Sammy's House
A Review of Sammy's Science House
Ellen Adams
Sammy's Science House is an excellent way to introduce children to the exciting world of science. Tailored to kids three to six, it features five activities to build sequential ordering, classification, and vocabulary skills.
Hosted by Sammy the Snake, a gender-neutral reptile, the package is easy to navigate with just a few clicks of the mouse. Activities are indicated by furnishings in the Science House, and children simply click on a sorting bin, weather machine, or movie projector, to get started.
Yates, my four-year-old, was especially fond of the "Make A Movie" feature, which lets him arrange frames in a film and replay the movie he has created. He is shown a number of scenes, which he selects with a mouse, placing them in the film in sequence. When he makes a wrong move, the Rabbit manning the projector simply says, "Please try another order." When all the panes are in
sequence, the system moves to the auditorium, where the movie plays for a crowd of popcorn-munching zoo animals. Yates would make a movie, and then giggle as he replayed it, backwards.
The Sorting Station presented some challenges for Yates, and acquainted him with the proper names of a variety of plants and animals. He especially enjoyed the animated sorting bins, who clapped, blew bubbles or shouted words of encouragement as he distributed the objects into their bins.
The Acorn Pond activity let Yates show off a bit, as he accurately predicted the characteristics of some of the ponds animal population. Here Yates could change the Acorn Pond display according to the four different seasons, and explore the field notebook to look for more facts about the pond denizens.
The only Sammy's Science House activity that seem to disappoint Yates was the Weather Machine, which, while it gave him control of certain aspects of the weather, and presented some amusing animations, did not seem as well executed as the other activities. The weather machine concentrated on wind intensity, temperature and precipitation, but did not incorporate barometric pressure, humidity or climate. Cloud types, fronts and storm types would be exciting elements to add to a future release.
Yates particularly enjoyed building toys and machines in the Sammy's Science House Workshop. When he finished a creation, he was rewarded with an animation, and he'd frequently clap along with the helpful little bumblebee, keeper of the blueprints.
Sammy's Science House offers lots of choices for the user. Users can adjust activity levels up or down, and each activity can be guided, or self-navigated,. It's the constant encouragement, though, as the characters shout "try another" or "good job," which truly makes learning fun.
School House Scorecard
| Product: |
Sammy's Science House |
| Company: |
Not Available |
| Cost: |
Not Available |
System Requirements:
Not Available
Breakdown:
Ease of Use 3
Learning Value 3
Entertainment Value 3
Graphics 3
Sound 3
Overall Score:
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