The main activity is a delightful hide-and-seek game encouraging children, accompanied by a cat, to explore a house and garden to find where Mouse is hiding. Each room has different hiding places that animate when clicked. The cursor changes from white to blue over each hiding place and accompanying speech helps children identify objects and introduces prepositions. The activity is timed and Mouse waves from his hiding place when found.
The other five activities are accessed from a toy box and include counting, matching, word and memory games and a jigsaw activity. Each activity has a choice of levels and would suit children from four to five years. The jigsaw activity requires quite precise drag and drop mouse skills.
The literature says the activities introduce computer mouse skills. Certainly all the games require children to be able to move and click the mouse over specific objects, and the pointer is a nice chunky cursor that is easy to see. But the games would not be appropriate for children who need to develop directional mouse movement skills.
The accompanying booklet provides installation instructions; accepting the default settings installs the whole of the CD-Rom taking up 100Mb of hard disk space. The booklet also explains each game and gives further ideas to extend the activities into nursery play. Controls include the option to turn off the music, change the colour of the cat and the timing of the main activity.
The CD-Rom costs 9.99 and is a good investment for the home or nursery. It is supported by a lovely website that contains games, stories, competitions and a secret Mouse Club.
The Mouse in the House: D2 digital by design ltd (01204 366 677, www.themouseclub.co.uk)
