Dora the Explorer a fun way to learn preschool skills

I recently added to my daughter's ever expanding collection of Dora the Explorer products. I found this computer game for $10.00 Cdn and it has captivated her. Like her brother she loves to play games, and I'm all for playing educational games on the computer. This game does not disappoint the Dora infatuated youngster as she plays it for hours on end.

It starts out with signing in by choosing and customizing a key for the gate to fairytale land. As she types in letters for her name Dora tells her the name of each letter. She then chooses a key, a picture and colour for the key tag. The game automatically saves to this tag when she logs out. It keeps track of 4 separate games. When she's completed an adventure she needs to recycle the key in order to start over.

Once a key is selected she then chooses whether she wants to go on a map adventure or just play the games. She also gets to choose a level of difficulty, 1-3.

Children utilize the mouse to navigate through fairytale land. One game has them use the keyboard's arrow keys to find animals in a maze. Dora gives the child clear instructions on how to play each aspect of the games.

My daughter spends a couple of hours a day on the computer playing educational games and her computer skills are beyond most 3 year olds. However, when children in our care come to play they have no problems clicking around to figure out where to go and what to do.

Upon entering fairytale land Dora and Boots meet the 7 dwarfs and a friendly fruit tree offers Boots a banana. He immediately falls asleep and the tree turns into a wicked witch. Dora now must become a real princess to save Boots and the adventure begins.

The adventure follows the original cartoon story of Dora in fairytale land. Dora must find the magic ring, teach the rocks to sing, turn winter into spring and give the moon to the queen and king. Of course you'll have to catch stars along the way and the explorer stars will help you clear obstacles thrown in Dora's way by the wicked witch.

As in the cartoon, Dora directs your child to the various areas they have to go and what they need to do. Alike the cartoon, she is very repetitive and provides clear directions. The graphics are the same as the TV cartoons; the only real difference is that your child must interact to progress through the story.

There are many games along the way that teach your child valuable skills for their future education. The dragon teaches counting, colour and shape recognition. Your child must follow the dragon's directions to be successful. The Giant teaches problem solving as Dora must find lost pets in a maze, collecting items to help remove obstacles. To find out which item will remove which obstacle there is a clear legend available. The rocks teach music and scales, make your own song and play it back at three different speeds. The snowmen teach size, colour, recognition and listening. Throughout the game kids are learning Spanish and using listening skills to follow Dora's directions and without knowing it learning other valuable preschool skills.

As a bonus kids can find storybooks. They can choose to have the story read to them by Dora or they can print it out to colour the pictures and share with you.

The best thing about computer games is the computer skills children learn while playing them. In the future computer skills will be the first and foremost skill employers will look for. By introducing your child to the computer via games with their favorite characters you will be giving them a life long skill.

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