What Parents Should Know
This software has great math activities and a fun premise.
However, if a child is struggling, the program offers help but
it doesn't show the correct answer. Parents might want to
monitor when their child is struggling.
While the title suggests that this software is appropriate for kindergarteners, it is not. Many of the math activities assume mastery of math skills that kindergarteners are just beginning to learn.
Common Sense Media Review
Spectacle City is struggling because its store clerks are
mathematically-challenged. Its special game arcade has had to
close.
Youngsters rescue Spectacle City by helping the store clerks with math. There are 12 different math activities found within the city, covering counting, adding and subtracting, identifying numbers and numerals, money, time, geometric shapes, weighing and measuring objects, recognizing and comparing sets, sorting and classifying objects, and place value. For example, at the toy store, players help the clerk fill orders by separating toy bundles into place value bins that are marked as "ones," "tens," and "hundreds."
Kids will need to help all the clerks in the town before they can open the game arcade. By helping the clerks, youngsters earn money to pay for the arcade games. These arcade games are a great motivation to do the math exercises, and two of the three arcade games involve logical thinking skills.
Kids will learn a lot of math by playing this software. Many of the problems provide math manipulatives, so children can experiment with on-screen objects to learn math concepts. If a problem stumps a child, a character arrives to help. The activities can be played on three levels of difficulty.
While the title suggests that this software is appropriate for kindergarteners, it is not. Many of the math activities assume mastery of math skills that kindergarteners are just beginning to learn.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
