Mr. Potato Head Activity Pack

If you have a Mr. Potato Head freak at your house they will enjoy this new program from Hasbro Interactive. I would definitely not throw out the hands on Mr. Potato Head, but this would be a fun extension for kids who enjoy the real thing.

As your child enters Mr. Potato Head's club house, he or she will choose one of five activities. There is not Mrs. Potato Head here unfortunately. Young kids enjoy dot-to-dot activities, and there are some fun ones included here. Your child can choose to do a dot-to-do using lower case letters, upper case letters or numbers. Three skills levels extend the usability of this program. At level three, the puzzles may include letters N-Z rather than starting with A.

Approximately twenty jigsaw puzzles are included for your children. Three skill levels adjust the number of pieces. There is nothing spectacular here, just jigsaw puzzles with pictures of Mr. Potato Head involved in various activities. The program makes it easy for children as young as three to use the mouse as there are no double clicks required and pieces picked up with the mouse stay put until your child clicks again. This makes the sometimes cumbersome task of dragging and dropping much easier.

A Craft Center contains coloring book pages which can be printed out as black and white drawings, or painted on the screen using a few paint tools and a variety of stamps. My kids enjoy printing out pages like these and coloring them away from the computer. If you have the real Mr. Potato Head in your house, your kids will enjoy the Cut Outs area in the Craft Center. Here you can help your child construct masks and costumes which can be used on the actual Mr. Potato Head figures. Your youngest children may need help constructing these as they take some skill with scissors and a hole punch. It would also be worth investing in some good quality paper for these cut-outs if your child enjoys them. Stiffer paper would hold up better than cheap copy paper. A Greeting Card area allows your child to create a variety of "cards." These are one sided cards and text can not be added. Although three year olds can not spell very well in most cases, this added feature is missed. The selection therefore is more limited than with other greeting card programs.

The official "painting" area in Mr. Potato Head Activity Center is only mediocre. The pictures are already "painted," and the tools are somewhat lacking. Your child only has access to a pencil, paintbrush, eraser, some colors and a variety of stamps. Very small children will be able to handle these tools, but when the pictures appear on-screen already in full color some of the fun is taken out of the activity. The coloring book activity is much better.

Of course a Mr. Potato Head activity would not be complete without the ability to change the way Mr. Potato Head looks. In the Dress Me Up area your child can choose from a wide variety of mouths, eyes, ears, hats and clothes etc. There are more choices here than most children will ever find in their buckets at home. My only complaint is that you are required to put the mouth, ears, eyes etc. in the right place. I have watched dozens of kids play with Mr. Potato Head and half the fun is seeing just how weird the kids can make him look. The activity is fun, but I think allowing this one bit of creativity would have been valuable.

The program itself is well constructed although somewhat limited in possibilities. For the price, your Mr. Potato Head fans will enjoy seeing their favorite toy on the computer screen. This is not the greatest creativity, or art program on the market, so decide up front what your purposes are for purchasing the program. At a price of $19.95 you will not be disappointed if you kids enjoy Mr. Potato Head. Although the package says for kids three and older, I would say it is best suited for kids ages three to seven.

Grading for Mr. Potato Head Activity Pack:

Educational Value- 2 1/2
Entertainment Value- 3 1/2
Use of medium- 2 1/2
Age- 3-7

Sorry, this program is no longer available. Watch for it on Ebay.com