Our family has been members of JumpStart, the online 3D virtual world for kids that is educational, fun and parent-approved, for many years now. Gavyn played for many years and now Zoe has been playing for a couple years. JumpStart offers an array of learning areas and games for children to have hours of educational play time on the computer.
JumpStart’s recent and latest addition is of the interactive DreamWorks Madagascar area! Children can now take their Jumpeez which has a special name and play along with favorite Madagascar characters, Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman, in The Big Apple. Once you head to NYC go to Times Square, Coney Island and Central Park.
Once in the Madagascar areas the penguins give missions, however children need to collect Zooveniers’ from the new European Habitat before awesome things happen. Once Zooveniers’ are collected, they go back to the Penguins’ Headquarters and can mix up the collected items in the transmorpher and morph themselves into zoo animals! There is also a Zoovenier prize wheel where you can easily collect zooveniers, however this can be done only once a day.
Inside NYC, kids can go on a scavenger hunt to find items like teddy bears, stockings and candy canes plus games to earn coins, Jumpstars and prizes. For the scavenger hunt, you’ll be hunting for a while as NYC is a large place. Look in shops, behind areas and around the city to find the items. Zoe loved the arcade games in Coney Island where she earned lots of coins.
A game similar to Angry Birds, Beaver’s Revenge is one of the games. She loved slingshotting the fish to complete and advance in missions.
There are also three additional arcade games for fun. Coney Island is filled with amusement park fun. The zoo is filled with beloved Madagascar characters and there is an adorable nursery area where players can take their favorite zoo animal on a carpet ride down the river to collect stars. Once stars have been collected balloons appear with learning games such as finding the correct number, animals, what doesn’t belong and finding lower case letters. Players can choose skill levels easy-medium-hard.
In Central Park Zoo children can learn fun facts and puzzles about the zoo animals and their natural habitats. Zoe learned a giraffe’s favorite food; the acacia tree and also learned an adult giraffe’s heart is 2 feet long and weighs 20 pounds. In Central Park at the zoo there are facts about penguins, Gloria the hippo and others. Did you know a hippo can run up to 14 mph on land and can easily outrun a human despite their chubby size? How about each adult lion needs 10-15 pounds of meat every day? These are the types of interesting facts you can learn at Central Park Zoo.
You can also check out movies at the movie theater in Coney Island, talk with the zoosters, ice skate, ride the bumper cars, take a board the train in the zoo for a ride through the European Countryside and much more.
This Madagascar addition to JumpStart has been enjoyable for Zoe when she gets the chance to play. All the new features are in addition to regular areas such as storyland, learning games, adventureland, downtown and more. Oh and because it is winter, children will adore the winter wonderland animations, features and fun. Kids can change their Jumpeez clothing for the cold weather and even change into an elf.
JumpStart is free however I highly recommend becoming a member as adventures unlock, more games are available, PC games can be downloaded and overall children will have more fun. Membership is $8.99 per month. Parents will appreciate the free worksheets, activities and informative information.
Kids have so much fun playing with beloved familiar characters from the hit movie. There is so much to do so head on over and explore JumpStart for yourself. You may want to even put Madagascar on the TV while your child plays.
I would like to see features in the European Countryside available as we can see the Eiffel tower on a train ride, however we cannot go to Paris. I’d also like to be able to board the train other than at the zoo. Once off the train we can get back to the zoo by penguin escape tunnels. A train ride is more fun for kids. Also, there is some lag time depending when you play.
For more information on the fun world of JumpStart visit www.jumpstart.com
This sounds cute, but my kids aren’t allowed to use m laptop yet, so I guess they won’t be playing this one.
I think I’d like the game that’s similar to Angry Birds too. Zoovenirs? That’s so cute!
How fun! I bought a Lifetime Membership to Jumpstart because Hunter loves it so much.