Playskool: PUZZLES

CD-ROM for Windows & Macintosh

Copyright Year: 1995
Publisher: Hasbro Interactive

Ages: 3 & Up

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A Whole New Way Of Puzzle Play!

There's no missing piece to this puzzle! Playskool Puzzles software (Win/Mac CD-ROM) is loaded with five different types of puzzles, three skill levels to keep kids challenged, adjustable sound levels and over 100 animated puzzles.

Aimed at children ages 3 through 6 years, Playskool Puzzles re-defines traditional puzzle-play with solid, interactive activities like Jigsaw, Explore It!, Puzzle Maker, Mix & Match and Connect-the-Dots.

Jigsaw is a challenging activity where kids put together jigsaw-type puzzles by dragging the pieces into place using the mouse. There are three difficulty levels to select from.

The Easy level has 3-5 large puzzle pieces to work with, while the Medium level contains more pieces (between 6-9). The Hard level (10-15 pieces) requires more concentration and patience, but is challenging for adults, as well. If kids try to put a puzzle piece in the wrong place repeatedly, a hint appears as an outline of the puzzle piece either flashes or the correct space for the piece is highlighted. When a puzzle is completed, it turns into a lively animation with great music.

The puzzles double as coloring pages if kids click on the Toolbox, a fun-filled paint program complete with lightning bolt, vacuum, magic brush, paint bucket, pencil, and 15 different paints to choose from. Jigsaw is a wonderful activity to develop shape recognition, shape matching skills and creativity.

A puzzle within a puzzle? Talk about the layered look! Play Explore It! As you click and slide shapes from a completed puzzle (Park, House, Beach &Farm scenes) which expands into a full-size puzzle. Young kids will especially like this activity, complete with vocabulary building words, shape matching and object identification. There's more coloring fun when kids use the Toolbox to create and color. These pictures can be saved and printed.

Make a puzzle masterpiece and create your own puzzles and scenes with a special tool set of paints, brushes and stamps in the Puzzle Maker activity. Cutting the puzzle into pieces was a blast for 4-year-old Tim (the tool man!). There are three different tool icons for kids to click. Realistic animation gives this activity a big two thumbs up! There's a smooth cut table saw, a jigsaw cut saw and a jagged cut hammer for kids to play (safely) with as they click away on the mouse. Adding stamps to the puzzle was more fun for Timmy than actually putting the puzzle together, which required some parental guidance.

The wacky fun never ends when kids play the Mix and Match game. Here, you can create a silly cartoon character as you mix and match body parts (heads, bodies and legs). Don't forget to color your zany cartoon creations!

Our favorite activity in Playskool Puzzles is Connect the Dots. It's not your ordinary dot-to-dot kind of game. There are a few different tools to use (a needle, hammer, wrench or a surprise tool combination) and kids can choose to connect numbers or letters of the alphabet in either upper or lower case letters.

By using the hammer tool, you can click the nails in the right order to complete a picture. If you click on the nails in the wrong order, you'll hear a whistle. The needle makes a great cross-stitch picture as you "sew" on virtual fabric by clicking the dots.

Playskool Puzzles opens up an interactive door to the magic of puzzles with terrific sound effects, music and animation.

It also encourages young children to explore puzzles away from the computer. You can also let kids print a few puzzles (either a color printer or a monochrome printer--color with markers and crayons) and help them glue the puzzle to cardboard and cut out the pieces. Or, just dust off the cobwebs on those puzzles collecting dust in the closet and spread out the puzzles on the table! If you get tired of playing the old fashioned way, you know which CD-ROM to look for!

In some instances, picture may differ from actual item.

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