Description:
Forget the garage. Now you can strap a workshop onto your computer keyboard and build log homes, rocking horses, and UFOs. The Tonka Workshop gives you all the fun of an acetylene torch with none of the singed eyebrows. This plastic tool bench straps onto any rectangular computer keyboard, and through mechanical means, transforms it into a handyperson's heaven. The tool bench has a drill, hammer, screwdriver, sander, saw, and a sprayer that serves as everything from paint gun to welding torch. A nice touch is that kids must move the tools realistically. You swipe the sander back and forth, screw with the screwdriver, and pound a big plastic peg with the hammer. Move a tool, and it moves a knob beneath it, then that in turn executes a keystroke. The only technical thing about installing the Tonka Workshop on your computer keyboard is making sure it's properly aligned. The Tonka Workshop CD-ROM begins with Tonka Joe exhorting "Hey kids! It's time to get the job done!" This is a game with a work ethic. Kids can go to the barn, where blueprints and Tonka Joe will help them build skateboards, roller coasters, and even computers. Then there's the storage shed, where kids can create sculptures. There's also a tree house with three simple games, and a cellar for free-form tool-time chaos. However, the real "get the job done" place is the pickup truck. Click on that and Tonka Joe drives kids out into the country, where all kinds of problems are waiting to be fixed with that handy virtual toolbox. Boy Scouts should get community service badges for playing this game. This Windows-only program is great for showing kids how things are built, teaching sequencing, and building spatial skills. And kudos should go to Tonka for not turning the Tonka Workshop into a big fat ad for their toys. (Ages 3 and older) --Anne Erickson
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