Arthur is Awesome!

My four year old son is a huge Arthur fan. He loves the books, the show and now...the computer games that are available. We bought Arthur's Computer Adventure about a year ago. At that time, our son (who was 3), loved doing just the "Read To Me" and "Let Me Play" sections.

The "Read To Me" section goes through the book page by page, reading and highlighting the words as it reads. Things are "brought to life" on the pages such as characters as well as various background items. The "Let Me Play" section also reads the book to the child, highlighting the words as it reads but it also allows the child to click on different places in the book and different things will "come alive" for the child. It is very rewarding and fun for the child. This section is great for encouraging your child to learn mouse skills.

There is also a section entitled "Activities". This section our son really became interested in about six months ago and is still very interested in it. There are 5 games or activities to choose from.

My son's favorite is called "D.W.'s Store". In this activity the child follows recipes to earn money. After they have earned the money they go to the store and buy items.

My son's other favorite activity is called "Frankenfish". In this activity children learn about various types of fish and then they are given silly things to put together and make their own fish. It has a printing option that is great. Zack will print up his fish and then color it. Nice extension activity.

There are three other activities that I will briefly go over. "Deep Dark Sea" allows the child to explore the underwater scene looking for treasure. "Toy Copter" is a remote control type game that helps to develop eye-hand coordination. "Treasure Hunt" is a little more challenging and requires some reading skills. Children have to find the treasure by matching words and objects. My son has just recently become interested in this one.

All in all, I would say that Arthur's Computer Adventure is a great program. It offers something for a variety of ages--we've been using it for at least a year and I can see the we will use it awhile longer too.