LeapFrog Leapster Learning Game Scholastic Math Missions Reviews

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My son, who is now five, received his leapster last November. He has several cartridges, all of which he enjoys. However, the Math Missions game, which we recently purchased online, seems to have captured his attention in a way that the others did not. While all the Leapster titles attempt to make a game out of learning, this cartridge does an exceptional job. For example, instead of requiring him to identify that 4+5=9, it gives him three fish, weighing 4, 5 and 9 pounds each. He needs to figure out how to put them on a scale to make the scale balance. This is a much more interesting "puzzle" and it teaches what an equation really means, at an intuative level. Another activity reminds me of the old game "Mastermind", where he needs to figure out the right combination of candies to put in a box. Through trial-and-error and deductive reasoning, he can figure it out. It's a fun challenge that teaches important logic skills.

The incentive system is also well done. By earning money for doing math tasks, my son can then pay to play "video arcade" games, which are more fun than educational in nature. (The games are simple and just the right level of complexity for 5-7 year olds, along the lines of early video games like pac-man.)He LOVES these games, and is willing to spend hours doing the math puzzles in order to earn the money to play the video games.

This is a great game. I hope Scholastic puts out more cartridges for the Leapster platform.

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We use this game along with the leapster TV. My daughter started using it at age 5, and she's now 6 and this is still her favorite game to play. When she was 5, she needed a little help with some of the math...I expected that since the game is rated ages 6-9. But, she is now finishing kindergarten and can play the games on her own.

She loves playing the math games and "earning" money that she can then use to play the little arcade games. Truthfully, she doesn't play the arcade games very much, because she loves seeing her "dollar" amount increase and loves the math games. She doesn't seem to want to spend her "money" on the arcade games! I think this is great because it also teaches her about money and saving.

I can't find a single thing wrong with this game...by far one of the most educational leapster games available.

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The overall design is excellent. Teaching is nicely mixed with fun. The kids got quite intensive Money training. Excellent Addition/Substraction. The multiplication is on the light weight side.

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Bottom line we had to return this cartridge after a few days because it has a bug at least in our cartridge and when played on our Leapster 2, the tangram (window allignment) game gets stuck and says not everything is covered (it happens in all three levels) and from then on you can't play it, because it returns to that same stage. But other than that it's a good game, and we returned it with the hope of repurchasing it when Leapfrog fix the bug...

The game has 4 assignments and 3 arcade games you can play with the money you earned on the assignments.

In other reviews and in the leapfrog site I didn't see a mention of what the arcade games are, so here goes: 1) snake (25 cents)

2) flying a spaceship to rescue soldiers you have limited fuel (which is used to boost you up and then you can move to the sides as well) and you need to avoid crashing into the rocks 50 cents.

3) castle something in each level you are in a room with ladders and you have a limited time in which to get the key and open the door to exit the room, while collecting as many coins as you can to raise your score (there's a bonus for collecting all coins). As you progress you need to collect boots that help you jump higher, avoid guards, ride a flying step, etc (we had to return the game before I found out what the etc. is...)

I am an adult, so I have played snake too much in the past to enjoy it, but I recall that I used to enjoy it when it was the only thing to play on the cellphone. The other two are fun, but I can't tell you how many levels they have, since, as I mentioned, we returned the game.

As for the assignments:

(1) The window tangram game that gets stuck

(2) A fish weighing game (e.g. put the right combination of fish so their weights add up to 3 x 4)

(3) A candy box game where you need to find the right combination of candies the customer is interested in (mastermind/bulls and cows in the first level the location of the candy doesn't matter)

(4) The sale tagging game in which you need to tag with a sales tag items that describe the chosen number (e.g. 5 -> five, 2+3, 6-1, odd,...) the items are on a moving conveyor belt so you need to decide fast.

All the games are pretty good only the fish weighing game is a little too boring it's probably the one that teaches the most math, but it lacks the fun aspect, like the speed factor of the tagging game (the other two are real games) it's a little too close to being a regular math question.

All in all if it wasn't for the bug we'd keep the game, and I'd play it (my daughter is not 4 yet and can basically only play the tangram assignment independently but she didn't mind playing the others and just asked for help).

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We got this cartridge for Christmas for my 6 year old daughter. She loves it. In fact, my older kids love it too. They compete to see who can get the most money saved up, and get their name on the high score list in the arcade. This was our first LeapPad purchase. We will definately get more.