Jungle Gym

The Jungle Gym is an activity which appears in JumpStart Kindergarten (1997). It is designed to teach phonics, letter recognition, and alphabetical order. It is one of the few activities in the game completely absent from its 1994 counterpart.

It is accessed by clicking on the jungle gym in the backyard. In the activity, the player controls a kid who must move across a jungle gym while popping balloons with letters on them according to specific instructions given by Hopsalot in order to get to the balloon on top of the jungle gym before the Squirrel does.

Characters

 * Hopsalot
 * Squirrel
 * Kid

Description
The game takes place on a square jungle gym with balloons marked with letters hung in every visible space. Hopsalot will give the user instructions based on alphabetical order or phonics, and the user must click on a balloon immediately adjacent to the kid's current position (either horizontally or vertically) that matches Hopsalot's criteria. The kid will move to that position, popping the balloon in the process. Hopsalot will continue to give instructions on the next space to move to until the kid reaches the top of the jungle gym. In order to succeed at the activity, the top of the jungle gym must be reached by the kid before the balloon-loving Squirrel, perched at the top of the jungle gym and slowly taking steps towards the balloon, reaches it. When this happens, the kid will grab the balloon hanging there and go down the slide. The player must help the kid reach the top of jungle gym three times to get three balloons, and then a star is earned.

Difficulty level differences

 * Level one: Uppercase letters
 * Level two: Lowercase letters
 * Level three: Both types of letters

Object
Can you climb to the top of the Jungle Gym before the squirrel beats you to it? To get to the top, you have to choose the right path. Watch out! There are some balloons in the way. Can you pop the balloons to clear a space so you can climb to the top?


 * Listen to Hopsalot as he tells you the name of the letter or the letter sound to click on.
 * Click on the balloon(s) that match that letter to pop them.
 * Start at the bottom of the Jungle Gym and work your way up to the top.  Correct answers can be horizontal or vertical, but not diagonal.
 * Get to the top of the Jungle Gym 3 times to win a star!

Levels
At the lowest level, letter matches are all uppercase or all lowercase. At higher levels, both upper and lower case letters must be clicked in order.

Educational Benefits
Your child will practice phonics skills, including letter recognition and alphabet sequence.