Pair with a lesson on dinosaurs, use during indoor recess, or engage kids who have completed their work early. Have your class create a learning journal (one or two pages per student) around a topic of interest.
Continue readingLeapFrog Explorer Learning Game: The Magic School Bus: Dinosaurs invites kids to enter the world of dinosaurs with Ms. Frizzle's students. They'll explore basic anatomy, food chains, and animal behavior through puzzles, games, and quizzes, as they help Ms. Frizzle's students do research for their school play. The education-focused games repeat for each dinosaur (16 in all) but with their own specific content. Kids will have to "photograph" the dinosaur in its habitat using the description given. Then they will study a dinosaur skeleton and rebuild the missing parts from memory. Lastly, they have to take a timed quiz. The quiz repeats any wrong answers, giving kids a second (and third) chance to choose the correct one, as well as to learn the new information. The "reward" games attached to each dinosaur vary slightly, based on the type of dinosaur being studied. Once kids succeed at all the activities for an animal, they unlock a journal page that looks like it's been written and illustrated by one of the students. These journals pages contain additional facts and information.
The content is engaging, and the activities, while not particularly innovative, are a fun way to discover more information about dinosaurs. Unlike many LeapFrog titles, this one doesn't level up in skills, but kids unlock new dinosaurs as well as journal pages as they progress. Teachers can track student progress in the LeapFrog Learning Path online.