Jump Start For Wii Review and Giveaway

At Christmas I made the best decision I could make and bought my heathens a Wii. While it’s been fun for them to play and get more active with the thousands of games available for the Nintendo Wii, I noticed that there wasn’t a lot available for Peanut. Sure, he tried the big kid games but always seemed to have some trouble. (Sometimes “Rated Everyone” doesn’t always include the 5 and under crowd.)

We have a lot of computer games for all of the kids but it’s nice to mix things up every now and then. I don’t mind when they play video games, (we do have a time limit for how much they get to play especially in the summer) but I like it even more when they are having fun and learning something at the same time.

One of the computer games our family has always used are the Jump Start games by Knowledge Adventure. Recently I’d corresponded with Knowledge Adventure and tested out the Jumpstart.com website with the kids (which we like but our home computer isn’t quite fast enough so we had some lagging). Because of that, we were really interested in the Wii games that they had available.

The Wii games currently available by Jump Start are Pet Rescue (Rated for Early Childhood – roughly ages 3-5) and Escape from Adventure Island, (ages 5-9) but rated for everyone (and those with comic michief) by the ESRB. I received both of these games to test with Peanut who is 4, and Shorty, who is 9.

Every new story read in Jump Start Pet Rescue rescues a pet!

Right off the bat, Peanut loved the early childhood Pet Rescue for Wii. The game requires him to master all 5 levels (Your Neighborhood, Petland, Town Square, Beach, and Jungle). For every world you master, a story is unlocked in the library and a pet is rescued when the story is read. Players get to personalize their “Jumpee” and customize their house. You can choose to either Explore (move around from location to location) or play the story mode. I still help Peanut with the controls but he uses the nunchuk all on his own. Playing with him allows me to see what he’s picking up in the game and what we need to work on with him. He’s learning his letters and he’s learning to match, tell similarities and differences, and problem solve. Plus, he loves rescuing the pets and then taking care of them.

Shorty has just started playing Escape from Adventure Island (he’s actually been playing Peanut’s game!), which is similar to the website version. So far I love that he gets a variety of skills to master (over 150), including place value, contractions, and fractions – which is perfect as he goes into the 4th grade this fall. Each activity is a learning experience cleverly combined with a fun adventure. As in Pet Rescue, you can personalize your Jumpee to your liking (make them as interesting as possible!). While you’re stranded on Adventure Island, you can customize your tree house and even participate in a dance contest and fashion show.

Complete each mission to get tanks of helium for your blimp and escape from Adventure Island!

So far, we are not disappointed with the Jump Start Wii games. I’ve been using the PC versions of Jump Start games since before Bug started Kindergarten so I consider us to be a Jump Start family and am thrilled that as my kids and technology are growing and changing, so is Jump Start.

During the time that I’ve been working with Jump Start, I’ve been very pleased with their responses to my questions about using the website (something my kids loved, but had problems accessing) and throughout our correspondence they’ve let me know that they are making improvements so that people with slower systems can use the site. A great relief to me when both boys want to play their games! For us, switching to Google Chrome and using my laptop instead of the desktop computer, has helped greatly in using the website.

What’s more exciting to me is that coming some time this month (We’re in June already!!) Jump Start is coming out with a Family Fitness, Sports Edition Wii game (on our list already!)

While we all wait for the latest Jump Start Wii game to be released, how would you like to win a copy of Pet Rescue for your early learner?

I have been given an extra copy of Jump Start Pet Rescue to give away to a lucky reader and I’d love for one of you to have it!

How to Win:

1. In the comments, tell me one of the ways you’ve kept learning fun for your kid(s).

Additional Ways to Enter. Each Additional Entry requires a separate comment.

2. Become a Fan of The Guilty Parent on Facebook (if you’re already a fan, let me know!)

3. Follow Guilty_Parents on Twitter.

4. Tweet about this Giveaway – You can even use this sample tweet:

The Guilty Parent is giving away Jump Start Pet Rescue for Wii. http://tinyurl.com/jsgiveaway (via @Guilty_Parents)

5. Blog about this giveaway (please leave a link to your post if you do).

6. Subscribe to the RSS Feed

7. Subscribe to my newsletter.

The Jump Start Pet Rescue giveaway ends June 7th, 2010 at midnight. The winner will be picked via Random.org and announced here and notified via email.

Good luck!

**I was provided both Jump Start games by Knowledge Adventure to facilitate this review. All opinions and viewpoints expressed are my own, regardless of my relationship with the company.**

About Nichole Smith

Nichole Smith has written 311 posts on The Guilty Parent.

Founder of The Guilty Parent and Chaos in the Country (http://www.chaosinthecountry.com), Nichole is a writer, blogger, social media strategist, wife to one, mother to four and embracer of mommy guilt.

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