Trudy's Time and Place House Ages 3-6

bought it to work on macs. does not. please dont buy it if you have a mac.

Although my daughter asks to play with this a lot (cute characters) she gets frustrated immediately with the navigation. Perhaps I'll hold on to it until she is 4+, but the material is too mature for her at 3 & 1/2.

This is our first Edmark product, but it won't be our last. This is a fine program with easy controls, a user-friendly interface, and fun educational activities. Kids can work on five tasks in one of two modes. For example, in Jellybean Hunt, your perspective is as an ant on a grid-patterned tablecloth. Jellybeans are scattered at various locations. In exploration mode, you can use arrows designated as relative directions (forward, left or right) or absolute directions (labelled N, S, E and W), to find jelly beans; in task mode, you are asked to get a particular jellybean using a specific arrow set.

Other tasks include: (1) a world map that asks you to identify large land masses or bodies of water and take pictures of them (and clicking on specific places brings up pictures and facts about that place); (2) analog and digital time telling; (3) a scene with dials for seconds, minutes, hours, days and months -- when you click on a dial, the scene is sped up in those increments; (4) a proto-Sim City where kids can place design elements (towns, hills, rivers, roads, etc) on a grid that maps to a sandbox, where the elements take shape.

These activities are well designed and educational as well as fun. As someone who has used Reader Rabbit, Jumpstart and many other children's software titles, I think this compares favorably, and heartily recommend it for your child. Very nice!

Once again Edmark keeps our kids happy with another outstanding product. I've seen kids from 3+ to 7 play this. Several different activities with both Q/A mode or explore mode keeps kids with varied levels of skills busy, entertained and learning. The games "grow" with the kids. Both educational and loads of fun, it's a must for all homes.

We have enjoyed it so much, we continue to buy it for gifts.