Below are some useful games and toys I’ve come across.
Computer Games
JumpStart 3D Virtual World: The Legend of Grizzly McGuffin
There are 4 JumpStart 3D titles, which were renamed from:
- JumpStart World Preschool => Jumpstart 3D virtual world My first adventure
- JumpStart World Kindergarten => JumpStart 3D Virtual World Legend of Grizzly McGuffin
- JumpStart World 1st Grade => JumpStart 3D Virtual World Ages Trouble in Town
- JumpStart World 2nd grade => JumpStart 3D Virtual World Ages Quest for the Color Meister
Of course, the new names just make it more confusing, in my opinion. Each game covers a year of curriculum in a fun game format, but there is a big catch. The CD you buy only lets you access a small portion of the games. Knowledge Adventure used to let you purchase additional “units” for the game, either monthly or all at once. Once you did that, the entire game was yours. Now they force you to pay a monthly subscription fee to access the rest of each game and when you drop your subscription you can no longer access these pieces.
Luckily I purchased the full 12 units of the kindergarten level. Unfortunately, my son needed to move on to the first grade level well before he finished the kindergarten… and since he now completed the first units that were included, we’d have to pay the monthly fee for him to play anymore.
The games themselves are great – entertaining and educational, but I’m having a hard time with the idea of paying a monthly fee for it. It was different when I then owned the product, could use it as little or as much as I wanted and knew I’d have it on the shelf for when my youngest was able to use it. If you don’t have the same hang ups then these games are probably worthwhile. You can save yourself some money by ditching the CD purchase altogether and just subscribing online and downloading the software (no added cost over the membership).
Zoombinis 3 Game Pack – Island Odyssey, Logical Journey, Mountain Rescue
These games are filled with logic puzzles that you must solve. While I bought all 3, we have only played Logical Journey so far. The goal is to get the Zoombinis to their new home. Although the story line is a little mature (bad guys come and make life miserable for the Zoombinis, who have to escape and find a new home), the game is well suited for younger children. There are no time limits to any of the parts and the worst that happens if you don’t do well is that some of your Zoombinis will have to start over (where you can then try again to get them home).
I was nervous about getting these games because some reviewers said they didn’t work on Windows XP. However, we installed Logical Journey so far and have played through the entire game with no compatibility problems. These games are marketed for kids 8 and up, so I’m not surprised that my 4/5 year old couldn’t play totally independently. We have fun playing together and I’m guessing he’ll be playing on his own within a year.
This game is marketed for 2nd graders, but younger gifted children will also enjoy it. The goal is to find and recover objects (jewelry in this case) from various parts of the game, mostly by using logic. For example, the characters have different powers and you must choose which one to use in various situations.
A lot of the game is controlled by the mouse, but some parts are more old arcade style and need the arrow keys to move and other buttons to jump, etc. This is perhaps the most difficult part for younger children since it requires a lot of coordination. If you miss a jump, you have to go back to the last flag you touched. This got to be frustrating, so we often helped with this part.
Board Games
We got this game as a present when C was 2. It has two levels, beginner and advanced. In the game, you use cards to match letters, numbers, shapes, and colors to doors on the game board. You use a key to pop open a matching door to see if a ball is hidden below. Once all the balls are collected, a treasure chest opens and the game is over. Kids seem to have a lot of fun with opening the doors and dropping in the balls, even when the content of the game becomes simple.
This is now a favorite game of Z’s, who used it also at speech therapy. They printed their own pictures for targeted words and placed them on the doors and eliminated the cards. It’s a very versatile game!
Puzzles
Educational Insights Castle Logix
This is a neat puzzle game with sturdy wooden castle pieces. Kids can build free-form, but the object is to copy a design from the book. The puzzles start out easy and then progress to more challenging, with pieces at an angle, for instance. In the beginning, the book shows the graphic on the blocks to help you orient them properly, but by the end of the book the graphics and block outlines aren’t shown, giving more possibilities of how to try to solve the problem.
C got this for his 5th birthday and quickly sat down to solve puzzle after puzzle. We had to pull him away for dinner. He really likes the satisfaction of figuring each one out and for the most part he works on it independently. I think this toy would be good for younger children as well, especially if they excel in puzzles and problem solving. Of course, when they finish all the puzzles, their interest will probably wane. My plan is to put it away and pull it back out a few months later, plus always have my younger son to save it for!
I debated whether to put this under games or books, since it’s really both. This sudoku manual for kids has great step by step directions, with practice at every step. The puzzles only include the numbers 1-4 and are smaller than adult sudoku, which is a great start for younger kids who may not be ready for the larger 9×9 puzzles.
In this book the strategies are all spelled out and the puzzles start out easy enough that kids are quickly successful. Then the puzzles get more complex, with more numbers missing. Although the book is listed for ages 4-8, it’s probably geared more towards 3-5 if your child is at all gifted in math. The book shows you how to draw the four numbers necessary, so as long as your child can count to 4 and use a pencil, there’s no reason to wait for a specific age.
