Hi friends. I was given the opportunity to review a fun new app from JumpStart called Pet Rescue (and I get to host a giveaway too, so please enter at the bottom!). It's an educational game geared towards children up to age 6.
Here is what they have to say about their product:
FEATURES:
· Developed from child education experts: Learning curriculum developed and reviewed by early childhood and preschool education experts!
· Learn key skills: Over 50 activities teach your child 75 essential skills -- including memory, listening, critical thinking and many others!
· Adopt a pet: Choose from more than 10 different pets to you play with, care for and feed!
· Hours of fun: Digital coloring pages, lively music videos and customizable game features provide your child hours of fun!
· Fun with your Jumpstart friends: Over 10 storybooks featuring the JumpStart friends like Frankie, Hops-a-Lot, and many others!
· Easy to play: Intuitive controls and audio will help your child succeed at learning and in this adorable adventure.
Safety and security features:
· Does NOT include ads
· Does NOT link to social networks
· Does include links and information relative to other Knowledge Adventure/Jumpstart games
It is currently available on
iTunes for $7.99.
Now here's what I have to say about this product:
It's a lot of fun for the kids. They really like it.
Do be aware that this game won't work on the old iPads (the ones without a camera) which probably is not a problem for most people, but we have an old iPad as our "school" iPad for the kids to play on so they don't get snot all over mine, so it was a bit of a bummer that I couldn't put it on that one. (not even exaggerating on the snot thing - the school iPad's screen is so grimy from snot and drool and who knows what it gives me the shivers)
I played around with the game for a good long while but there were still many parts of the game I did not see. Based on what I saw, here are some things I like about the game:
- The kids can customize the appearance of their character and their home, which is a feature my kids love. They love changing options and experimenting with the look of things. Also, by playing games the kids earn decorations they can place around the jumpstart world.
- There is a lot to explore. The kids can play for a long time and it won't be the same thing over and over again.
- There are many fun educational games reinforcing letters, numbers, memory skills, and all that good stuff. Kids can also plant seeds and water them to grow flowers, which the kids thought was fun.
- There's a movie tent where the kids can go watch vintage educational videos set to music (there may be more than just that, it's just that the first few I watched looked like they were made a while ago, but the kids still liked them)
- You can login and add players to your account so that each child can play their own game and keep track of their own progress. Very handy when you have multiple children wanting to play and not wanting a sibling to mess up their things.
- It definitely grabbed the kids' attention and they were all fighting over who's turn it was. The interest level was high and they really enjoyed exploring the world and playing the games.
Here are a few things I thought could be better:
- None of the alphabet games I played did anything with phonics, only teaching recognizing letter names. I think it would be easy (and valuable) to add in a "b says /b/" when a child chooses the correct matching cards. It's never to early to get those letter sounds into the brain.
- The first little book I earned as I played and then read through was pretty weak. It was about how someone was afraid to leave mommy when going to school but then went to school and loved it and was so happy to go back again. I just had a moment of "ugh" (since I'm a fan of
keeping your kids with you longer than tradition prescribes). Also the pictures were not colored in, which I thought was strange. Not that it's a big deal.
- When we were out and about in the car, the kids were unable to switch from one player to another player. I'm guessing it's because you need an internet connection to load the different players? It works fine at home. We don't have a data plan on our iPad, just wifi, so whichever child logged in while we were still home could play in the car, but if the other child wanted to play he had to play as a guest, and also the first player couldn't get back to his game. Again, this is something that won't be a problem for everyone, but since we like to play in the car or when we're out at lessons and appointments and such where we don't have access to wifi, it makes it a bit less useable for our family.
- There were a few little cosmetic issues, such as one of the games in the learning tent (I believe it was a "connect the stars" game) had a picture of ABCs on the hat, but it was actually a numbers game. (And now I'm just being picky.)
Overall I would say it's a great game for little kids. Actually, Joshua was enjoying it too, and he's 8. Obviously the learning games weren't geared towards him but he liked going around to explore and customize everything.
JumpStart is offering one of my readers this fun game for free! Here are several entering options. You can just do one or do all, but please leave a separate comment for each thing you do:
1. Head over to either
Facebook or
Google+, and either "like" or "+1" JumpStart's page, then come back and leave a comment on this post stating that you did such.
2. Go back to
Google+ or
Facebook, and either "+1" or "like" the chickenbabies page, 'cuz why not? And don't forget to come back here and leave a comment on this post stating that you did such.
3. Just leave a comment saying something like "Hey, I know a little kid who would really like this game and I would really like to have it for free."
That's it. The giveaway will be open until May 13th. Shortly thereafter, the winning comment will be chosen at random by a random number generator.
Disclosure: I was provided with a JumpStart promotional code at no cost by JumpStart in order to test the products’ abilities and give my own personal opinions on it. The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but were not influenced by the company or the free product provided.
