria, Amanda's Arena, Mars, and Sabrina's high school. If your own teenage (or preteen) witch enjoys the television show and has fun solving mysteries, this game should be right up her alley. It's not every day a girl gets to blast her enemies away merely by pointing a finger. With Sabrina at her side, we bet she'll find this problem-solving adventure game truly... spellbinding. --Jill Lightner