Elmo's Art Workshop
Ages 3-6
Creative Wonders Item #9843
$19.99
Teaches: Art, creativity
Review by: Kay Pluta

Designed specifically for preschoolers, Elmo's Art Workshop provides hundreds of ways for children to create beautiful artwork and fun creative projects.

"Hey, this is great!" my three year old called out as he played Elmo's Art Workshop for the first time. I sat down with him to see what all the excitement was about. In a few minutes I fully agreed. This title is a great first art program.

There are four main activities.

Stickers:
Choose from 18 background scenes including outer space, winter, and a camping scene. Add stickers to create your own picture story. Remove stickers by clicking on the Zap button (lightning bolt), undo the last move by clicking Oops (a banana peel), and start over with a clear screen by clicking Clean Sweep (a broom.) Click on the Stop Sign to return to the Activity Selection Screen.

Painting:
Tools include: paint brush, paint bucket, shape-maker, rubber stamp, capital and lower case letter tools, numbers tool, eraser, Oops button, Clean Sweep button, and print button. The paint brush is really cool because you can make different width curved and straight lines, as well as fun special effects like a string of ducks, soap, and bubbles to go with an Ernie scene. With paint bucket you can choose different patterns for shading, as well as solid colors. Use the stamp tool to add characters and objects.

Coloring Book:
Choose from 18 scenes, 30 colors, and a variety of shading patterns to complete the picture. You can also make masks, puppets, birthday cards, black and white coloring pages, and other fun things with this activity. Tools include: Zap, Oops, and Clean Sweep buttons.

Costumes:
Choose from 12 different scenes each featuring two different characters. The costume selection is different for each scene. Provides good practice for learning about left and right when it comes to gloves and shoes. Other features of this program include a kids mode/parents mode. This way you can protect hard drive files from over exuberant and wayward clicking. Also for Windows users there is a screen saver/slide show activity.

The publisher lists the age range as 2-6 which I think is pretty accurate. However children on the older end of the range as well as those who have software with similar activities might get quickly bored. There are art/creativity programs with broader age ranges and more activities, but sometimes those can be overwhelming for the younger children. This title gives toddlers a chance to become familiar with the computer while exploring and creating to their heart's content. All activities are child directed and with no wrong or right answers. There are enough variations to keep the child coming back to play, but not so many choices that he becomes frustrated. Hurrah for Elmo!

System Requirements:

WINDOWS: 486/66 processor or above
8 MB RAM
15 MB hard disk space
2x CD-ROM
256 Color display
Soundblaster or compatible sound card
Mouse
Recommended: Color Printer

MACINTOSH: 68040 or above
System 7.1 or later
8 MB RAM/16 MB required for Power PC
5 MB free hard disk space
2x CD-ROM
256 Color Display
Mouse
Recommended: Color Printer