Disney Learning: Winnie The Pooh Pre-school

Owl's game involves matching pictures in his photo album. No problems here.

Piglet's game involves painting pictures with the same colours as shown on a smaller version and afterwards decorating it with stars and stickers. However, it's often hard to choose the right paints as the clickable area is very small - so the claim of 2-4 year olds is perhaps a tad exaggerated. It's also a great pity that it can't be printed out and that it doesn't always provide feedback on a wrong colour - leaving my daughter wondering why they haven't said well done when she'd finished it incorrectly.

Rabbit's game involves counting fruit in his jars. I found this a little disappointing as level 1 just involves getting a sticker to match the number (from 1 to 20), level 2 involves putting the correct amount of fruit in to match the number. BUT you don't count it in - you just have to pick up the correct pile - which for 8 items is very hard to distinguish from a pile of 6 or 7. And level 3 involves both the previous but without the number on the jar.

Tigger's game is to choose 'instruments' that match the sounds given. Instructions were unclear here (click the blueprint!) and the clickable area to put the items in his music machine was small.

Kanga and Roo's game is getting letters into alphabet soup. Hooray it has lower case (in line with primary school teaching). BUT it doesn't say the letters phonetically - which is not the best way to teach reading or writing - so essentially it boils down to another matching game.

Finally Pooh's game involves trying to match the missing picture in his dream sequence for example lolly, sun, melted lolly. OK.

The software does have some printable worksheets and badges which is a pleasant plus.

In summary it boils down to matching games with Pooh and friends with some problems due to small clickable areas. Matching is ideal for smaller children but not older, however the fine mouse control requires older children not younger!

For basic mouse interaction for younger children try the Tellytubbies first computer game and for matching games done with better mouse control try the Tweenies first computer game.

However this game is still Pooh and he is adorable if slightly lumpy rather like this game....

Not easy to enter and exit different activities and cut through some of preamble dialouges. More options to navigate would be great improvement.

Please note that some have mentioned a greater mouse control is required than that of a pre-schooler and that it can't be used without an Administration account on Windows XP. I suggest setting up your child as a new user on your home pc and adjusting the mouse to run slower on his/her settings only. With Windows XP, you just install it on your main Administration a/c, log off and locate it under All Programs on your childs account, then run as usual. Hope this helps.