Customer Reviews

I Spy School Days

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

this is a fun game to play. it keeps me on the computer for along time and my brothers get mad at me. It is sometimes hard to find the hidden pictures, but I love to try. My brother is 12 and he has a hard time finding things. I always find them first. I like the school I spy the best, but the spook house is fun too. I think it is fun to play because you see things that you see every day in school so they are easy to spot as long as you go to school. It also helps teach me to consentrate for long periods of time.

I am a computer lab teacher in an elementary school. Last year, I used this software for quite a few weeks when my Kindergarten through Grade 3 students came in for activity period. Students in grades 4-6 would beg to get a chance to use the software when their assignment for the day was completed.

It was a stretch for Kindergarten to find some of the items, because they did not recognize some of the items in the riddles, but I made sure to point these out in lessons and then circulated to help them more.

It was exciting to watch as students became absorbed in this activity, and most of them grew in their visual and verbal awareness. Children in grades 1-3 could either click to hear the descriptions or read for themselves.

Yes, it is on the shelf this year, but will taken out to be used in two years. This year I bought I Spy Spooky Mansion for use, and next year hope to get the Î Spy Treasure software if I can find the funding.

Although this product claims to be XP-compatible, it doesn't really work unless you first change your system settings to run in Windows 98 compatibility mode, and set virtual memory settings back to 200MB. Even though the outer box says Windows XP, copyright dates inside the jewel case make it obvious this is really pre-XP software that has not been updated.

Since we use our computer for other things besides games, the only way my son can play is to wait for 5-10 minutes' worth of switching to an admin user account, changing memory settings, then restarting the computer. When he finishes, we have to put the memory settings back again so we can use the computer for other things.

Please use caution when purchasing this product. It is labeled Windows XP Compatible, but it is not. You have to reconfigure your entire system to get the software to work. Once you change your settings, then the software is great and my son loves it. I wish I could explain what you have to do to your computer to get School Days to work, but I had to consult with my brother who is a computer technician...I followed his instructions which were very complicated. He even had to search on google to find out how to fix the error message that kept popping up every time we tried to play it.

My 6 year old daughter loves this game. It is not easy and keeps her thinking. I some times find some of the items hard to find but with persistance you will find them. It is never boring. The whole family enjoys this software.

I Spy, a great game is great on a rainy day. Too wet to go outside, no broblem! Just hook up "I Spy." Can you find the hiden objects? Travel to many diffrent rooms. This is as fun as living in Disney World. Practice in reading, build vocabulary, and more. Enjoy this this game. Be smart, and have a sharp eye!

I just tossed this one in the trash. It looked like a good game for my girls but unfortunately Scholastic doesn't believe in updating or supporting their products. I'd be very leary of buying any software from this company since software returns are difficult to negotiate. I would appreciate a list of truly Windows XP compatible children's software titles. Windows XP has been around for at least a couple of years now. I don't understand why compatibility is such a problem. Their support site cites that the problem is "you have too much installed RAM." Well, for most software, that is not a "bad" thing.

My daughter and I play with I Spy 2-3 times a week. Not only does it have the "find an item" games, but it has organizational and grouping games. For instance, in one game, there are several items on the screen and two circles. In one circle, you need to put metal things, in the other circle, you put money. But, the circles also overlap, and in that overlap, you need to put metal money. It builds upon that concept with several other ggroups of objects, and it has taught my daughter a lot more about the world around her.

For those who say this is boring, maybe your kids should just stick to video games. My son is loving the books and the computer games. He conquers them pretty quickly and we have to buy more but hey, it's getting his mind working looking for hidden items. We went for an open house at his school a few months ago and the teacher picked up an I Spy book and said that it was the main thing all the kids fought over in class. We love all the books, computer games and the gameboy game that is out. Good investment for little thinkers out there!

I agree with the reviewer who urges you to stay away from this and other Scholastic products if you run Windows XP. I received School Days and Spooky Mansion today but can't get either to run on XP, even though I am generally quite adept at working with computers. I will never buy another product from this company, even if it works well on XP. These products say they work with "Windows 95, 98, 2000 or later." Don't believe it.