I have taught preschool computer lab for two years and have attempted to use this software several times with my 4-5 year old students. Because a lot of this software requires reading skills, most of my students have real difficulty playing it. The older students who can manage to play it seem to get bored of it quickly.
Overall, I think the software is too complex for young preschoolers, which unfortunately is Blue's Clues primary audience. My 3 year old son was very excited to see this game, but he really can't play it alone - he needs lots of assistance.
Ultimately, I don't use this software often in my computer lab because the kids just don't seem to respond to it.
Blue's Clues ABC Time Activities (Windows / Macintosh)
3.3 3.3 out of 5 stars | 5 ratings
Price: 13.99
Last update: 07-26-2024
Top reviews from the United States
JoAnn Dodson2.0 out of 5 stars
Preschool Computer Lab Teacher - OK for 4-5's
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2005Miryam Shoresh3.0 out of 5 stars
Contents of Blue's Clues ABC Time Activities
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2005
My review is simply information about this learning game. JoAnn Dodson of Plano, Texas ., who describes herself as a "Preschool Computer Lab Teacher", has an article below this description which I think is very worth reading regarding her success or lack of it with different aged preschool children. On her reviews page she has provided feedback regarding several preschool computer learning games and has indicated her success or lack of such in using different computer learning games.
What I'm trying to do in this article is just to give you more information about the game itself. I found helpful explanations in the booklet which accompanied their game, and since I am not a good writer, I just want to let you know about this game, I will mostly quote from what they say about it.
"Blue and her friends greet you in Steve's Living Room."
Steve introduces you to a word book where you collect words to put into it. All together there are 6 different basic stories with different colored pages for each story. Each story has two blanks that you can fill in with the words that you have collected for that story by playing the other games. You can collect up to 10 words for each story and you can put any of these words on either or both blanks. Then Blue will draw a picture for the story you have written filling in these two blanks. As you can put any of these words anywhere in the story, you don't have to actually have to read the story to place them. Steve will read the story for you after Blue has drawn the picture. To earn a word for the word book you have to have successfully played a game right for each letter of the 3 to 4 letter words that you accumulate. Which gives your child the motivation to play the games a total of 216 times in order to fill the book! That's a lot of fun practice! Actually, most of the games you only have to play once to get a letter, but with the mailbox you have to put three letters in 3 letters to get one letter in your word book word. In the Snackroom you only play the game once, but you have to get 2 letters right to finish one game. In slippery soap you have to guess 2 pictures representing 2 words to complete a rhyme and complete a game. So it is actually more playtime fun than that before the book is complete.
From Steve's Living Room you can click on the picture of...
Felt Friends - Word Puzzles
"Objective: to make words and pictures from letters and shapes. Skills:Letter and shape recognition, phonics and word formation."
First the player can warm up their pattern recognition by putting the "felt" patterns into the two to three parts of the picture which have the outline to put them in. Then they can put the three to four "felt" letters into their outlines. Then the word, which has been spelled out letter by letter as each letter is put in place is spelled out then sounded out and then spoken as a word.
"As the game becomes more challenging, there will be more pieces available than you need."
For all of these games, the "difficulty levels automatically adjust to meet each child's skill level."
"Shovel and Pail - Alphabet Maze
"Objective: To help Blue find Shovel and Pail by following an alphabet or sentence trail.
Skills: Alphabet sequencing, pre-spelling and letter identification."
There is the alphabet at the bottom of the page in its sequence so that the player can follow along in knowing which letter to look for next in the alphabet sequencing games. When each letter is clicked on its name is given. After clicking on all of the alphabet letters in the path, Blue follows the path again giving the name of each letter one at a time. If the player goes the wrong way, when (s)he realizes the mistake (s)he can back up one letter at a time until the right path can be followed again. Even in these mistakes there is learning done as these letter's name is given each time it is clicked.
"As the game becomes more challenging, the maze will become more complicated and you will spell words and make sentences to find Shovel and Pail." I have to admit, though, that I played the game 75 times, and while it became more complicated, I never got to the point where it began to have me spell words and makes sentences. As all the other parts of this game (except the mailbox) did do what it stated it would do as it became more challenging, I am sure that it will eventually happen with this as well, I just can't devote any more time to finding out about when. This is good, of course, because it gives the child ALOT of practice reviewing the alphabet in the process of learning it.
Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper - Snacktime
"Objective: To help Blue find snacks that begin with the specific letters and sounds.
Skills: Phonics, vocabulary and auditory discrimination.
They have 4 or 5 snacks on the table. They show a letter of the alphabet, let you know the sound of that letter, and then ask you to find the snack that begins with the same sound. You then can move it onto a plate. As you pass the cursor over each food Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper will tell you the name of the food so that you can decide if the food begins with the correct sound. "Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper will repeat the name of the letter, the sound they're looking for and then say the name of the food you selected. If the food you selected begins with the sound they are looking for, they'll tell you. If the sound does not match , you may try again. When the correct food is chosen, its name appears on the screen. When you have correctly selected two snacks, Blue's friends will enjoy the snacks at the snack table."
"As the game becomes more challenging, Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper will ask for snacks that begin with letter blends, like 'gr' as in 'grapes' ." An extra bonus is that most of the snacks they have are very healthy! Who knows what healthy snack your child might get interested in eating!
Jungle Picture - Safari Snapshots
"Objective: To help Blue photograph jungle animals and fill the Animal Alphabet Album.
Skills: Initial letter identification and word recognition. ...
As you move through the jungle, click on the animal whose name starts wit the letter on the photo album" in the picture. "To see [and hear] the name of each animal move your cursor over the animal as it appears."
"As the game becomes more challenging, you will move faster through the jungle and you won't see or hear the names of animals as you move your cursor over them." By then you will know what they are with all of the previous times you will have met with the same pictures.
As you can see from what I have copied from their booklet, they give very good instructions.
Slippery Soap - Bathtime Rhymes
"Objective: To help Blue and Slippery create rhymes.
Skills: Recognizing rhymes and early vocabulary"
Four bubbles appear over Blue. Each bubble has a picture in it. Slippery gives the names of the objects in each one and the word is presented in writing. You click on the bubble that you want used in a rhyme. Slippery then presents it at the end of the first line of a rhyme and then has all but the last word of the second part of the rhyme presented as well. Four more bubbles appear over Blue's head and you choose the one that rhymes with your first choice of a word. Slippery then reads both words you have chosen. If they rhyme he reads the entire rhyme. If they don't then you can try again to choose the word which rhymes. The word bubbles with the picture can be pointed at to hear and see the word as many times as you want to in making your decisions. "After two more tries, Slippery will help you with the answer."
Mailbox - Mailtime
"objective: To help Mailbox identify and match the missing letters.
Skills: Letter identification and upper and lower case letter discrimination."
Mailbox has a letter for you. But before he can read the letter to you you need to help him fill in the letter. There are three pages to each letter. On each page a letter is missing from one of the words. The letter that is missing is indicated with a light grey letter in its place. At the bottom of the page there are five letters. It is your job to choose which letter is the letter which is missing (IE. which letter matches the letter in the light grey). When you have chosen the right letter, mailbox tells you the name of that letter and goes on the the next page. After all three pages have all their letters on them then Mailbox will read the letter.
"As the game becomes more challenging you will receive fewer visual hints." After playing this part of the game over 60 times, I have to admit that I had not yet come to the place where any visual clues started decreasing, which , or course is good, because then the child will have a lot of time to learn to recognize the words of these letters. There are a number of letters, but having played the game over 60 times, I can tell you that they do eventually start recycling as you can imagine. The letters that are missing are different every time, but the letters themselves eventually start recycling. Anyway, the child will be very familiar with these letters before the clues start becoming fewer.
What I'm trying to do in this article is just to give you more information about the game itself. I found helpful explanations in the booklet which accompanied their game, and since I am not a good writer, I just want to let you know about this game, I will mostly quote from what they say about it.
"Blue and her friends greet you in Steve's Living Room."
Steve introduces you to a word book where you collect words to put into it. All together there are 6 different basic stories with different colored pages for each story. Each story has two blanks that you can fill in with the words that you have collected for that story by playing the other games. You can collect up to 10 words for each story and you can put any of these words on either or both blanks. Then Blue will draw a picture for the story you have written filling in these two blanks. As you can put any of these words anywhere in the story, you don't have to actually have to read the story to place them. Steve will read the story for you after Blue has drawn the picture. To earn a word for the word book you have to have successfully played a game right for each letter of the 3 to 4 letter words that you accumulate. Which gives your child the motivation to play the games a total of 216 times in order to fill the book! That's a lot of fun practice! Actually, most of the games you only have to play once to get a letter, but with the mailbox you have to put three letters in 3 letters to get one letter in your word book word. In the Snackroom you only play the game once, but you have to get 2 letters right to finish one game. In slippery soap you have to guess 2 pictures representing 2 words to complete a rhyme and complete a game. So it is actually more playtime fun than that before the book is complete.
From Steve's Living Room you can click on the picture of...
Felt Friends - Word Puzzles
"Objective: to make words and pictures from letters and shapes. Skills:Letter and shape recognition, phonics and word formation."
First the player can warm up their pattern recognition by putting the "felt" patterns into the two to three parts of the picture which have the outline to put them in. Then they can put the three to four "felt" letters into their outlines. Then the word, which has been spelled out letter by letter as each letter is put in place is spelled out then sounded out and then spoken as a word.
"As the game becomes more challenging, there will be more pieces available than you need."
For all of these games, the "difficulty levels automatically adjust to meet each child's skill level."
"Shovel and Pail - Alphabet Maze
"Objective: To help Blue find Shovel and Pail by following an alphabet or sentence trail.
Skills: Alphabet sequencing, pre-spelling and letter identification."
There is the alphabet at the bottom of the page in its sequence so that the player can follow along in knowing which letter to look for next in the alphabet sequencing games. When each letter is clicked on its name is given. After clicking on all of the alphabet letters in the path, Blue follows the path again giving the name of each letter one at a time. If the player goes the wrong way, when (s)he realizes the mistake (s)he can back up one letter at a time until the right path can be followed again. Even in these mistakes there is learning done as these letter's name is given each time it is clicked.
"As the game becomes more challenging, the maze will become more complicated and you will spell words and make sentences to find Shovel and Pail." I have to admit, though, that I played the game 75 times, and while it became more complicated, I never got to the point where it began to have me spell words and makes sentences. As all the other parts of this game (except the mailbox) did do what it stated it would do as it became more challenging, I am sure that it will eventually happen with this as well, I just can't devote any more time to finding out about when. This is good, of course, because it gives the child ALOT of practice reviewing the alphabet in the process of learning it.
Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper - Snacktime
"Objective: To help Blue find snacks that begin with the specific letters and sounds.
Skills: Phonics, vocabulary and auditory discrimination.
They have 4 or 5 snacks on the table. They show a letter of the alphabet, let you know the sound of that letter, and then ask you to find the snack that begins with the same sound. You then can move it onto a plate. As you pass the cursor over each food Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper will tell you the name of the food so that you can decide if the food begins with the correct sound. "Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper will repeat the name of the letter, the sound they're looking for and then say the name of the food you selected. If the food you selected begins with the sound they are looking for, they'll tell you. If the sound does not match , you may try again. When the correct food is chosen, its name appears on the screen. When you have correctly selected two snacks, Blue's friends will enjoy the snacks at the snack table."
"As the game becomes more challenging, Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper will ask for snacks that begin with letter blends, like 'gr' as in 'grapes' ." An extra bonus is that most of the snacks they have are very healthy! Who knows what healthy snack your child might get interested in eating!
Jungle Picture - Safari Snapshots
"Objective: To help Blue photograph jungle animals and fill the Animal Alphabet Album.
Skills: Initial letter identification and word recognition. ...
As you move through the jungle, click on the animal whose name starts wit the letter on the photo album" in the picture. "To see [and hear] the name of each animal move your cursor over the animal as it appears."
"As the game becomes more challenging, you will move faster through the jungle and you won't see or hear the names of animals as you move your cursor over them." By then you will know what they are with all of the previous times you will have met with the same pictures.
As you can see from what I have copied from their booklet, they give very good instructions.
Slippery Soap - Bathtime Rhymes
"Objective: To help Blue and Slippery create rhymes.
Skills: Recognizing rhymes and early vocabulary"
Four bubbles appear over Blue. Each bubble has a picture in it. Slippery gives the names of the objects in each one and the word is presented in writing. You click on the bubble that you want used in a rhyme. Slippery then presents it at the end of the first line of a rhyme and then has all but the last word of the second part of the rhyme presented as well. Four more bubbles appear over Blue's head and you choose the one that rhymes with your first choice of a word. Slippery then reads both words you have chosen. If they rhyme he reads the entire rhyme. If they don't then you can try again to choose the word which rhymes. The word bubbles with the picture can be pointed at to hear and see the word as many times as you want to in making your decisions. "After two more tries, Slippery will help you with the answer."
Mailbox - Mailtime
"objective: To help Mailbox identify and match the missing letters.
Skills: Letter identification and upper and lower case letter discrimination."
Mailbox has a letter for you. But before he can read the letter to you you need to help him fill in the letter. There are three pages to each letter. On each page a letter is missing from one of the words. The letter that is missing is indicated with a light grey letter in its place. At the bottom of the page there are five letters. It is your job to choose which letter is the letter which is missing (IE. which letter matches the letter in the light grey). When you have chosen the right letter, mailbox tells you the name of that letter and goes on the the next page. After all three pages have all their letters on them then Mailbox will read the letter.
"As the game becomes more challenging you will receive fewer visual hints." After playing this part of the game over 60 times, I have to admit that I had not yet come to the place where any visual clues started decreasing, which , or course is good, because then the child will have a lot of time to learn to recognize the words of these letters. There are a number of letters, but having played the game over 60 times, I can tell you that they do eventually start recycling as you can imagine. The letters that are missing are different every time, but the letters themselves eventually start recycling. Anyway, the child will be very familiar with these letters before the clues start becoming fewer.
Tina J5.0 out of 5 stars
activity cd
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2015
Very entertaining activity cd for your computer. My daughter really likes Blue and this was just perfect for her. Helps with learning with different lessons.
Miss Ruth5.0 out of 5 stars
Fresh, Imaginative, Hours of Fun
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2005
This is a great CD for young kids. It brings you back to the vibrant, colorful backdrop of Blue's Clues and has a variety of interactive activities to keep kids entertained (with a little subtle learning thrown in.)
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
Cookie5.0 out of 5 stars
Blue's Clues
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2007
I purchased this for my granddaughter. It has been extremely helpful with her ABC's. Thanks.