December 2003

Cyber News and Reviews is a monthly column published for parents, teachers & business owners featuring kids educational software reviews, business software reviews (small business & home business), games and entertainment articles, a free resource since 1995.

 


JumpStart Study Helpers: Math Booster and Spelling Bee from Vivendi Universal Games

By Howard Berenbon

JumpStart Study Helpers: Math Booster and Spelling Bee are two new cool educational titles from Vivendi Universal Games, to help kids, grades 1 through 5, with their homework.  They offer arcade-style educational games with great graphics, music and sound effects designed to make studying math and spelling fun, narrated by Frankie the dog.  Six levels of play are offered, and the higher the harder, though kids can start playing at any of the 6 levels.  And kids can enter their weekly math problems or spelling words into the software, so they can practice on the computer.  Both titles quickly install from a single CD and will work in any IBM compatible or Apple Macintosh.

JumpStart Study Helpers Math Booster

After entering your name, you’ll enter into a screen where three math arcade-game activities are available.  Before you begin, you’ll choose the math type and the difficulty level. Click on Galactic Pinball, for a very fun game where you direct ball using the arrow keys over the correct answer while avoiding being bounced across the screen or trapped in a corner.  Select Asteroid Smash for a fun game of shoot the correct answer.  Finally, click on Digihog Drop for a fun game of equation solving.  You’ll drop Digihogs marked with numbers to make up an equation, then and pull a lever to check if it’s correct and go on to the next problem.

JumpStart Study Helpers Spelling Bee

After entering your name, you’ll enter into a screen where three spelling arcade-game activities are available.  Before you begin, you’ll select the difficulty level.  They offer Seahorse Speedway where a word is displayed with a missing letter and you must catch the moving fish above with the correct letter.  Use the spacebar to snatch it with its tongue.  Click on Crab Attack to shoot at a letter on a crab to complete a word and catch some gold coins in a treasure chest.  Finally, you’ll play Fish Frenzy where you move Frankie to catch a correctly spelled word in a barrel.

These are two great CDs offering kids, ages 5 to 10, some fun while shooting numbers and letters on the screen as they practice problems for their grade level.  Becky, my 9 year old, now in the fourth grade, said they were “great to play with.”  She likes to study, and was happy to use them.

JumpStart Study Helpers Math Booster sells for $14.99 and will run on any multimedia PC, Pentium 233 MHz or faster, 64 MB RAM with Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and a 12x CD-ROM drive. It also runs on a PowerMac G3 233 MHz or faster with 64 MB RAM and a 16x CD-ROM drive.

JumpStart Study Helpers Spelling Bee sells for $14.99 and will run on any multimedia PC, Pentium 233 MHz or faster, 64 MB RAM with Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and a 12x CD-ROM drive. It also runs on a PowerMac G3 233 MHz or faster with 64 MB RAM and a 16x CD-ROM drive.

Software Companies Mentioned

Vivendi Universal Games
4247 S. Minnewana Ave.
Fresno, CA 93725
Phone:  310-649-8004
URL education.com