If your kids love The Wiggles (and. let’s face it everyone loves The Wiggles), then they will love Wiggly Party, a fun, educational software title from Dataworks.

Designed for children aged 3 and over, the Wiggly Party CD-ROM features an excellent combination of fun and games, entertaining music and live action video footage that is certain to delight young Wiggles fans.

The CD-ROM features a range of nine activities, with differing skills and ability levels well catered for.

To get the party started, children can design their own Wiggly party invitations and birthday cards for their friends. Then, to get unto the party mood, click on the juke box for some music. There are a choice of six Wiggles tracks to listen to, including Move like an Emu, Get Ready to Wiggles and Here Come the Reindeer, There are three further tracks with video clicks on the Wiggly television screen.

With the music taken care of, its time to play some party games. How about a game of Pin the Tail on the Wiggle? Here kids are shown the target on the selected Wiggle, before the screen is darkened. A mouse click marks the child’s guess before the Wiggle reappears. In Tic Tac Toe, children play the game against the computer, using Wiggles characters in place of noughts and crosses.

Spot the Difference tests players’ powers of observations as they search for and click on the five differences in various Wiggles scenes. Matching Sounds tests memory skills, in a game similar to Patience, matching Wiggles pictures to sounds.

Littlies will love to press Captain Feathersword’s magic buttons. They will be so absorbed with his silly antics that they won’t realise they are also learning mouse control skills. These skills are further developed by solving jigsaws by clicking and dragging the pieces into place, and by using the magic paint box to paint Wiggles scenes. Alternatively, these can be printed out for colouring fun away from the computer.

Of course, kids will be too busy having fun to worry about what they are learning, but for adults its nice to know that whilst they are playing children are learning skills including problem solving, listening, observation, matching, hand-eye co-ordination and creative expression. Wiggly Party would be a fun and educational addition to your software library, and an excellent Christmas gift for an Australian youngster.

Th Wiggles Wiggly Party CD-ROM (rrp $39.95)
Dataworks Australia 2001