How Can Teachers Use It?
Kids will have fun reinforcing their classroom learning and will most likely pick up some new information along the way. It's a great tie-in for lessons on marine life or food chains. Many of the mini-games also transfer into real-life play. Kids can play food-chain tag or sort animals by like characteristics. The students in the game are gathering information for a parent presentation, so kids may also enjoy creating their own reports. This is a great individual activity for kids to do at indoor recess, classroom stations, or even at home as a fun homework assignment.
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What's It Like?
LeapFrog Explorer Learning Game: The Magic School Bus: Oceans is a game that takes kids on a fabulous field trip under the sea where they can learn about ocean life, food chains, and different parts of the ocean. They begin with mini-games that earn fuel for the bus. They may need to identify an animal using only a flashlight, find animals with a specific characteristic (lives near the bottom of the ocean, has a dorsal fin, has tentacles), or show an understanding of a food chain. Once the fuel tank is full, the bus travels to one of the following locations: intertidal pool, coral reef, continental shelf, open ocean, or deep ocean floor. Players learn about the creatures that live in each location using tools such as an x-ray, camera, and magnifying glass. Once they've collected all of the information they need, they'll return to the fuel gather stage. Most of the game time is spent in the fuel-gathering stage. Unfortunately, the information kids need to properly answer many of the fuel-gathering questions isn't presented until they reach the ocean stages.
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Is It Good For Learning?
LeapFrog Explorer Learning Game: The Magic School Bus: Oceans makes discovering ocean life and its creatures fun by baking the learning into games. Some of the mini-games are better than others, so kids may need to be encouraged to explore all of them. But the facts are well-integrated into the game, and it does feel a bit like you're on a diving expedition. Consider discussing the animals and concepts in the mini-games before handing devices over to the kids. Students will be more successful and it will help cement the information.
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Explore different zones in the ocean to see what creatures live there.
Learn even more with special tools like a magnifying glass and camera.
Find animals with specific features in common.
Avoid animals higher up on the food chain while feeding your own creature.
