Reprinted from the March issue of the North Orange County Computer Club's "Orange
Bytes"
Review of
Jump Start First Grade
by Don Stone
ClubJump Start First Grade is a teaching program on CD ROM with interactive activities
tailored to a first grader's abilities.
The program emulates a school with a classroom, lunchroom and playground. There are
also two field trips. The program monitors each student's progress and attempts to
adjust the difficulty levels to keep the student challenged.
After a student signs in he enters the classroom. Mrs. Flores is the teacher and
Frankie, a dog, is the student's guide and mentor. There are many activities to choose
from. The student may select from 8 story books by clicking on the book stack. These
include Mother Goose (Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet and others), The Frog on
a Log, A Bedtime Story and others. The story is read to the student and the text
highlighted as the story is narrated. After the story is over, Ms. Flores asks questions
like, "What rhymes with wall?" or "What frightened Miss Muffet?"
The student then selects the correct answer from a display of 4 items.
The classroom has a radio which can play 6 songs. When the radio is selected animated
classroom figures dance while Frankie sings and poses arithmetic questions in rhythm
with the music. In another song he teaches the days of the week.
In "Paints and Stickers," a canvas and pallet are presented. The student
may draw free hand or select a scene and then choose stickers to embellish it. Some
of the stickers are outline figures which can be decorated by adding color. Frankie
announces the names of the colors as they are selected.
The "Master Memory Game" is a concentration type game where the student
clicks on two of an array of squares. The items under the squares are briefly displayed.
If they match they stay exposed. If not, they are covered again. The student tries
to remember where the various items are located. Unlike other concentration type
games, this one displays a picture and its matching word instead two matching pictures.
Frankie announces the names as the squares are selected.
The lunchroom contains a kitchen with a cooking machine. When selected real recipes
are displayed. The student must select the proper ingredients (from items on the
table) with their correct measurements (e.g., fractions of cups, tablespoons or teaspoons)
and dump them into the cooking machine. If an error is made a "glop monster"
appears and the student must start over. There is a vending machine is the lunchroom.
Frankie asks for an item and the student must select it, then put the proper coins
(quarters, dimes, nickels or pennies) totaling its cost into a slot to pay for it.
Other lunchroom activities include pizza cooking and serving in a cafeteria line.
These are timed activities to see how many customers can be handled in the allotted
time.
In the playground the student can help Frankie look for buried items with a metal
detector which beeps when it finds something. The items are objects or numbers. The
student must listen to a verbal clue, e.g., a certain number in the 10's digit, to
determine if he is over the right object. He can also play Math Marbles, a game in
which he must shoot out one or two marbles to make both sides of an equation balance.
The playground also has many animated objects to activate.
The program contains two field trips, one to the beach and one to the zoo. The student
must steer the bus to its destination by clicking a direction arrow on the steering
wheel and follow a street map. At the beach or zoo there are many animated objects
to activate.
As the student completes various tasks he earns points. When he reaches 100 points
he redeems them for a prize, a milk cap. The student can check his progress at any
time by clicking an icon.
The real test was the use of the program by my 5 year old granddaughter. I was called
to the phone just as I started the program for her. By the time I got back to my
office, she was well into it without any help from me. With only a little coaching
she was able to operate most of the features of the program with no trouble. Selecting
the coins for the vending machine was beyond her abilities as was the measurements
for the cooking machine, but my 7 year old grandson handled them with no problem.
From this is assumed that the program does need suit a first grader's abilities.
The art work is excellent and the animations are clever. The CD is PC or MacIntosh
compatible and can be run without installation. The suggested memory size is 1.0
Mb on a Mac and 8.0 Mb for Windows 95.
The CD was published in 1995 by Knowledge Adventure, Inc. The MacWHEREHOUSE (800-255-6227)
carries the program for $39.95.JUMP START
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