JumpStart 1st Grade

In JumpStart 1st Grade, kids get to pal around with Frankie, a hyper yet sincere pooch who would probably be the most popular boy in the class. Frankie is excited to go on a treasure hunt but first must gather clues by helping out inside the school. Six activities within the schoolhouse earn clues: Cooking up Spelling Soup, cooking in the Measurement Kitchen, counting funds in Money Madness, engaging in Pogo Stick Math, reading from the Bookshelf Bonanza, or playing a teacher's Bean Bag Science game. There's also a music room and an art room. In our tests, the organ with point-and-click keys provided a lot of free-form fun. It also provided a welcome break when the slightly too-long educational games begin to feel, well, educational.

JumpStart Around the World lets kids travel to far-flung places like Brazil and China aboard anything from a train (landmass permitting) to a blimp (if you have enough money to buy passage). Kids must purchase their passage, which is a good lesson in pocketbook economics. Each of the four modes of transportation involves a game, and once in a country, kids can chose scrapbook souvenirs ranging from postcards to fun facts to brief audio language lessons. We thought the budget and the language lessons were engaging and educational tools. But the brief skimming over each of the 12 destinations got was the cyber equivalent of being trapped on a tour bus. (Ages 5 to 7) --Anne Erickson

Amazon.com Product Description
In this deluxe two-CD-ROM software set from JumpStart, kids learn essential first-grade skills and then take off to faraway worlds of fun in an adventure around the world. AdJust-for-You Learning Technology auto-adjusts to your child's pace. Kids learn addition, subtraction, fractions, measuring, quantities, telling time, parts of speech, phonics, reading comprehension, basic science, music, art, synonyms and antonyms, counting money, world geography, and cultures of the world. In disc one, children join Frankie the Dog and his canine friends on a fantastic exploration of the first-grade schoolhouse. Kids can explore the cafeteria, playground, and more as they play over 20 skill-building activities. With disc two, kids climb aboard the next boat, plane, train, or zeppelin and take off to faraway worlds of fun on the all-new Around the World CD-ROM. Kids can play four different games and visit 12 different cities, where they'll learn phrases in different languages, hear music of other lands, and collect souvenirs.

Product Description
In this interactive classroom filled with animation and song. Take field trips to the beach and zoo. Read 50 illustrated stories from 8 interactive books with the help of Ms. Flores your teacher. In all, discover 18 activities teaching geography, science, early math, reading comprehension, music and more!