Didi, Ditto lead youngsters on rich learning adventure

— -- If you are looking for quality children's software for your preschooler, Didi & Ditto Preschool: Mother Nature's Visit, a new game from award-winning Kutoka Interactive, provides a rich learning adventure for you to explore with your child.

The game takes kids on a fanciful adventure while offering 16 activities that help them learn pre-reading, pre-math, science, music and art. Kids will also learn about eating healthy foods and helping the environment.

Preschoolers enter Smart Valley, a lush, colorful world where animals talk and magic occurs. There, they meet Didi and Ditto, young beaver twins, and a host of other animals who need help planning a party for Mother Nature.

Zolt, a vegetarian wolf, causes trouble for the party planners by breaking their musical instruments and stealing their party food. By playing through the 16 activities, preschoolers will fix the instruments and earn the party food. They can choose to play as Didi, the girl beaver, or Ditto, the boy.

Kids discover the 16 learning activities when visiting eight locations. Each activity can be played on three levels of difficulty. For example, when in the Deep Forest, you are shown a picture of a monkey and asked to click on one of four pictures that show a baby monkey.

Other activities have kids fishing alphabets out of a pond, gathering ingredients to make healthy foods, jumping on lily pads to make them change color and shape, and collecting mushrooms to learn to count. To reassemble the broken musical instruments, exercises call for studying pictures and then finding the parts that create the whole. These activities can be played separately from the adventure.

In addition to the structured learning activities, the game is full of other whimsical learning moments. In each of the locations, kids are encouraged to move the cursor around to see if it changes from purple to yellow. When it does, if kids click, they will be rewarded with a special animation, such as a fun learning activity in which two birds fly out holding pictures of eggs in their beaks and ask kids to determine which picture has more eggs. Or it may be silly, as in watching a big blue bear do a dance.

When playing a computer game with a preschooler, especially a child who has never done so before, it is important that the directions are spoken, the computer mouse movements aren't too demanding, and that help is readily available. All of these key ingredients are present in "Didi & Ditto Preschool." Plus, with multiple clickable spots in each scene, kids are encouraged to practice using the mouse to find the hidden surprises.

The educational content is appropriate for preschoolers. At any time, you can raise or lower the difficulty level so that it is appropriate for your child.

A minor complaint with the game is that if your child chooses a wrong answer repeatedly, the game tells your child to try again without highlighting the right answer or eliminating the wrong ones. Given this structure, it might be helpful to make this a parent/child project, instead of simply letting your child loose on your computer.

Kutoka has a 13-year history of creating top-notch children's edutainment, and this game continues that excellence. Its spectacular graphics will take your breath away, as waterfalls sparkle in the sunlight and clouds sweep across the sky. Your child will fall in love with the fanciful characters.

And the good news is that once they have outgrown this game, there are two more available in the series using the same characters: Didi & Ditto Kindergarten and Didi & Ditto First Grade. If you enjoy this series, you might also want to check out Kutoka's "Mia" the mouse series — it is equally as good.

Gudmundsen is the editor of Computing With Kids magazine. Contact her at gnstech@gns.gannett.com.