Jumpstart Advanced 1st Grade V2.0

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $11.00

Features:

• Motivating reward system keeps children engaged
• 4-CD set helps kids practice and build essential 1st-grade skills
• Activities address 50+ fundamental skills in reading, math, and more
• Based on state educational standards; auto leveling adjusts to child's pace
• Learning Profiler determines child's learning style and adjusts play

Customer Reviews:

Excellent education games [Posted on 2007-01-09]
My son received this for christmas this year. He is only in Kindergarten but finds this to be challenging and he is enjoying learning the math.

Expected more from Jumpstart [Posted on 2007-02-28]
We recently purchased this software for my son. He is in 1st grade and LOVES to play educational games on his computer. Unfortunately this has been a let down for both of us. The background music is way too loud and interferes with the voice that gives the directions for each game. It is very difficult to understand what they are trying to tell my son to do. Also there has been at least one game (maybe more) where he would do what they were telling him, but they still said it was wrong. How frustrating!

So far he still enjoys playing this game, and hasn't given up on it yet. There are some good areas and I think he will get some benefit, but there is definitely some improvement needed!!

Jumpstart Kindergarten was not like this at all! I really can't recommend this software, especially at this price!

Very good collection [Posted on 2007-04-08]
Very good collection of educational games. The concept for the Scooter portion is a little complex. It drives the user to exercise each type of game several times to collect items. You need to get one of each to complete a scooter and one of each to complete a track.

Portions of the scooter game are clumsy in their controls. For example: the scooter race - to control the scooter, you must tap the right and left arrow keys to turn in that direction, but the scooter does not auto center.. so if you tap twice left, you need to tap twice right to go straight again. It can be a little frustrating, but my kids are very adaptable, and they handle it well.

The 4th disk is a bit strange (Pets) It is a small demo version of a game which has not been released yet (spring 2007). It is fun 3D environment, but limited in features.

NOT Mac compatible [Posted on 2007-05-06]
Although this product says that you can use it on Mac OSX, it apparently does not work if you have above system 10.2.3. Since as of May 2007, almost no one would be running 10.2.3, this makes it effectively not Mac compatible.

We bought this product for our son, and he is very disappointed. I contacted Knowledge Adventure support, and they informed me that if we could only use it above system 10.2.3 if we had Classic OS Support on the computer. In fact we do still have Classic on the computer our son uses, and it still doesn't work. The available documentation tells very little even about how to install the game. I have not heard back from Knowledge Adventure regarding my second or subsequent emails. If I do, I will change this review.

Until then, it gets one star.

Emotionally manipulative, inconsistent, poorly designed software [Posted on 2007-10-08]
We got the First Grade package for our 6-year-old last year. I haven't been overly impressed with the Art, Music, or Fundamentals CDs, but wasn't annoyed enough to write a negative review. My 4-year-old, however, who has been desperately wanting a puppy, discovered the Pet Playground today, and after watching him play for 2 hours, I had to write a review.

In a nutshell, it is a 3-D game where you choose a character, and go to the Learning Center to play educational games, to earn "jewels". These jewels can then be used to purchase a pet and other accoutrements for
your pet: food, shampoo, brush, tricks, hats. My 4-year-old earned enough jewels to buy himself a little brown puppy, a boxer by the looks of it. He named it Buddy.

The software is flakey and poorly designed at best, manipulative and sadistic at worst. Specific issues:

1) There are only 2 inane games to earn jewels with, regardless of what area he clicks on. One is a game where he has to spend inordinate amounts of time driving a little icebreaker around, trying to crash into icebergs with pictures on them that have starting sounds that match the
sound you are given (e.g. sun, soap, sad, sick...) The other is a game where you are a book and have to stomp on pages that have numbers that are larger or smaller than a specific given number. Beware of being run over by the vacuum or the lady bug, both of which can cut your game short. My son reads at a 1st grade level and can count to a hundred backwards and forwards. All the same, he suffers fools gladly, all for the sake of his puppy.

2) These games do not consistently reward him with jewels. I watched him play today, and it varied between 4 to 7 iterations of the same game, before it would reward him with jewels - usually 10 jewels at a time. Once he played the same letter sound game 5 times, only to be told at the end that he didn't earn any jewels.

3) Once he earned the jewels, the game let him spend them on things that "didn't work". The objects to be purchased range from 5-20 jewels, so your 20 minutes of "Learning Center" work are quickly used up. He spent 5 on a ball that somehow never registered - and there are no instructions on what to do. Worst of all, he spent jewels on a shampoo to wash his puppy with, only to be told, when he tried it out, that his pet "didn't like" that brand of shampoo - try another! In other words, spend another 30 minutes trying to earn jewels to buy shampoo for your muddy puppy, but better not get your hopes up, because there's still two kinds left, and you might get the wrong brand again.

What kind of childless sickos write this software? A 4-year-old, even if he reads at a 1st grade level, is not emotionally equipped to be tricked into wasting his money. Amazingly enough, my earnest little boy didn't complain, didn't cry, he just wants to keep trying. I admit, I played for him for about 20 minutes, just to get him enough jewels to buy a trick for his dog. My son is so thrilled with the basic features of being able to tell the puppy to stay, and come. Tonight as I was putting him to bed and talking about his day, he said "I really like that game. I think Buddy really likes the bones I got for him. He probably wouldn't eat the other snacks." (Incidentally, you can, amongst other things, buy an apple core for your dog.) He's probably right - the game will let you buy it, but it probably wouldn't work to feed the snack to your puppy. You'd get this over-enthusiastic happy kindergarten teacher voice telling you "Your pet doesn't seem to like that snack. Try another one! Oh, you don't have enough jewels to get another one? Well try playing our moronic, inconsistent games for another hour and see if you can get it a snack it'll eat, SUCKER! Ahahahahahahahahaha...."

My son loves the game. He loves having a virtual puppy, which, to his 4-year-old mind, is as near to real as you can get without fur and slobber. It sickens me to watch it, though. Not only is he not learning anything from these games, he's being manipulated and hustled at the same time. Not quite the real-world lessons I was looking for JumpStart to teach him.

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