“Following and creating patterns, making comparisons, cause and effect, hand-eye coordination, following multi-step directions, life skills, goal setting, computer use, interaction with technology, etc. are all elements involved while playing in JumpStart”, says Heather Tuttle, Curriculum Writer.

Let’s take a look…

It takes quite a bit of hand-eye coordination to get to navigate Free Fall Mountain.

And navigating that chocolate maze requires pattern and letter recognition skills.

Even the pre-programmed chat words in the game are based on Dolch’s sight words, a set of words that should be standard knowledge by the third grade.

Plus, dance moves and emoticons help kids learn about social cues and body language. (After all, the Jumpeez showing angry emoticons are never as fun to make friends with.)

And the Jumpee Creator teaches body parts, colors and more.

Heather explains, “When a kid is playing at JumpStart they are drowning in opportunities for learning. Without even realizing it, this child is exploring, discovering, and beginning to make connections with prior knowledge, creating new knowledge.”

So tell your kids to go explore, chat, and play at JumpStart.com. You can relax, knowing that they are learning math and reading…but also much, much more.

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Practice Numbers with the Monkeys.

Practice Letters and Memorization with the Duckies.

To play, select one of the games above from a learning kiosk in the arcade (just look for the big brains!). Choose whether you would like your child to practice ABCs or 123s and let the learning and earning begin!

Visit the Learning Kiosk in the Arcade!

Don’t be surprised if these learning kiosks disappear from the Arcade in the future!  They’re set to be relocated to the separate, learning-focused Brain Training Arcade in DownTown.  Read about the new learning center here!

Tell Your Friends to Have Their Young Kids Cash In!

That's a printable, (adjective) picture of a mad lib.

To get started, print out the story template here.  Then, ask your child to provide each of the word types you see in white (adjectives, nouns, etc), and use their choices to fill in the blanks.  Read the story aloud with your child for lots of laughs!

(Feeling ending in -ed) what you saw?  Tell all your (plural noun)!

Floating Spooks
What you will need:

• Balloon
• Wool sweater, or hair
• Scissors
• Coffee filter

Find out how to cut these little buggers out...

1. Cut up little pieces of a coffee filter into the shape of 2” tall ghosts.
2. Blow up the balloon and rub it on a wool sweater or your hair.
3. Now, quickly take the balloon off your sweater or head and place it over the little ghosts.
4. Watch the ghosts actively float upwards towards the balloon!

Evanescent lighting not included!

Like magic, static electricity possesses the power to move objects without strings or direct contact.  The rubbing of the wool gives the balloon a negative charge – this is the same negative charge you gather when dragging your feet in socks over carpet and the same charge you feel jump from your body when you touch a metal object!  In the world of electrical charges, opposites attract and similar charges repel.  The balloon easily attracts opposite, positively-charged particles of the light ghosts, which is why they jump up without actually being touched!  Amazing, right?

Up, up, and away!

Here’re two more easy-to-do, spooky static experiments:

The Lost Water
What you will need:

• Balloon
• Wool sweater, or hair
• Running faucet

1. Blow up the balloon and rub it on a wool sweater or your hair.
2. Turn the faucet on to run a slow, steady stream of water.
3. Now, take the balloon off your sweater or head and place it close to the running water.
4. Watch the water magically bend towards the balloon!

Water has no overall electrical charge, but the negatively-charged particles in the water can move a little bit.  When the negatively-charged balloon comes near the water, the water molecules’ negative particles repel away from the balloon with the same charge, rotating the water molecules overall.  Now, the sides of the water molecules facing the balloon have a positive charge.  Just like puzzle pieces, the negative and positive charges are attracted to each other and fit together perfectly.  To better understand this, think of two magnets you try to force together.  If the sides of both magnets facing each other are giving off negative charges, they will not touch and repel each other away. However, if one face of a magnet is negative and the other magnet’s face is positive, they attract each other. This is similar to the actions of the water and the balloon. The attraction between the water’s face’s positive charge and balloon’s negative charge causes the stream to bend towards the balloon like a magnet, defying the directly-downward pull of gravity!

Collecting Pitch-Black Pepper
What you will need:

• Balloon
• Wool sweater, or hair
• Salt
• Pepper

1. Mix up salt and pepper in a little pile.
2. Blow up the balloon and rub it on a wool sweater or your hair.
3. Now, take the balloon off your sweater or head and slowly place it closely over the pile of salt and pepper. Don’t move too fast, or the salt will leap as well!
4. Watch the dark pepper jump up to cling to the balloon, leaving the salt in the dust!

Again, the rubbing against the balloon charges the balloon negatively.  Negative charges are drawn to opposite, positive charges, and the salt and pepper both fall into the positive charge category.  The pepper flies up without the salt, because the pepper is lighter than the salt; if you moved the balloon any faster towards the pile, they both would have leapt to attach to the balloon.  You’re now free to wash off the pepper, or wipe off the pepper from the balloon and try to recollect it into its separate shaker.

Get your friends ecStatic about these experiments!

The JumpStart world goes Halloween this month!

To start the fun, grab your friends and head to the Jumpee Creator to design the perfect Halloween get-up. A swashbuckling pirate? A pretty princess? A stylish cat? A spooky ghost? The possibilities are endless!

Then it’s time to select the perfect spooky sidekick! Pick a bat, a pumpkin or maybe even a mini-skull.

Halloween pets!

Just keep in mind that the more JumpStart games you play, the more coins you’ll earn, and the more festive you can make your Halloween. But that’s not all! Once you are all decked out in your BOOtiful costume, it’s time to venture out into the slime-covered pumpkin-packed world for some festive Halloween fun. With special Halloween themed contests and challenges appearing throughout the month, it’ll be just as fun as trick or treating! Get excited…Halloween is just around the corner at JumpStart!

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The Sea Lab will be the main portal that you enter in FutureLand. Our artists gave us a quick sketch as to what the lab will look like from the outside…

FutureLand Sea Lab

And check out the artists’ ideas for FutureLand’s drones…I have a hunch they might not give visitors the warmest welcome!

Mysterious FutureLand Inhabitants

Patrolling Drone

Shoot Drone

Stay tuned here for more information about FutureLand and its metallic inhabitants!

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To start off it is important to know why pennies get their gloomy color with age. The copper atoms that are found in pennies are attracted to the oxygen atoms that are found in the air we breathe. When these two kinds of atoms combine, they form copper oxide. Pennies look dirty and dark because they are covered with copper oxide. Now that you know this, you can learn how to get rid of that copper oxide and show off your shiny new looking pennies!

What you need:

• 15 to 20 dirty pennies
• ¼ cup white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Spoon
• A non metal bowl (usually a clear shallow one will work best so you can see the reaction)
• Paper towels

1. First, put the salt and vinegar into the bowl. Stir it with the spoon until all of the salt dissolves.
2. Put all of your pennies in the bowl. Leave them for five minutes. Have your child watch the pennies as they go in and talk about what the reaction looks like.
3. Now take half of your pennies out and place them on a paper towel.
4. With the second half of pennies that are still in the bowl, take them out and rinse them off well in the sink. Then place them on a separate paper towel from your first half of pennies. Make sure to note that these are the rinsed ones!
5. Wait 45 minutes to an hour and check back on the two piles. Have your child describe the differences between the two and try and guess what happened. Have them make their penny cleaning hypothesis!

Why do the piles look different?

You might have noticed that the rinsed pennies are a lot shinier than their non rinsed friends. This is because when the vinegar and salt dissolve the original copper oxide, they make it easier for the copper atoms to once again join with the oxygen in the air and the chlorine found in the salt. The chemical reaction with copper oxide begins to happen once again if the pennies are not rinsed with water. However, when the pennies are rinsed, it prevents this reaction from happening so quickly, leaving you with beautiful copper pennies!

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These cute little crustaceans hang out in large groups, right on the shore line, in the “swash zone” or area of breaking waves. They burrow under the sand a little ways and poke their antennae out to munch on plankton… And the best thing about sand crabs (as far as summer activities go): they don’t have claws on their front legs, so you and your kids can have a great time catching them… and learning at the same time! Just remember, sand crabs need a constant fresh supply of plankton to survive, so be sure to throw them back, and don’t let them get too dry!

How to Find a Sand Crab

Since sand crab larvae drift as plankton for several months, they get carried all over the place by currents, and can be found on many beaches. To spot them, just walk along the wet sand where the waves wash up (sandy beaches are better than rocky ones), and keep your eye on the ground. As a wave recedes, you’ll see hundreds of little V shapes in the sand, made by the crabs’ antennae as they poke them out to shovel in plankton.

How to Catch a Sand Crab

Simply scoop up the wet sand around the V shapes as the water recedes. If you’ve caught some, you’ll probably feel them burrow against your hands. Then carefully wash the sand away, and you’ll see some oval-shaped little critters scuttling around in your palm. They range in size from almost as big as a thumb to smaller than a dime. Oh, and a side note when digging for sand crabs: be sure to wear a bathing suit, ‘cause you’re gonna get wet!

Learning with Sand Crabs

Sand crabs are a great lesson in the food chain and the eco-system. They play a very important role as a major source of food for many sea birds (along with those sandwiches you packed specially for the beach outing) and fish. You can show your kids how these little crabs eat microscopic plankton, and then the birds eat the sand crabs!

You can also teach your kids about camouflage. You’ll notice, sand crabs are the same color and texture as – you guessed it – sand. It’s a great way to hide from those pesky sea birds we just talked about… Too bad you can’t camouflage your sandwiches!

Other Fun Facts

Sand crabs have two sets of antennae – one main one, and another that they use to shovel plankton into their mouths.

Sand crabs, unlike most crabs, can swim by kicking their back legs. If you drop one in a clear wave near the shore, you can watch it paddle its way back to the sand.

While most crabs can move in all directions, a sand crab can only move one way… backwards!

For more information and fun facts, check out this great little article from the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

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Hearing

1.  Take walk to the park or go for a nature hike. Bring along a pad of paper and find a quite spot away from any commotion. Have your child to focus on just listening and writing down everything they hear, anything from the wind to birds to even the rustling of paper. Make it a competition between you and your child. Whoever can get the most sounds wins.
2.  Another fun activity is Mystery Sounds. For this activity, you and your child will search around the house for different items that make noise. A spoon against a pot, a jar of coins, and even sandpaper are some good examples. Once you have found a number of items have your child blindfold you or put a blindfold on them. Take one item at a time and make some noise. See if they can guess which object is making the sound.

Seeing

1. This awesome sight experiment requires at least two people. Help your child draw the outline of a target on a sheet of paper. Place the paper on the ground and carefully stand on a chair with a marker, tip pointing down. Have your child sit on the ground, facing you and the sheet of paper, with one eye closed. Slowly move the marker around in the air above the bulls-eye. When your child thinks the marker is over the bulls-eye, have them say “Fire” or “Drop it”. You can measure how close you were to the bulls-eye by looking at the dot the marker made on the paper Take turns and repeat the experiment with different colors to see who can get closest to the middle.
2.  This next activity is always a fun one for kids. All you need is a piece of construction paper rolled up to about a ½ inch diameter. Tape the tube so it stays rolled up. Have your child hold their left hand up with their palm facing out, fingers together, and thumb pointing away from their hand. (Much like you would when you say “Stop!”) Place the tube in between their thumb and forefinger. Now instruct them to look through the tube with their right eye, keeping their left eye open too. Your child should see a hole appear in their left hand.

Feeling

1.  I’m feeling a challenge coming this way. A Challenge Cylinder must be constructed before this activity can begin. Start by grabbing an empty oatmeal canister, duct tape, and a clean tube sock. Cut off the closed end of the sock and stretch the wider end around the opening of the oatmeal container. Now tape the sock in place. This will allow them to put their hand in the challenge cylinder, but not see inside of it. Your child can decorate the Challenge Cylinder if they wish. Here comes the challenge! Go around the house and pick small items to put into the tube. Don’t let your child see if you wish to create more of a challenge. Now have them put their hand inside and try to guess what the object is by only using their sense of touch.
2. A simple and relaxing way to teach touch requires only your child’s back and your hand. Take turns drawing letters, words, shapes, or numbers and have your child guess what they are. This is a great way to demonstrate the importance of touch.

Taste

1. A fun and tasty way to educate your child about taste is by conducting a blind taste test. Blindfold your child or have them close their eyes. Set up a variety of foods with different tastes, such as salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. You can also add in some liquids and have them guess the flavor of juice. If there’s a baby around the house or you happen to have baby food lying around, have your child taste the food and guess the pureed concoction.
2.  To up the challenge, have your child plug their nose while testing similar foods (apple and pear). Can they tell the difference between the two without using their sense of smell? Is it possible for the taste sense to function without the smell?

Smell

1.  Smell is a great trigger of memories we have throughout our life. We remember the smell of our mother’s perfume or the smell of grandma’s milk and cookies. To help conjure up some memories from your kids, collect some samples of unique smelling items. For example: Orange, lemon, rose petal, perfume, moth balls, homemade cookie, mint, onion, garlic, vanilla, pine needles, pencil shavings, baby lotion, coffee, or even dirt! Place each smelly object in its own container and seal it with cling wrap. When your child is ready to conduct the experiment poke a few holes in the container and have him or her take a whiff. Do not let them see the item inside. Have them write down what they think is in the container and write about any memories sprung from the scent. Did they like the smell? Was it strong or weak?
2.  Take a hike! No seriously! Grab your child and go for a nature hike. Have them write down every specific thing they smell along the way. You can also create a smell scavenger hunt. Write down outdoor smells and have your child cross them off as you walk. Even a game of Scent Bingo would be fun. Create a bingo board with all different smells from nature. Whoever gets bingo first is the winner!

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You will need:

• Two or more clever kids
• A flyswatter for each player
• Poster board, white board, or an overhead projector

Here’s how to set up and play:

1. Create a list of questions. They can be educational questions if you’re looking to review school concepts, or they can be silly trivia questions.
2.  Write the answers to the questions in a grid on the poster board, white board, or an overhead transparency.
3.  Set the grid up within easy reach of players.
4.  Have the players stand on either side of the grid and give each player a flyswatter.
5.  Once your players are ready, ask the questions out loud.  The first player to smack the correct answer on the grid with his or her flyswatter and say the answersimultaneously scores a point. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins!
6.  For a longer game, try multiple rounds, each with a different topic area and grid.

This game promises some fast-paced fun, but be careful that the flyswatters are only swatting the correct answer! Remember, the questions can be as serious or as silly as you want.  Here are some sample questions and answers to get you started:

Social Studies
1. What are the three branches of the U.S. government? (executive, judicial, legislative)
2. Who is the President of the United States? (Barack Obama)
3. What is the highest court in the United States? (Supreme Court)
4. How many senators are there in the U.S. Senate? (100)
5. How many representatives are there in the U.S. House of Representatives? (435)
6. Which was the last state to join the United States? (Hawaii)
7. How many American colonies were there? (13)
8. Who were the opposing sides in the War of 1812? (U.S. and Britain)

Geography
1. What is the tallest mountain in the world? (Mount Everest)
2. Which is the smallest continent? (Australia)
3. On what continent is the Nile River located? (Africa)
4. What is the tallest mountain in North America? (Mount McKinley)
5. What is the tallest mountain in Africa? (Mount Kilimanjaro)
6. On what continent is the Amazon jungle located? (South America)
7. On what continent are the Himalaya Mountains located? (Asia)
8. Where is the Eiffel Tower? (France)
9. Where is the Taj Mahal? (India)
10. Where is Michelangelo’s David? (Italy)
11. Where is the Sphinx? (Egypt)
12. Where is the Great Barrier Reef? (Australia)

Math
1. Addition facts
2. Subtraction facts
3. Multiplication facts
4. Division facts

Reading/language arts
1. Which word rhymes with “art”?
2. Which word rhymes with “pig”?
3. Which word begins with “A”?
4. Which word ends with “R”?
5. Give the definition of a word and see if the players can find it on the grid.

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