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From:Knowledge Adventure
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#857 |
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1 of 1 customers found the following review helpful:
Great educational software for kids., 2007-09-23
JumpStart World 1st Grade JumpStart World 2nd Grade
My kids really enjoy playing them and they are learning age-appropriate problem-solving skills in a kid-friendly video game like environment. Along with the math, spelling and reading sections, I particularly like the fact that the games promote good listening (i.e. following directions) skills. The kids have "tasks" to complete in order to open different sections of the world, rather than just wandering around aimlessly playing games. There are also parent reports that enable you to see how they are progressing (i.e. where their strengths & weaknesses are). You get 2 adventure packs with this software and then you can go to the website to order a new pack to be automatically downloaded every month (costs about $7.99 per month). I would definitely recommend these products. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because it was long to install (first instance only).
12 of 15 customers found the following review helpful:
Great for kids, not for parents, 2007-08-17
My 6 year old son has not put down this game since I bought it for his birthday. He can play for two hours at a time. As far as the game goes, it is excellent.
But there are down sides to this game. No where on the packaging does it say that the game CANNOT be played without an internet connection. The manufacturer will not give me a straight answer as to why the game has to be connected to the internet to play. So I cannot take this game with us on outings or in the car because it will not run outside of our home.
Also, I spent $20 for the game. Now if I want the "entire" game, I have to dish out an additional $8 per month to get the rest of the game. That seems quite unreasonable for a game for a 6 year old!! I thought I was buying the "entire" game when I bought the CD.
The description also says that the parent will get emailed progress reports on how their child is doing, which is true, for the first few months. Then comes the $8/month email to keep it going. I just think that this is a bit much to ask.
So my son will play this game until it runs out, or whatever happens after two adventures.
16 of 18 customers found the following review helpful:
 A must buy, really great software for kids on summer vacation!, 2007-08-01
I went ahead and bought this software after reading a review of this software in the Houston Chronicle (you can probably find it online) which gave it the highest praise. After watching my son "play" his way through the first unit for the past couple days, I am recommending it without reservation. He's about halfway through with the first unit and although it's another $60+, I intend to go ahead and purchase the extra 10 "units" for this. I will update this review when I have information on the quality of the extra-cost units.
The software runs smoothly and looks good. There are fun sounds and activities wherever you turn. And, it actually looks like my child is getting a great review of things he learned in kindergarten and if his interest stays as keen as it has been for the last three days, the software should have him ready to start the school year with a little headstart.
By the way, I volunteered every other week for the past year at my son's kindergarten's media lab and helped the class with software such as KidPix and M.I.N.D. Institute software. At the time, I wished there was a way to bring these software packages onto my home computer (but they cost thousands of dollars so that just wasn't an option). This looks like the software I was wishing for at the time. It is aligned with the types of things in school curriculums, and is set up for running at home.
And, it runs great on a 4-5 year old Windows XP computer. Absolutely no issues with installation, although there were more steps than usually required so that I, as a parent, could configure the setup. I think the configuration was time well spent as I can now open my parental version of the game and have a dashboard that shows me how my child is progressing.
My six year old son (finished kindergarten two months ago) has been engrossed since we started it up. In prior years, he has played all the usual kids games since starting on the computer at age 3-4 so he's not new to the computer. He's a smart kid (I think) but pretty much right at grade level in all areas as far as his achievement in school. These games are challenging enough to keep him entertained but he has not yet gotten frustrated. It's great that he now has a game that reinforces reading and arithmetic skills in a fun and motivating way. Also, the software designers have done a great deal of work in tailoring rewards and trophies that keep things interesting and motivate kids.
So far, over two days, he's spent about 2 hours each day working on the game, and this morning he was up at 630 am and sitting at his computer in his pajamas to keep trying to win his first "key".
Updating Nov 20, after 3 1/2 months. Still loving this software. The important fact in this update is that after completing 7/12 of the game, I am still completely satisfied with the quality of the modules that are coming through download. This justified, for me, the additional cost for adding in the optional modules (I bought all of them instead of a monthly subscription). I far prefer this game to any other gameboy/cartoonnetwork/gamecube/pc game my son has. It's also the most expensive but after 3.5 months he's only about 7/12 of the way through the modules for first grade. The reason I like this software is because it drills and teaches MATH and READING skills. This has been a much better learning tool than the homework assignments he finishes in 2 minutes every day. Disadvantages: The computer crashed and we lost the hard disk storage of his progress. When we reinstalled we had to start over from the first step of the game. That was tedious and I had to sweeten the reward incentives (built in to the game with parental controls). The offer of a Laser Tag outing after a certain level of progress was necessary to get him moving on it again.
In summary, once 1st grade is completed, I think I'll be buying 2nd grade.
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