Do you often find yourself chatting with your kids about “mythies,” “quests,” “petz,” or “Jumpeez?” Then you must be a JumpStart fan! And we have some great news for you, parents. JumpStart.com has been nominated for a SheKnows Parenting Award!

Vote for JumpStart.com in the Entertainment Category’s Favorite “Website for Kids”

Every year, the SheKnows Parenting Awards program selects the leading products available to parents in a multitude of categories—from baby gear to eco-friendly gadgets, and everything in between. This year JumpStart.com has been honored as a nominee for the top “Website for Kids” in their entertainment category!

We are beyond thrilled to have received the nomination, but now we need the help of JumpStart fans like you! So spread the word and help support JumpStart by voting on the official 2011 SheKnows Parenting Awards page. Voting is open to everyone so please let SheKnows know how much you and your kids love JumpStart’s virtual world of ridez, charms, and endless activity! The voting results will be announced on October 31, 2011!

A little background on the SheKnows Parenting Awards: “The goal of the awards is to give SheKnows readers all the information they need to make educated decisions in their everyday lives—particularly when it comes to their kids! Nominated products are reviewed by the SheKnows team of editors and hand-picked for quality, functionality, convenience and more.” –SheKnows

Vote for JumpStart.com now!

To support SheKnows’ nomination of JumpStart.com for best “Website for Kids” please don’t forget to vote! Take this opportunity to share your love of JumpStart with parents around the nation! We here at JumpStart would really appreciate it!

Beaver’s Revenge™ is an HD app that includes 60 levels, 3 different worlds, 3D graphics, leaderboards and achievements. Players choose one of 6 distinct animals and use the beaver’s tail to send flying through the air aimed at lumberjacks that are ruining the forest in this strategy and physics game. This addicting new app was just released today for Android™, iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®. Get Beaver’s Revenge for your family today! Just head over to the App Store or Android Market to download this addictive new arcade game!

Help the beavers rain some furry vengeance on those lumbering lumberjacks!

Twisted Games™ has also just released Ice Cube Caveman™ in full and lite versions for iPad®, iPhone®, iPod touch® and Android™. Help a caveman maneuver a narrow path of tiles to the fire in order to escape his icy fate in this new puzzle game. Find out more about Twisted Games™ at www.TwistedGames.com or stay up to date with all the latest Twisted Games™ information by following us Twisted Games™ on Facebook and Twitter!

Navigate these tricky tiles to melt away the ice and save the caveman!

Lumberjacks beware! Papa Beaver saw a lumberjack cutting down his beloved trees. Now he and his furry forest friends are out for . . . Revenge.

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Looking for a new way to keep your little artist entertained on the go? There’s an app for that! We are excited to release the new JumpStart® Art Studio app so your preschoolers can get their creative juices going wherever this summer takes them.

Your children can let their imaginations run wild, experimenting with all sorts of coloring tools on over one hundred different pictures. Each picture can become a unique masterpiece to share with their friends and family! Use the Facebook sharing feature to display your child’s picture, framed photo, or card for all to see!

JumpStart Art Studio is now available in the App Store and compatible with the iPhone®, iPod touch®, and iPad™. Get it today for only $1.99! After the success of our other mobile apps such as JumpStart Preschool Magic of Learning and JumpStart My ABC Book, we hope you and your children enjoy our latest app just as much! Check out all of our mobile apps here!

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JumpStart your child’s education with our newest mobile application. JumpStart My ABC Book is a simple, fun, and addictive game that teaches your toddler the ABC’s. This application uses pictures, words, poems, and songs to improve letter recognition, vocabulary, language development, and memory. JumpStart My ABC Book works with iPad™, iPhone™ and iPod touch®. This universal application will keep your toddler entertained for hours!

My ABC Book uses an interactive learning style which allows your child to decorate his or her own pages and save them in a personalized album.

Your child decorates by choosing stickers that start with the letter displayed.

We are celebrating the launch of JumpStart My ABC Book by offering a discounted price for a short time. Jumpstart My ABC Book will be available today for a special discounted price of $0.99! Click here to take advantage of this special offer and JumpStart your child’s education today. Also, be sure to check out all the other JumpStart and Math Blaster® apps, as they are on sale for a limited time to celebrate the launch of our new app!

Have your kids had the chance to try JumpStart My ABC Book? What do they think?

Do your kids like playing Roller Squash in FutureLand? Well then, they’re in luck! A mobile version of Roller Squash is now available, so now your kids can play anywhere they go.

In this game, your kids must roll their way past the Gords, who are out to stop them! Kids must squash all the Gords before reaching the time portal and advancing to the next level. Be careful though, if they come into contact with the Gords too many times, they will have to start all over again.

There are over 20 levels of fun, so be sure to check it out. Roller Squash is compatible with iPhone®, iPod touch®, and iPad™. JumpStart Roller Squash is available on the App Store here, along with JumpStart Preschool® Magic of Learning and JumpStart Jet Pack.

Are your kids up to the challenge?

Do your children love playing Hops’ Jet Pack game? Well now they can play on the iPad™, iPhone®, or iPod touch® too! JumpStart® has been on mobile devices for several months now with JumpStart Preschool® Magic of Learning and JumpStart Punk Punk Blitz. Now, even more learning can be enjoyed on the go with JumpStart Jet Pack, a fun game where children use a jet pack to soar through the air and face math, reading, and critical thinking challenges. For more information about JumpStart Jet Pack, please visit http://bit.ly/gfo0Fp.

What do your kids think about Hops’ Jet Pack game? Are they excited to take it with them?

Hey, JumpStart fans! We recently announced that rooms are officially live, and we’re excited! We know that your kids will find all sorts of creative ways to decorate their rooms … and we’d love to see what they come up with. In fact, we’re going to give 300 coins to the owner of the best room we see. Follow the directions below to show off your kids’ rooms, and then stay tuned to our Facebook fan page and the JumpStart Blog. We’ll be choosing a winner on March 15th.

First, have your child enter the virtual world at JumpStart.com and run over to his or her room. Make sure the room looks just the way he or she wants it, and have the Jumpee stand so that you have a good view of the room.

If you’re using a PC, you can press the “Print Screen” button to capture an image of the entire desktop and send it to your clipboard. To do the same on a Mac, press Command-Control-Shift-3. If you press Command-Control-3 on a Mac, the same image will be automatically saved on your desktop as a PNG file.

Open an image editing program like Microsoft Paint. Paste the image into the program.

In Paint, choose Edit > Paste.

Once you have the image pasted into the program, choose “Save As” to save the image to your computer.

Choose File > Save As... to save the file.

Make sure to save the file in a location where you’ll be able to find it easily. Facebook supports a fairly wide variety of file formats, but JPEG (.jpg) is a safe bet.

Now you’re ready to upload the photo to JumpStart’s Facebook fan page! First, navigate to the fan page. At the top of the screen just underneath the text entry box, there is an icon with a photo on it. Click on this icon.

Click on the photo icon to get started.

Next, Facebook will give you the opportunity to choose whether you want to upload a photo from your drive or take a photo with a webcam. Choose the first option.

Choose "Upload a photo from your drive."

Find the image file on your computer and upload it. Once you’ve uploaded your photo, simply click “Share” to show it to the JumpStart Team and other JumpStart fans!

As we deliberate, we’d like to get your input about which room is your favorite. Click over to the “Photos” tab to see the screenshots that other JumpStart fans have posted. To show your support for a screenshot, just click the “Like” button underneath it. Your guidance will come in handy as we work to pick out the most magnificent room in JumpStart! Once we have a winner, we’ll announce our pick on Facebook and right here on the JumpStart Blog.

Tell your friends you want to see their rooms!

During the Jumpee Contest earlier this year, visitors to JumpStart.com had the chance to design a Jumpee and post it on the site to compete for votes. Over the course of the contest, we saw all sorts of amazing and creative Jumpeez. But one Jumpee managed to capture the lead with more than 18,000 votes!

Now, we are thrilled to reveal the grand prize winning Jumpee…

The prize-winning Jumpee!

and introduce his designer – Caleb from Maryland!

Frankie and Caleb

This July, Frankie hand-delivered the $10,000 grand prize to Caleb, a 7-year-old first grader who loves science, math, building with his Legos, playing chess, and doing science experiments.

He rang Caleb’s doorbell and…

Frankie meeting Caleb

…met our winner! While he was there, Frankie got to know a little bit more about Caleb. Caleb is a Cub Scout whose favorite summer activity is swimming. He also collects snow globes, and his favorite place to visit is the B&O Railroad Museum. When Caleb grows up he wants to be a scientist, and we know he can do it! Congratulations, Caleb!

Stay tuned to the JumpStart blog and JumpStart.com to be the first to know about future contests! Or, for more details about the 2009 Jumpee contest, click here.

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“Where are you going?” asks Jack SlothSprout.

“I am going to explore JumpStart,” Bugsy FlameCloud replies. “Follow me!”

JumpStart.com is taking children’s gaming to new heights with the addition of canned chat! Jumpeez can now communicate with one another using pre-selected words and phrases. We know kids love to chat online with their peers, and sometimes dance moves alone won’t cut it. We’re dedicated to keeping your little ones safe and happy, and we’re confident that the new canned chat function will do just that!

Canned chat is now available at JumpStart.com!

Here at JumpStart, we want to make sure your kids are both having fun and, of course, learning. The great thing about canned chat is that while your kids are socializing with their Jumpee friends, they’ll also be learning sight words that are important to their reading skills.

Edward William Dolch is famous for his creation of a list of important words that occur frequently in children’s (and indeed, all!) books. The Dolch words are now known as “sight words” because most of the time, they cannot easily be recognized by pictures or sounded out according to normal phonetic rules. There are 220 sight words and another 95 nouns that should be standard knowledge by third grade. A full list of the Dolch words and additional nouns is available here.

The words that appear in our brand-new canned chat function are based on Dolch’s research. As children use “sight words” repeatedly to communicate with other players in the virtual world, they will become more familiar with them and recognize them more readily. By including many “sight words” in the canned chat menus, we hope to advance the reading levels of our players and build their confidence in school!

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Last week, JumpStart launched our new multiplayer features, officially making the virtual world at JumpStart.com a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game! Now, players can interact with each other via facial expressions (emoticons) and dance moves. And soon, we’ll be introducing canned chat, which will allow players to communicate via age-appropriate, pre-selected phrases.

Dance party at JumpStart.com!

We’d love to hear what you think about what’s happening in our virtual world at JumpStart.com! Please use the comments section of this article to give us your feedback. We’re also happy to answer any questions you may have. Thanks for your input!

For more information about our multiplayer features, check out our earlier articles here and here.

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