Amazon.com Product Description

Designed specifically for preschoolers, Elmo's Art Workshop provides hundreds of ways for children to create beautiful artwork and fun creative projects. Paint pictures and add your favorite Sesame Street characters. Create birthday cards, finger puppets, masks, posters, and more! Oversized buttons and helpful creative hints from Elmo ensure that every effort leads to a masterpiece. (Ages 2-6) ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Hours of fun!
This has been a great game for my 3 year old daughter--she loves to draw and color and this game seems to tickle her creative interests. It has been an exceptional, inexpensive purchase and one she can play over and over with new challenges. I guess I'm writing this review because we have purchased some duds and it is always nice to see a ringing endorsement of something that really works! Hope this helps you.

Elmo is a Winner
Of all the software, our five-year old likes this program the best. It's 'user friendly' and can entertain for a long period of time. Projects include Stickers (where the child can complete a picture using point and click), Costumes (dress up characters in outfits and outrageous accessories), and Coloring Book scenes with an 'automatic fill' feature. These can be painted or colored, rubber stamped, or personalized and can be printed out. Hours of fun. Wonderful graphics. The sticker pages include scenes for both boys and girls: outer space, picnics, birthday parties, snow scenes, beach, etc. I highly recommend this software.

SS Art Workshop enhances a child's creativity.
Sesame Street Art Workshop (SSAW)is one of the best loved CD-ROMs in our collection. SSAW enhances a child's artistic ability by having activities a mouse click away that would otherwise be limited by the child's fine motor coordination. The strengths of the program are that it is easy to use by a pre-reading child and offers numerous activities including coloring, stamping, and free drawing. Some of the more clever pages include finger puppets and birthday cards. The weakness of the program is that it does not allow color mixing as, for example, the Madeleine Classroom Companion does. This is a great starter program for ages 2 on up and one you will not regret buying. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

Yes, it's possible your baby may try to teethe on the mouse at first. And you can pretty much count on your child occasionally bringing her or his fists down on the keyboard with a smashing degree of force. Yet once your kid begins participating in the muppet-happy fun and learning opportunities packaged into Sesame Street Baby & Me, you'll surely risk a little wear and tear on your hardware. A joint project between the tech and design wizards at the Learning Company and the wise educators and artists at the Children's Television Network, this CD is an impressive example of what an adaptive medium the interactive CD can be.

Graciously hosted by popular Henson muppets such as Elmo, Zoe, and Big Bird, this parent-child program bubbles along gently and merrily from games of "Peek-a-Boo" to "Do What I Do" to "Silly Songs." Transitions from screen to screen and activity to activity are handled slowly and calmly, just as a baby needs. ("Are you saying bye bye?" Big Bird asks. "Okay, bye bye.") While the parent navigates, the child discovers the power of the mouse (to "rake up" screens full of autumn leaves, or "unwrap" presents) as well as the effects of the keyboard buttons (to make Elmo pop up in "Peek-a-Boo" or advance to new letter pictures in an alphabet game).

The only disappointment in this CD is the absence of any nod to urban culture or childhood emotional education that the Sesame Street television show handles so beautifully. Indoors and out, all the scenes have a rather bland and homogenized look. As well, there are only one or two moments that display CTW-style wit (Elmo's relationship to the doe-eyed Baby Natasha is the best). Here's hoping they crank up the playfulness, emotional sensitivity, and world culture references in version 2. (Ages 1 to 3). --Jean Lenihan ... Read more

Reviews (15)

Best Toddler Game for 12+ Months
My daughter loves this game and plays it almost every day. She started when she was about 12 months old and was able to do a lot of the activities.

The games are divided into mouse-based and keyboard-based games. What's nice about the mouse games is that she can wiggle the mouse around and get positive feedback. The mouse games consist of unwrapping presents and simple coloring games (just moving the mouse colors things in.)

All of the original Sesame Street characters and actors perform the voices in this great game. There are sing-along songs, letters shapes and numbers, and lots of other educational activities.

Unbelievable
I was astounded with watching my little 2 year old run the mouse, with such ease too! This program is great for getting little ones comfortable with the computer. The games are fun, especially, "Open the Present"! My daughter is ready to go on to more difficult programs thanks to "Baby and Me"!

too expensive by Reader Rabbit Toddler instead
My 20 month old son who really loves playing with his Reader Rabbit Toddler CD was not at all enthused by this one. I think it is really expensive and nothing outstandingly. You are better of buying Reader Rabbit Toddler, which has similar games like coloring, songs and animal sounds and also really cheap. Please try Reader Rabbit Toddler before you buy this one. I think it is not worth the investment.

Easy for ages 1-3 to use!
This is a great game for young toddlers. It is very easy for them to use. It helps ages 1-3 learn to use the mouse. The games talks to the children with a lot of encouragment. My 2 year old plays it all day. He just recently scratched up the disk...even though on a family of six budget, I am actually putting forth the money to get another one. It's that good.

Fun playing with Elmo and friends
My 2 year old LOVES this program and it has given her great confidence on the computer. She operates the whole game by herself and happily uses the mouse, keyboard and switches from one activity to the other. Highly recommended!!! ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

Yay! Elmo is on an adventure in Grouchland, tracking down his best friend--his blanket! It's slipped out of his hands down Oscar's trash can, and he--like Alice following the White Rabbit--has to meet interesting characters and finish several missions in order to be reunited with it.

This software holds vibrant primary colors, sweet Sesame Street songs, and lessons on values that everyone can agree with. Parents will appreciate the conflict resolution skills that Grouchland builds, but kids will just love Elmo singing and dancing.

Installation was simple, and once in the program, frankly, we wished every navigation system was this intuitive. The program distinguishes the elements you can click on by having them sparkle when you move your cursor over them. And, no matter where the child is in the game, there's a green arrow that can lead them to the next spot. Throw in the Sesame Street humor (Elmo visits the Bad Humor sardine-ice-cream cart), and it's clear why this one is a winner.

A particular stand-out feature of this software: there's no wrong answer. When building a bridge to get Elmo across a mine shaft (yes, Oscar's got a mine shaft in his trash can), kids can choose from a series of different options, but none will be rejected. When he climbs a mountain at the end of the adventure, some of the ledges he needs to get to are occupied by sheep, but there are always plenty more to pick from.

One note of caution: Elmo in Grouchland has only a few scenes. We would have preferred that the gameplay go on and on, although we can also see the reward for young players in winning the game--getting Elmo his blanket--within a session or two.

Grouchland's core is its terrific messages within the storyline--much like the television show on which it's based. Elmo meets some sweet junkyard weirdos, for example, and they all wind up singing that "Beauty is where you find it." Elmo enchants through scenes like this, with his high-pitched voice calling to reunite with his beloved blanket. --Jennifer Buckendorff ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Fun adventures & clever activities
My 5-yr. old daughter loves this game! She particularly likes the shipwreck activity with Grover, where you have to help Grover and his helper, a cute little clam, get from room to room via various silly mechanical devices (this one's a logic & prediction type activity). And she always giggles at Elmo and Miss Octopus's garden, in a pattern-matching game that she mastered and gets a lot of satisfaction from.

The backstory also helps keep her interested; she loves collecting the deep-sea junk for Oscar and seeing what his junk machine turns it into.

Great game by the folks at Sesame. Always fresh. (Works best under Win98 and WinME; had varied success under XP and doesn't run under 2000 at all.) ... Read more

Reviews (2)

I couldn't get it to work under Windows XP
It installed ok, but the sound kept on turning off. I went to the Encore web site for help, but couldn't find any support.

A Trip Around the World With Elmo
This is the first piece of computer software that we purchased for my 3 1/2 year old daughter. She was drawn to it right away as a big Elmo's World fan. I worried that it would be so similar to the shows that there would be nothing new or intersting about it to her. This was happily not the case.

There are segments and elements of this game that are similar to the show, and that was good, as it gave my daughter a reference point. There are also other interactive features that make it new and interesting to her.

For example, in the telephone segment there is a game where Telly gets lost and calls Elmo on the phone. The child needs to listen to the background noise to help Telly determine where he is (circus, birthday party, etc). There are also several segments that introduce her to food around the world. She gets particularly excited because it features India (where she was born), and Japan (where we are living now). It does a nice job at including aspects of other cultures and taking some of the mystery out of it for young children.

The game is easy to navigate. Rather than a small pointer, there is a sparkling star, which helps her to click more easily with her developing fine motor skills.

The only downside to this program is that sometimes my daughter doesn't want to leave Elmo's world to return to the real world! ... Read more