Casey's Soccer Field

Casey's Soccer Field is an activity appearing in JumpStart Advanced 1st Grade: Fundamentals. It is accessed by clicking on Casey's house from the main screen and is designed to teach phonics at a first grade level.

Characters

 * Casey
 * Casey's teammates (recolors of Casey)
 * Frankie
 * Skid
 * Jimmy Bumples
 * Hopsalot (background cameo)
 * Pierre (background cameo)

Premise
In this activity, Casey is practicing a variation of soccer in which all players are on scooters. Frankie is his coach and will call plays for him which must be executed based on phonics skills. Jimmy and Skid are on the field for an unspecified reason and will attempt to impede the success of Casey and his teammates.

Description
The game starts with the player controlling Casey. Frankie will make the sound of a letter, blend or digraph and the player must select the ball with the letter, blend or digraph that makes that sound. Three of Casey's teammates will then emerge with the latter part of a word written on their scooters. Frankie will specify which one the ball should be passed to in order to form a word (e.g. if the player has picked up a "st" ball, they may need to pass to a player with "__ake" on their scooter). The player is now in control of that player. Three more teammates will emerge with words on their scooters, and Frankie will specify that the player should kick the ball to the teammate whose word either rhymes with or has the same middle sound as the player's word, depending on the Skill Level. The process repeats, but this time, instead of kicking the ball to another teammate, it must be kicked into a goal. Whenever the player has to make a kick, Skid and/or Jimmy Bumples (depending on the Game Play Level) will ride along the area the player is to make the kick, and if the ball is blocked by them, the player must try again. Four goals are needed in order to win the powerup, the Game-Winning Soccer Ball. Progress is tracked by means of soccer balls on a scoreboard.

Controls
Casey and the players are moved with the left and right arrow keys. The space bar is used to pick up soccer balls and to kick.

Skill (academic) Level

 * Level one: The beginning sound (ball selected at the beginning) is a single letter. When passing from one teammate to another or into the goal, players will be asked to select the word that rhymes with the word on their scooter. All words are three letters long, so vowel sounds are short.
 * Level two: The beginning sound is a blend. Starting in this level, words are four or five letters long, so words may start with blends and vowel sounds may be long.
 * Level three: The beginning sound may be a blend or a digraph. Also, instead of being asked to select the word that rhymes, players will be asked to select the word with the same middle sound as their word.

Game Play Level

 * Level one: Skid appears to block balls.
 * Level two: Jimmy appears to block balls.
 * Level three: Skid and Jimmy both appear to block balls.

HTML manual description
Gameplay Instructions

Casey and his teammates are practicing their scooter soccer moves. Frankie is the coach, so he will pronounce sounds that certain letters make. You need to find the soccer ball or teammate that displays the correct letters.

The practice session is broken up into a few steps. First, use the arrow keys to move Casey to the soccer ball with the beginning sound that Frankie requests. When Casey is in front of the ball you want, click the space bar to select it. Next, Frankie will tell you the ending sounds of a word. Look for the teammate that displays the correct letters, move Casey in front of that teammate and then use the spacebar to kick the ball. Continue listening to Frankie and kicking to the other teammates until you reach the goals.

Watch out for Jimmy Bumples and Skid on the higher gameplay levels! The Phonics skill levels will introduce more complex letter combinations as you level up. Level three will also ask you to focus on just the middle vowel sound, not rhymes.

Curriculum Skills:
 * Consonant sounds
 * Blends and digraphs
 * Word families - rhymes
 * Vowel sounds - short and long

Trivia

 * A screenshot of the game on the first inner flap of the JumpStart Advanced 1st Grade 3-disc set box depicts Eleanor in the activity, though she is not present in it at all in the final product.
 * While the player is idling, Casey will sometimes say, "Hurry! We need to score the game-winning goal before time runs out!", despite the fact that there is no time limit of any sort in the game.
 * The HTML manual erroneously indicates that Skid and Jimmy Bumples only appear on higher gameplay levels; while this is true for Jimmy Bumples, Skid appears on the very first gameplay level.
 * A player must solve a total of 16 "problems" in order to win a powerup, making this activity rather lengthy compared to others in the game. It shares this trait with CJ's Swamp.