It’s not TV and there are no commercials so it’s all good.

I was recently sent a review copy of the grade one (first grade…whatever…silly Americans…joking, of course!) JumpStart World game.

Since my own children are 19.5 months old and about to be born (soon-ish, please!) I, as usual, took my copy to school and had students review it for me at their computer center.

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The short? It’s a hit! Highly recommended by the best darn group of 4, 5 & 6 year olds you’ll ever meet.

The long(er)? Settle in to read a few of their comments…

*“Mrs MMTaM? This is SO COOL! Thanks!”

*Me: So, what do you think?
*Student: What the hell? (Yes. He said that. In school. Ha!) I can’t get this one right. Oooohhhhh, now I get it. This game rocks! (Lesson: Don’t interrupt the learning. Wait for them to figure out their mission and then tell you about it!)

*”The reading part is actually easy! I can read!!” (Note the fact that this child thought she couldn’t read prior to this game and felt successful at it!)

*“This is fun fun fun! Wanna see my character? He’s a…frog, I think. He’s cute! His name is Bandit. We’re going on a mission now!”

*”I love the math parts. I’m good at numbers so it’s fun!”

From a fellow teacher who helped me out with this since I’m on sick leave: “I love that the kids are never online so it’s totally safe, and it emails me progress reports if I want them. The best part is that the kids just think they’re “playing on the computer” and have no idea that they’re learning with every step!”

Each game package comes with two “adventure packs” which means over 80 learning games & missions and there are 10 more packs available for each grade level (K-2) via optional subscription for $7.99 each.

So yeah, I’ll be taking this one home and saving it for my kids when they’re older. Or maybe giving it to a parent I meet over Christmas vacation when they complain about the teachers getting so many holidays. You know, when we’re cleaning our classrooms, preparing lessons, marking, doing report cards, building classroom websites, researching different learning abilities and styles, spending our own money on stuff for their kids, attending professional development workshops and, once in a while, even hanging out with our own families trying to recover from the 80 hour weeks we worked while getting paid for only 35 the rest of the year. I’ll give them this game just to shut them up.

Use the code JSW5TR for $5 off every game! (That brings them down to $12.99. Totally worth it.)

You can try it free for 5 days. Hey – something to do when those darn teachers won’t take your kids over the holidays and you need to keep them busy yourself! Not that you’d complain about that, right?