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Blue's ABC Time Activities, created by Humongous Entertainment, is a wonderful pre-reading adventure for young
children! A child learns language skills and has fun at the same time. The software is based on Nickelodeon's preschool
program "Blue's Clues," and features Steve and a cast of two-dimensional animated characters, among them
Blue, a fun-loving, spotted blue dog. There are word puzzles, alphabet mazes, bathtime rhymes, and jungle animals
that help kids learn. The price for Blue's ABC Time Activities is $19.99. There is also a Blue's Birthday Adventure,
price $29.99. Both games can be used with a PC with Windows or a Macintosh. The Humongous Entertainment Web site
is a great place for both parents and kids to visit. There is all sorts of information, games and such. http://www.humongous.com |
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Blue's ABC Time Activities is designed for preschoolers ages 3-6. The game has adjustable levels of difficulty
and emphasizes early learning skills such as:
- Initial letter recognition
- Upper and lowercase letter discrimination
- Alphabet recognition and sequencing
- Phonics
- Visual and Auditory discrimination
- Consonant blends
- Word formation
- Early vocabulary
- Rhyming
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- Multi-level learning activities reinforce pre-reading skills;
- Collect letters to create silly stories in Blue's Word book;
- Print Blue's Word Book and other activities to share with family and friends;
- Difficulty levels automatically adjust to meet each child's skill level;
- Easy-to-use, in-depth Help File on disc.
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Installation. The program was very easy to install.
One excellent feature of Humongous products for users who have limited disk space is that they don't
take that much space.
Interface. The interface is well-done and children love to see the same
characters they already know from the television series. The graphics are bright, the music and rhymes are appealing
to parents and children.
Storyline. Blue has an interactive
Word Book where she keeps her stories, but she needs
to collect some words to finish the sentences. There are seven activities
in Blue's ABC Time Activities, including the Word Book where children
can create stories with the words they collect while playing the other
six. The characters and items in the Living Room represent the activities,
and children can click on anyone of them to start an activity. The
activities include the following:
- Alphabet Maze--Shovel and Pail have created an alphabet maze in the backyard sandbox. Children need
to follow the alphabet to reach them and collect words as they proceed. These activity teaches children ABC sequencing
and letter identification.
- Bathtime
Rhymes--Slippery Soap needs kids help to make some rhymes. In
this activity, children can help Blue stir up the suds in the tub
and watch four bubbles with pictures in them rise up. As Blue stirs
up the bubbles, they are learning vocabulary words.
- Felt Friend's Word Puzzles--Felicia is waiting for kids
to play with shapes and
words. Children need to click on the scattered puzzle pieces and
letters and put them into place on the outline. As each puzzle is
finished, it becomes an animation. There are 20 different puzzles
to play with. Good activity for letter and shape recognition.
- Mailtime--Mailbox has a message to deliver but there's
a problem. Some of
the words are missing letters. She needs help to fix them. Kids
learn to identify letters and upper and lower case words when they
help Blue in this activity.
- Safari Snapshots--The Lion Price is ready to take kids
and blue on a jungle
safari, and he wants to take pictures of all the animals in the
alphabet. Blue has a camera but needs help finding the animals.
- Snacktime--Mr.
Salt and Mrs. Pepper have been shopping but their list is torn and
they need help matching the snacks to the letters on their list.
This snacktime adventure emphasizes phonics, vocabulary and auditory
discrimination.
- Blue's Word Book--Blue is creating stories to share with
Steve, but she needs
help with collecting words. A letter of the alphabet is earned for
each correctly completed task, and words are then made from the
accumulated letters. Children can visit the word book at any time
where color coded words are inserted into identically coded stories.
As each story is completed, Blue draws an accompanying illustration.
The book pages can then be printed. This is a great pre-spelling,
early vocabulary and word recognition activity.
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For those parents who are concerned with teaching their children the joy of reading Blue's ABC Time Activities
is a must. It puts strong emphasis on the fun of reading. Blue is a lovable dog, and each of the supporting characters
possess their own unique charm. All the activities are easily understood and completed, with catchy songs and rhymes.
Blue's ABC Time Activities is a great buy as well as a great investment in your child's education. |
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Processor: Pentium/90MHz or higher
Operating System: Windows 95 or higher
Memory: 16MB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 80MB
256 color monitor (460 x 480)
4X CD-ROM drive
Sound Card |
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Graphics: Adobe
ImageStyler
Web Page Editor: Symantec
Visual Page
Scanner: Hewlett Packard ScanJet 6250C Professional Series
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