Caillou - Birthday Party

Rating:
Summary: fun and stable software for little Caillou fans
Review: Caillou's friends will be arriving soon for his birthday party, and your little one will enjoy wandering through the rooms of Caillou's house as he gets ready for the big event, finding clickable objects, 6 party hats and 8 activities. Before playing, you select a "theme" -- Sports, Music, Sun & Sand or Nature, which only minimally affects game play.

The games, most of which have three difficulty levels, are: (1) Sound identification. Caillou shakes a present and you determine what it is by choosing from three objects represented. Difficulty level varies whether you select from a set of pictures, words or pictures with words. (2) Melody Match. Create a free-form song or listen to a progressively longer song then recreate it by clicking on the appropriate characters and pictures. (3) Crafts. Design and print party hats, invitations, cards or placemats. (4) Bubble pop. As Caillou takes a bath, you are asked to pop specific bubbles. Difficulty determines whether the bubbles depict colors, shapes or numbers. (5) Rhyming. Grandpa reads a two-line poem with the last word missing, and you choose from among three words to make it rhyme. Words are highlighted as the story is read. (6) Make a cake. Use given layers and decorations to construct a cake, then identify who will get a piece of it. Difficulty varies the number of layers and how the recipient is identified -- by clicking on the full name, overlapping letters of the given name or constructing the name from a jumble of letters. (7) Musical Chairs. Caillou and his three friends are dancing. You click on the person that corresponds to a given color, shape or number. (8) Number Chase. This is a game that Caillou plays against a chosen character. Die are rolled and the difficulty level determines whether Caillou counts, no one counts or two dice are rolled.

I like that the game begins with the familiar song and introduction from the television series, that it is very stable and seamlessly incorporates animated and puppet sequences into gameplay. I also like that these scenes can be interrupted with a mouse click. Instruction screens precede each activity and are clear, though too lengthy for little kids to take in. From any screen you can access help or instructions, or easily back out of an activity, and it's simple to change difficulty levels.

I didn't like that the Number Chase game was confusing and that, during cake construction and name building, the pieces must be placed in order; in the former case, the order is not always intuitive. Also, it would be nice if there were a printed instruction booklet. Little ones will probably learn mouse and navigation skills more than they will learn math or reading from this game, but it is entertaining for Caillou fans. Because the instructions can be lengthy, it's important that you sit with your child and play through the game at first. This title is very similar to Caillou Magic Playhouse -- identical format, different activities.

Rating:
Summary: fun and stable software for little Caillou fans
Review: Caillou's friends will be arriving soon for his birthday party, and your little one will enjoy wandering through the rooms of Caillou's house as he gets ready for the big event, finding clickable objects, 6 party hats and 8 activities. Before playing, you select a "theme" -- Sports, Music, Sun & Sand or Nature, which only minimally affects game play.

The games, most of which have three difficulty levels, are: (1) Sound identification. Caillou shakes a present and you determine what it is by choosing from three objects represented. Difficulty level varies whether you select from a set of pictures, words or pictures with words. (2) Melody Match. Create a free-form song or listen to a progressively longer song then recreate it by clicking on the appropriate characters and pictures. (3) Crafts. Design and print party hats, invitations, cards or placemats. (4) Bubble pop. As Caillou takes a bath, you are asked to pop specific bubbles. Difficulty determines whether the bubbles depict colors, shapes or numbers. (5) Rhyming. Grandpa reads a two-line poem with the last word missing, and you choose from among three words to make it rhyme. Words are highlighted as the story is read. (6) Make a cake. Use given layers and decorations to construct a cake, then identify who will get a piece of it. Difficulty varies the number of layers and how the recipient is identified -- by clicking on the full name, overlapping letters of the given name or constructing the name from a jumble of letters. (7) Musical Chairs. Caillou and his three friends are dancing. You click on the person that corresponds to a given color, shape or number. (8) Number Chase. This is a game that Caillou plays against a chosen character. Die are rolled and the difficulty level determines whether Caillou counts, no one counts or two dice are rolled.

I like that the game begins with the familiar song and introduction from the television series, that it is very stable and seamlessly incorporates animated and puppet sequences into gameplay. I also like that these scenes can be interrupted with a mouse click. Instruction screens precede each activity and are clear, though too lengthy for little kids to take in. From any screen you can access help or instructions, or easily back out of an activity, and it's simple to change difficulty levels.

I didn't like that the Number Chase game was confusing and that, during cake construction and name building, the pieces must be placed in order; in the former case, the order is not always intuitive. Also, it would be nice if there were a printed instruction booklet. Little ones will probably learn mouse and navigation skills more than they will learn math or reading from this game, but it is entertaining for Caillou fans. Because the instructions can be lengthy, it's important that you sit with your child and play through the game at first. This title is very similar to Caillou Magic Playhouse -- identical format, different activities.

Rating:
Summary: confusing!
Review: I was so very disappointed in this software! My 3 year old who enjoys many different types of software and loves Caillou was disappointed. The pathways from one activity to the next is confusing. In the middle of acitvities he would tap a wrong key and end up in some other activity. Don't buy it.

Rating:
Summary: Eight fun activities and four fun themes
Review: In the Birthday Party, young players join Cailou and all his friends for the perfect birthday celebration entertainingly enhanced with an engaging combination of animation, puppets, music, dance, and live action. The eight fun activities and four fun themes, along with printable "Family Time" projects make for a wonderfully self-directed, game-based, learning experience. The learning of preschool and kindergarten skills was never so much fun! This Calliou gaming CD-ROM package operates on either Windows or Macintosh platforms, and are based on the popular charecters of an award winning PBS KIDS series. Ideal for daycare center, kindergarten, and homeschooling curriculums for children ages 2 to 6.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Keeps the child busy for a long time. They learn but most of all they have fun - what a 3yr old should be doing!

Rating:
Summary: Annoying game with a few positive points
Review: This game could so easily have been better with the slightest bit of effort. Unlike most games this game doesn't remember any of the settings for a particular child. It's not clear to me why they even bother having them sign in. The instructions where played for every game, no matter how many times the game has been played. The next problem was that it doesn't remember what level of the game the child last played at and starts over at level one every time. This is bad for two reasons. One is that many children get comfortable at a level and don't want to move on to the next, more challenging level. The parent ought to be able to change it once and not have to keep changing it every time. Not only that, you have to go into the game to change the level and then it plays the instructions yet again for the next level. It's true that you can click through all that but it's very annoying. Also, what is the point of having the confirmation every time the child leaves a game? It's not like they're going to lose some valuable data. They can just get back in if they want. Being asked all the time is also annoying.

On the positive side, there are enough activities in the game. And there were a few sound-oriented games that I thought were pretty nice and unusual. However, the art project was totally lame. No creativity at all. Just picking things from a menu.

Rating:
Summary: Annoying game with a few positive points
Review: This game could so easily have been better with the slightest bit of effort. Unlike most games this game doesn't remember any of the settings for a particular child. It's not clear to me why they even bother having them sign in. The instructions where played for every game, no matter how many times the game has been played. The next problem was that it doesn't remember what level of the game the child last played at and starts over at level one every time. This is bad for two reasons. One is that many children get comfortable at a level and don't want to move on to the next, more challenging level. The parent ought to be able to change it once and not have to keep changing it every time. Not only that, you have to go into the game to change the level and then it plays the instructions yet again for the next level. It's true that you can click through all that but it's very annoying. Also, what is the point of having the confirmation every time the child leaves a game? It's not like they're going to lose some valuable data. They can just get back in if they want. Being asked all the time is also annoying.

On the positive side, there are enough activities in the game. And there were a few sound-oriented games that I thought were pretty nice and unusual. However, the art project was totally lame. No creativity at all. Just picking things from a menu.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!!!
Review: This is such a good product! I bought both Caillou Cd-Roms and I must admit the level of the games on these CDs is great. This Cd will thrill your kids.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!!!
Review: This is such a good product! I bought both Caillou Cd-Roms and I must admit the level of the games on these CDs is great. This Cd will thrill your kids.

Rating:
Summary: Fun game
Review: We have both Caillou CD-ROMs, and this one is great (a little better than the Magic Playhouse one). It is really fun for 4 year olds. It has a bunch of fun games that also educate, like the one that plays like a boardgame with rolling dice and moving ahead on the board. There's also a couple good early reading/alphabet activities. We are very pleased with it! Great for Caillou fans especially, but probably kids who have never seen the TV show would enjoy this game too.