Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that there's nothing to worry about here -- and kids will learn a great deal about animals. Parents will appreciate the voiceovers that identify all animals and words, making it easy even for non-readers to learn.
Families can talk about which games are the most fun. They might also want to plan an off-screen animal adventure to the zoo (or the library) so that kids can show off their knowledge -- and enhance it.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Jinny Gudmundsen
Did you know that snowy owls have feathers even on their toes? Or that a lion's roar can be heard from 5 miles away? These are some of the many fun facts that kids will learn by playing ANIMAL GENIUS, a new video game for the Leapster system.
Kids who play this game will learn about animals' habitats, characteristics, and behavior -- it's rare to find a game that makes learning science so much fun.
This software works so well because it combines a fun quest -- winning 25 animals -- with innovative science games that kids will want to play.
The object is to populate five habitats -- Grasslands, Arctic, Rainforest, Woodlands, and Ocean -- with five animals each. To win the animals, kids must play four games to win points. Some animals cost as little as 10 points, while others can cost as much as 50.
Because kids can only earn a maximum of three points for each game played, they must play lots of games to earn enough points to win an animal. What's more, they must also correctly answer 10 questions about the desired animal in a limited amount of time.
The games play off of kids' natural affinity for mazes, "I Spy"-type games, and hidden-pictures activities. For example, in the "Scratch & See" game, kids use the Leapster stylus to scratch across a black screen to reveal a hidden animal underneath. But the game won't let them wipe away all of the black -- only part of it. Kids have to use their powers of deduction and what they know about animal characteristics to see if they can correctly identify the partially hidden animal from a list.
In the "Maze Munch" game, kids learn about the food chain while navigating a maze. Players become one of nine different animals as they move through the maze to collect food, all the while avoiding becoming food to another predator. For example, in one maze, kids might play as an anteater. They direct the anteater toward the ants (represented as dots) while avoiding the moving jaguar who's trying to "catch" them.
Music, interesting voices, and wacky facts help sustain kids' interest. But the real hook is the use of photorealistic material along with animations. When kids are learning about an animal -- a snowy owl, for instance -- they view both photographs and videos of the bird. And when they win the owl, they place it in an Arctic environment that looks like a photo of the real place. For added interest, the software also randomly triggers an "Animal Alert" that sends players scrambling through each of the habitats to find an animal that's wandered into the wrong habitat.
Parents will appreciate the voiceovers that identify all animals and words, making it easy for even non-readers to learn.
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Educational ValueKids learn about animals' habitats, characteristics, and behavior. Kids must also use skills -- such as deduction -- to win games. |
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