Let ‘Em Camp Out in Front of the Computer
If you’re looking for something special to do with your kids in these waning weeks of summer, consider sending them to software camp--at home. With the right software, it’s simple to create a camp atmosphere at home.
To make a software camp work, you need to choose a title that can be played over several days and covers a topic that can be explored away from the computer. “JumpStart Explorers,” for kids ages 5 to 8, and “Math Blaster: Cross Terrain Challenge,” for kids 9 to 12, are perfect.
You can easily divvy up “Explorers” and “Math Blaster” over five days because they both break along natural partitions--”Explorers” has five historic locations to explore and “Math Blaster” has five missions.
“Explorers” allows a parent to lead children on historical romps on the computer and then follow that experience with jaunts in the neighborhood or field trips to local historical places. “Math Blaster” motivates preteens to explore games of logic both on and off the computer.
Structure your camp experience around your child’s attention span. Designate a time of the day as computer time, then plug in other activities around that schedule. It helps if you can add bonuses such as pizza for lunch and ice cream sundaes for snacks.
‘JumpStart Explorers’
A game of hide-and-seek with a time machine? That’s exactly what “JumpStart Explorers” delivers. As children play in five periods of history, they learn about famous explorers and historical periods.
Children follow CJ Frog and his firefly buddy, Edison, as they jump into a time machine to find six mischievous tadpoles that are hiding in different eras. Each era provides children with a historical playground full of scenes to explore and activities to play.
If kids time-morph to Egypt in 1359 BC, they can design their own sphinx, decipher a hieroglyphic message and wrap a mummy. By bopping over to China in AD 1280, they meet Marco Polo and help prepare for a Chinese New Year celebration. Children meet runners on the Royal Road in the Inca civilization when they explore South America in AD 1532. A jaunt to Plymouth in North America in AD 1621 leads to a bow-and-arrow contest that reveals facts about that early colony. Roald Amundsen awaits children in Antarctica circa AD 1911 and encourages them to participate in a dog-sled race.
As children explore and play in the historical periods, they earn points, reward stickers and presents. After thorough exploration, they eventually find the missing tadpoles.
“JumpStart Explorers” makes learning fun. As children play hide-and-seek and look for the missing tadpoles, they learn history by talking to interesting characters, seeing historic sites and completing engaging activities.
In addition to the hide-and-seek game, “Explorers” creates many other fun ways for children to learn. For example, kids print out a map of the world on which they can track their historical explorations. They sort “time” cards into historical periods. At each historical location, they receive presents of printable activities to play off the computer--which are perfect to explore during camp.
Even if the idea of a home computer camp sounds hokey, don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to frolic in history.
‘Math Blaster: Cross Terrain Challenge’
Hoverboarding--think skateboarding with no wheels--is now available on your computer. And the thrill of perfecting new tricks on this virtual board draws preteens to this logic title.
Here’s the lowdown: Kids enter the Hero Training Academy along with Max Blaster and alien girl G.C. To attain “hero enlightenment,” players must finish five missions, which mix logic challenges and puzzles with arcade games involving hoverboards.
The five types of logic games are set in rugged, cool places such as subterranean caves and scorpion pits. One of the games even places kids high up on pillars of rocks to solve a maze in which teetering pathways disappear once crossed over.
The missions get progressively more challenging. Kid testers enjoyed the brain work and were energized by the hoverboard obstacle courses that appear in between. The producers cleverly tied winning the mission to collecting points from both the logic and hoverboard activities.
For your camp, challenge your preteen to finish a mission. To round out your camp day, choose other logic games to play such as Othello, chess or Stratego.
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Jinny Gudmundsen is editor of Choosing Children’s Software magazine.
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The Skinny
“JumpStart Explorers”
Price: $20
Ages: 5 to 8
Platform: PC/Mac
System requirements: On the PC, a Pentium 233 with 64 MB of RAM and 10 MB of available hard disk space. On the Mac, a G3 233 MHz running OS 8.1, 8.6 or 9.1 with 64 MB of RAM and 10 MB of available hard disk space.
Publisher: Knowledge Adventure
The good: A fanciful game of hide-and-seek through time
The bad: Nada
Bottom line: A spectacular way to introduce children to history
“Math Blaster: Cross Terrain Challenge”
Price: $20
Ages: 9 to 12
Platform: PC/Mac
System requirements: On the PC, a Pentium 200 with 32 MB of RAM. On the Mac, a G3 or higher running OS 8.1, 8.6 or 9.1 with 64 MB of RAM.
Publisher: Knowledge Adventure
The good: A great combo of logic games and arcade races using hoverboards
The bad: Might appeal more to boys than girls
Bottom line: A slammin’ way to learn logic and hoverboard gymnastics
