Fun With Science 3rd to 6th Grade

Description:

Fun with Science is a collection of 6 previously released titles in Vtech Soft's Un-Encyclopedia series. All of these CDs have been reviewed individually on Kids Domain Review. Learn about inventions and technology in Inventions to Mention, and explore space and pick up some basic astronomy in Stories in the Sky. Take Flight! is about things that fly (airplanes, hot-air balloons, birds, and insects). Study Earth Sciences in That's Earthshaking! and introduce yourself to social sciences in That's History!. Get the Message allows you to explore different ways of communicating, including codes and secret messages, computer networks, and hieroglyphics.

Each title is similar in format and has the same interface. Common to each is a "scrapbook" which contains technical information. Children need to refer to this information in order to do the activities. Kids learn about hieroglyphics, sign language, the stars, aerodynamics, the water cycle, volcanoes - the list goes on and on. The activities demonstrate the concepts in practice. An example is World Builder in which kids must place various types of terrain onto a map of the world and try to make their custom world habitable to all of the animals pictured. Other examples include launching a rocket, connecting a computer network with appropriate cables, landing a hot-air balloon, steering a ship through a storm, and taking a VCR apart then rebuilding it. Most of the CD-ROMs also have an interactive comic book activity starring a superhero named Cameraman.

Features:

• 6 different CDs each devoted to a particular science topic
• Loads of science facts
• Activities illustrate concepts learned
• Cartoon characters act as guides

Technical Aspects:

Each of the 6 CDs must be installed individually. The installation for each was quite straightforward with Windows 95/98 Autoplay. With the exception of some video clips, the graphics are clear.

Report and Conclusions:

There is a lot of information to take in from all of these disks, and it will be some time before my son has really worked through it all. Although he is on the youngest end of the suggested age range, he is still fascinated by many of the activities. To him, the most exciting is the paper plane activity in Take Flight! that has 6 printable plane models and video instructions that take him step by step through the folding process. Watching him eagerly following directions and putting together those planes was marvelous. Another favorite is World Builder on That's Earthshaking! He is learning a lot about animal habitats with this game, and having fun at the same time.

Keep in mind that the potentials of multimedia are not fully exploited in this package. The "scrapbooks" mostly lack audio, and the information included in these segments are really the backbone of the games, as children must refer to them in order to do most activities. This is one reason why I would recommend this collection to children with a serious interest in the "whys" and "hows" of science. Many of the activities are really quite clever and original, and we consider this to be a valuable software set to add to our collection. The amount of information and the quantity of activities make this an excellent value for the money.