In the Kit Mystery Challenge! game, Kit finds that her home’s boarders have intriguing puzzles that she can help solve. You help Kit talk to people and gather clues from her home and neighborhood to crack six different cases. The first five cases can be done in whatever order you like, but the last case can only be unlocked by cracking the first five cases. The first case centers around who left the latch open on the chicken coop and let all the chickens out. In the second case you help Kit locate her mother’s missing pearls. Next, Kit is curious about one of their boarders who leaves early in the morning. She hopes that he has found a job and can help her father get a job there. The other mysteries involve a Cinderella costume and a missing rose.

This game is rated E for everyone, but be aware that it is very reading intensive. Both my daughter and I found this frustrating, because you had to wait for the words to scroll across the screen. If your child has any trouble with reading at all, they will lose interest in the game quickly. It would have been nice to hear the words as well as read them, instead of just hearing a music soundtrack that gets old very fast. I found the interface to get Kit to walk around difficult to deal with, because it was hard to line her up so she walked straight instead of tottering off into the street. Getting in and out of rooms around doors was frustrating as well. That said, I found the cases themselves interesting and absorbing, and I was willing to stick with the cumbersome interface and the reading to work on them.

The Kit: A Tree House of My Own game for PC was a much more fun game for both my daughter and me. In this game you and Kit play six different games to first gather tools and then to win items to decorate your treehouse. The interface is simple and easy to control, and the people actually talk so you can both hear and see the words. The games themselves are fairly challenging, though, and once the first couple of levels have been achieved, they might be too challenging to hold the interest of younger (age 8-10) players.

Each game has 20 levels and on some the highest I’ve been able to achieve is level 4. One of the games that is particularly challenging is similar to Scrabble, where you are given seven letters and need to come up with words that you can spell using those letters. I have an English degree and can’t get above level 15 in the short 2 minute time they give you to complete it. Not only that, but it disallows words that I know are words (that are not inappropriate or slang words) and includes words that are spelled wrong. Despite that, it is a fun game and my daughter and I both played it for hours on end, until we had to get up because our necks hurt.

Written by Mary, who is a thirty-something SAHM of four under the age of eight. She is a lousy housekeeper, a voracious reader, and dabbles in art and music in various forms. She blogs to maintain her writing skills and her sanity in The Fish Pond.

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Enter by leaving a comment HERE and telling us why your child (or relative) would benefit from this educational game. The contest is open until Tuesday, June 24, 2008.

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From the moment our son saw the box he was hooked and asking a million questions. He continued to talk as we loaded the software onto our PC and waited for instructions to begin. This particular DVD-ROM is an adventure targeted at children five to nine that focuses on literacy skills and includes lots of games and activities.

The Bugaboo Bugs! is about some pesky bugs. Mia, the mouse and star, lives in a lovely Victorian house where her family has lived for generations. The house has recently been invaded by the Bugaboos. These noisy and disrespectful bugs are going to attract the attention of the humans and quite possibly the exterminators may show up. The Bugaboos must by kicked to the curb and Mia needs the player’s help to find a way to get them to stay out of site.

Our son will turn 6 in one month and enter kindergarten this fall. He did need a parent to help him navigate what to do, but has quickly picked up even some of the simple words on his own. The game is intended for ages 5-9 and has been a great way to prepare him for school. I’m thinking of loaning it to his kindergarten class, because I believe the teachers will find it to be a fun educational way to reward students. The game is very interactive and focuses mainly on literacy skills.

There are two features to this software that I absolutely loved. The first being that none of their games appear to be based on a movie, television show or licensed character. I get very sick of kids getting bombarded with a specific character. You’ll find Spongebob on pajama’s, in Happy Meals, in the cereal aisle, on books and everywhere else you can think of. I appreciate the originality of Kutoka. The second feature I loved was the richness of color and characters. Every detail was uniquely planned and carried through the entire software. The graphics are delivered in HD and the quality is exceptional.

The software retails for $24.99 and you can find other titles that Kutoka has developed on their website. There are five titles in the Mia software collection, four learning adventures and a creativity tool called Click & Create. The four learning adventures cover math, science, reading and an introduction to foreign languages (French and Spanish). This multi award-winning series is available is over 40 countries in 14 different languages.

Written by Emily, who is a married working mother of a very energetic 5 year old son. They reside in Southern Indiana (a little too close to the Kentucky border). Someday she’d like to visit Intercourse, PA and have her picture taken with the welcome sign. She writes at her personal blog, Fenicle and loves free samples and trying new things!

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The program, which is available for both Windows and Mac, took me all of 45 seconds to download, install, and open. Switching between the view of my music and the view of the calendar is an easy ctrl-t click away. (click image to see a larger screenshot)

In under a minute, I had found that one of my most favorite bands is playing less than 5 miles from my house on July 3. This is a fact that would have most likely escaped me otherwise.

Listed to the left of the calendar is a list of the concerts. Just click on the show you are interested in seeing, and iConcertCal opens your internet browser to a page with ticket and venue information.

These days, I don’t pick up the weekly local entertainment paper. I don’t have time to cull through it looking for that one show a month that I am enthusiastic enough to go see. We love concerts. We love going out. We just aren’t inspired enough anymore to search for the opportunities.

I don’t love my iPod, but I do like iTunes for easy access to music. I just love a beautiful CD jacket way too much to be strictly an iPod girl, though. However, with addition of this lovely little concert calendar plug-in, iTunes has suddenly become even more appealing.

And don’t forget that it’s free!