[net.kids] software for kids

ellen@ucla-cs.UUCP (11/26/84)

i got software for my daughter when she was a little over two and she
still likes to play with it now that she is 4.  this is for the Apple
//e or the Apple ][+.

her very ** favorite ** is AB&C, or full name Alphabet Beasts & Co., by a
company in Ohio.  this works 3 ways:
	(1)  Creature Features:
	     pick head, torso, and legs/feet from a choice
	     of alien, dragon, non-sex specific child, or genie.
	     the final figure then appears in a city park at night,
	     on the dining table between two perplexed adults, at the
	     school bus stop, or on a planet in space.
	(2)  Alphabet:
	     press any letter.  a picture will gradually be created
	     with a poem using that letter beneath.  press the letter
	     again, and it will be slowly drawn between note-book paper
	     type lines, the way kids are taught to write in school
	     Poems are imaginative & humorous, containing fantasy characters:
		A - Do aliens park
		    in your yard after dark?
	     There are also a magic oak tree, a wind ship, a gentle giant,
	     the cat-in-the-moon, etc.
	(3)  Numbers:
	     Press any number. the word is spelled.  press it again and the
	     number is drawn, again between lines.  then a tiny golden
	     dragon flies across the screen, breathes on a picture frame,
	     on the upper left of the screen.  a one or more large dragons
	     appear in the shape of the chosen number.  then the correct number 
	     of tiny multicolored dragons appear to musical notes on the upper
	     right.

another program we have is Sticky Bear Numbers.  for each number there is 
a large animated picture.  depending on whether the space bar or return is 
pressed, you (or your child) can count up or down (the number of objects in
the picture increases or decreases; the number and the word are also on-screen)
there is sometimes a bit of music to go along with the moving picture
(ex: "sailing, sailing over the bounding main" to accompany the sail boats)

and we have Juggles Rainbow, which teaches Up-Down, Left-Right, and both
concepts together by making rainbow colored, well, rainbows, butterflies,
and windmills.  this one is more obviously didactic, and a bit less fun.

my daughter has many musical toys, but since i don't have a piano, she likes
a music program for kids, the name of which i have forgotten.  it shows
a keyboard, can remember notes and play them back, and has, i think, a few
tunes stored away.