JumpStart Pre-Kindergarten

List Price: $19.99

Customer Reviews:

Award-Winning? [Posted on 2000-01-24]
My just-turned 3 year-old already has quite a variety of educational programs, but I thought he was missing something by not owning any of the award-winning JumpStart series. However, I am not terribly impressed with this title. Of the five activities that I tried with my son, two have very vague directions. I clicked around for awhile trying to figure out the goal and then consulted the help file to be sure. Part of the problem with those games and some others is that you inadvertantly complete the task by random clicking or manuevering. I was especially annoyed with a phonics activity that asks for the letter that begins a word, but keeps them in alphabetical order. My son, who knows his alphabet thoroughly, but now needs to practice the sounds in words, is able to get all the answers without even listening to the words. Finally, my son finds the reward area boring and leaves immediately every time he gets there. In general, there are some cute ideas in this software which aren't very well implemented. I much prefer the Reader Rabbit series and especially Blue's Clues.

Child pleasing activities, good at giving gentle hints [Posted on 2000-02-07]
My 2 year old son has gotten pretty good at using the mouse, and was getting tired of programs that work by any random click, so I tried this title to find something a bit challenging. He is really enjoying it. Most of the activities are probably a bit above his learning level, but the program is great at gently helping so that he can make things happen and learn at the same time. He especially likes the alphabet connect the dots that makes a cake with a moving picture, and his 5 year old brother that generally has no interest in computer games liked that part a lot too. My younger son also loved the reward area you get to go to when you have 4 stars for completely activities. You get to place moving stickers in a park area---it's quite simple but easy to use and very fun for him. I do think it can be a bit easy at times to finish activities sort of at random, and like many titles like this, if you have a click happy child, they tend to stop the explanation of how to do the activity before the talking is over---I always wish the program would just finish telling you what you have to do even if your child starts clicking madly! However, in general this is one of my favorite beginning learning programs.

GREAT BUT NOT ENOUGH [Posted on 2001-02-08]
This is a great program for my 4 year old. We homeschool and we needed a preschool program. I refunded on Jumpstart Preschool because it contained magical things that I don't allow into my household.This Jumpstart Pre-K was not available at any of our local stores. The only complaint I have is.... the rewards are stickers in the park(it will make sense when you see it)anyway, my 4 year old got so many that the game said the park was full and we would have to start a new game to get more. The only way I could think to do this was to put in a nickname. We decided not to do this because he would lose all previous scores and stickers. So, he works without rewards and still he loves it. I say buy this and explain the problem when they come to you and say..." My park is full of stickers". I bought this at AMAZON.

the elephant game [Posted on 2002-05-06]
I brought this game three years ago for my daughter and she enjoyed most of the game as does her younger brother now she has growen out of it. Hopefully the newer versions have improved some of the poorer areas of the game.
This game is one that sticks to its age levels.
The games included are the merrigoround which is supposed to be matching numbers and amounts but does not work. The children just click until the mouse gets on the merrigoround without refering to the number of balloons the mouse carries or the numbers on the merrigoround.
The cake shop which the kids love. It is dot to dot although the children once they have located the starting dot work out the rest with logic rather than by looking for the letter. This is probably the kids most favorite part.
The airplane is another area that does not work very well but the children like to fly the plane.
The firestation is a memory game but the locations of the hidden pictures are hidden only found when the cursor changes shape. It would work better if the items were hidden in a more obvious way but the idea is good.
The cafe is another excellent section where children have to arrange food in order from large to small/dark to lite/ etc.
The clothes shop is a number jigsaw
The toy shop is popular with the children puting the toy together and identifing three pieces from a group of similar and very different pieces.
The truck is placing the correct number and colour of items on the back of the truck, very popular with my sone.
The reward is stickers for the park and kids love getting stickers. But do go to the web site and pick up the parkclear program so that you can erase the stickers without losing the childs name and levels reached.
It is a pity that the sections are not all of equal quality because the idea is good.

Awesome software [Posted on 2003-04-07]
My son is 3 yrs old and absolutely loves it. Once he played on it so long that he fell asleep on the computer. Great games and fun activites.

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