Gorgeous graphics and familiar characters attract young children to this smartly-designed activity center that is based on the Fisher Price toy, Little People Discovery Airport. Little People characters, including Sonya Lee, Eddy, and Sarah Lynn, host each of five activities that focus on different airport functions.
Although there are only five activities, most of them feature three difficulty levels, and some offer variations and surprises along the way. Whether or not children have had any real-life airport experiences, this activity center is enormously fun, and rather educational as well.
Sarah Lynn hosts an excellent sorting game. Children need to sort luggage according to color and/or shape. Once the suitcases have been placed on the correct conveyor belts, children watch them move along the belts and into the airplanes! Level one starts off simple, and level three is especially innovative. On the highest level, children sort a set of luggage according to their own criteria. They may decide to sort the bags by color or by shape -- it's entirely up to them!
Another winning activity involves placing pets into the proper pet carriers with Sonya Lee. On the first level, children match tags on the pets with the number on the pet carrier; on level two, children count how many carriers are on a cart, and then label the cart with the corresponding number; and on level three, only audio clues are given as children find the number that Sarah Lynn requests. After a few exercises are completed, kids get to feed snacks to select pets. The snacks are counted as they are offered to the pet, helping to reinforce counting and numeral recognition skills. The pets are simply adorable, and their sound effects are irresistible.
Other activities include a creativity game in which children help "build" an airplane, and then decorate it with spray paint and stickers; a weather activity that turns into a maze of clouds to navigate; and a matching game with Eddy in the control tower.
There are fun surprises throughout the game, such as a banner that appears with the child's name on it. Once children have visited all five activities, printable "fun pages" become available.
The style of this program reminds us of Fisher Price Time to Play Pet Shop and other similar, older titles, which are real preschooler pleasers. However, the developers of Discovery Airport have thoughtfully added educationally valuable activities as well as self-adjusting difficulty levels, without subtracting from the fun. The only potential problem with this software is that it assumes players have decent skills with the computer mouse. Parents will need to help 2-year-olds complete the activities, but 3-year-olds with mouse skills will have a fantastic time with the game.
