Zoboomafoo Animal Alphabet

by Zoboomafoo

Product Features

• Ages 3-6
• Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP, Vista, Win 7
• 26 unique characters, 8 interactive activities
• Fun, printable activities, Printable animal flashcards
• Real animal videos, Fun Zoboomafoo songs, Creature adventure photo album

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005RFDJ
• Item model number: 381634
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,641 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #66 in Software > Children's Software > Reading & Language
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Based on the popular PBS television show, Zoboomafoo Animal Alphabet takes kids on a guided tour of their ABCs, allowing them to brush up early reading and spelling skills while learning about animals from the Kratt brothers and their leaping lemur friend.

An educational activity center for children in the 3 to 6 years age range, this game offers a variety of simple minigames designed to build alphabet knowledge by capitalizing on a young player's curiosity about the animal kingdom. Users can color animal flash cards or play an arcade-style round of Penguin Pong, bouncing ice floes off each other to reveal the answer to a quiz question. Alternately, they can go to Animal Mixups, a top-notch activity where kids mix and match animals, grafting a zebra head, to take one possibility, onto a tiger torso, perhaps with a cow or reindeer tail to finish.

As an extra bonus, play is interspersed with lengthy live-action sequences from the television program. A win in one of the spelling games triggers a shot of the Kratt brothers going face-first into a mud pit. The Kratts and Zoboomafoo the leaping lemur also host a collection game, where players seek out animals whose names start with the different letters of the alphabet, and then get to see video footage of the creature itself.

Animal lovers and fans of the show should enjoy Zoboomafoo Animal Alphabet thoroughly, especially if they have never seen a game of this type before. More experienced players may recognize that about half of its activities are standard fare, reworked versions of games that appear repeatedly in educational software. This is the only complaint to be made, though, with what is otherwise a completely engaging game with lots of fascinating animal facts and great potential for teaching young learners some basic reading skills. (Ages 3 to 6) --Alyx Dellamonica

Product Description

Join Zoboo and his pals from the Emmy Award-Winning series on PBS Kids! Welcome to Animal Junction - from Armadillos, Bears and Chameleons to Xenops, Yaks and Zebras, It is a wonder-filled world where kids will love learning about animals, the alphabet, early reading and more! Mangatsika!

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars kids and parents deserve better than this lame software, June 15, 2002

By 

audrey (white mtns) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Zoboomafoo Animal Alphabet (CD-ROM)

I am really startled at the praise this software is getting. We own approximately twenty software titles for children and I would rank this as one of the three worst. In its favor it does not crash, but the quality of both format and content is poor.

First off, the resolution is bad. We've run this game on a Macintosh laptop and desktop computer, and the introductory footage looks fuzzy on both.

The live-action introduction is fun for fans of the show, but the few live-action sequences in the game's interior are not enough to keep little ones happy. The Kratt brothers are charming hosts of the television show but we don't see enough of them in this game. After the introduction children see a pan-and-scan version of Animal Junction populated with twenty-six clickable animals, each representing a different letter of the alphabet. When kids click on one of the animals, they receive a "page" with a picture and an assortment of facts about that creature, though in eight instances a child is presented instead with a game (more about these later). Confusingly, when a game is finished we hear Zoboo say, "That was great! Here's your animal page. Do you want to play again?" Instead of seeing an animal page, kids get a Yes-No choice. If they choose Yes they go to a game repeat. If they choose No they then go to the appropriate animal page. Did they beta test this at all?

Finally, the games are neither well-explained nor are they well-designed for children. Penguin Pong, even at the lowest of three difficulty levels, moves slowly and, in the vein of the classic game Pong, you have to knock out 49 blocks. It takes forever and kids get bored. Similarly interminable, the letter scramble is also a mess. A child must rearrange letters to form the name of a pictured animal, then click on a virtual spinner to advance Zoboo 1, 2, 3 or 4 spaces on a "game board". First complaint: when a child uses a letter from the scramble list it remains active, which is confusing for little ones. Second complaint: the game board is 35 spaces long -- it takes at least nine scrambles, and usually many more, for Zoboo to get to the end. Third complaint: when Zoboo does finally reach the 35th square, nothing interesting happens, unless you count that now-familiar non sequitur, "That was great! Here's your animal page. Do you want to play again?" What's the lesson here -- lowered expectations? In the Noodle Hut game, Zoboo asks for a letter and your child is supposed to click on it amid a field of noodles, each with a letter on it. But even at the lowest difficulty level, there are multiple examples of letters, again confusing to little ones. If there are three "R"s, which one should they click on? Also, some of the letters are presented at a three-quarter view which makes them less recognizable. Why would you do that to young children just learning their letters? My final complaint, and an important one, is that the games are not presented within any story or context to make them either interesting or meaningful.

I could continue to find fault with each of the other games, but why bother? This is lazy, sloppy software that is not good enough for your child. Instead, buy Blue's Clues or Franklin or Reader Rabbit software -- consistently well-designed and well-written. It is strange and disappointing that PBS, long considered THE leader in creative educational children's programming and products, seems to be faltering in the wake of recent competition.

Our family will continue to watch and enjoy the Zoboomafoo television show, but this software is a loser.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very fun and deep program, January 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Zoboomafoo Animal Alphabet (CD-ROM)

This game is perfect for animal lovers and kids who need to practice with letters and letter sounds. It has lots of games, plus kids can build a book of animal pages and learn lots of thigns about each of the 26 animals. My kids play the game constantly! (They are Zobooomafoo show fans).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice mix of learning and fun, June 13, 2003

By 

Kurt Miller (Vancouver, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zoboomafoo Animal Alphabet (CD-ROM)

My 3 year-old really enjoys this game. It is perfect for a child who is learning her capital letters, but who is not quite ready for phonics yet. Also, while the graphics aren't superb, they are good enough for a pre-schooler and make her feel like she is interacting with the show. The CD-ROM also has a nice variety of games where different skill sets are tested. My only reservation is that that the software seems to have a few glitches on my Windows XP.