Customer Reviews

Adventure Workshop 1st-3rd Grade

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These "Adventure Workshop" packages are enough to drive a shopper crazy. If you haven't figured it out by now, you owe it to yourself to find out that there have been at least EIGHT DIFFERENT packages sold under this same title! The one I'm reviewing here is supposedly ASIN number B000063LGF, and the title includes no "version" number unlike most other Amazon listings for this product.



However, the photograph looks like a package that I own, and that's what I'll comment about here. NOTE that in this photo, as in the one I own, there are *three* -- not four -- programs. Two are Reader Rabbit titles, and the other is "Clue Finders".



The Reader Rabbit programs are just okay. They install reasonably well under XP and they cover the learning areas that they're supposed to. Our kid has played with both programs, both before and during first grade, and seems to want to keep them on the PC for now. We'll see if they get ignored when other programs get installed, though.



I did not install the ClueFinders program at first because it was too advanced for a kid coming out of kindergarten. And now, I have discovered that the game in this box ("Mystery of the Monkey Kingdom") is actually just an older version of a product known as "ClueFinders 3rd Grade" or "ClueFinders The Mystery of Mathra".



Just try to sort this stuff out! The other version I have, with Mathra in the title, works better and appears to contain two separate adventures -- one of which is the Monkey Kingdom. So, obviously it is a better value than the version in this box.



Most of these programs keep track of the user by name, and help the player progress through different difficulty levels. So, if you're on a budget and get a really good deal, this package of three titles might be a reasonable choice. If nothing else, it is fairly accurately targeted at the age range suggested by its title (unlike others in this series).



But shop around. If you want to get the most out of the ClueFinders program, you'll want to get a newer version, and/or a version that has more different types of learning involved rather than just the Monkey Kingdom, which covers primarily Math.