JumpStart Pre-K

JumpStart Pre-K or JumpStart Prekindergarten is a game released in 1996. It focus on skills for a pre-kindergarten level.

In this game, the player explores the Pre-K town and plays activities with the characters from JumpStart Preschool, most commonly known as the Preschool Gang. Each time the player wins a game, they get a star. When the player gets four stars, they receive an item that they can place in the town's park. The player can freely arrange their items in the park.

There are three difficulty levels for each game, and the difficulty level can be adjusted at any time.

Characters

 * Eleanor
 * Kisha
 * Casey
 * Pierre

Locations and Activities

 * Carousel - Click on the carousel horse with the number that matches the number of balloons that the mouse is holding.


 * Bakery - Connect the dots to make frosting pictures on cakes. Each dot has a letter next to it. Click on the dots in alphabetical order.


 * Airport - Fly a plane with Casey. Click on the arrows or use the arrow keys to move the plane up and down. Look at the shape on the plane's dashboard. Fly through all of the clouds with shapes that are different from the one on the plane's dashboard.


 * Fire Station - Help bears get on the firetruck. Click around the fire station to find hidden pictures. Match pictures that go together, such as 'bird' and 'nest', and 'hammer' and 'nail'. When you find a match, a bear gets on the firetruck.


 * Diner - Kisha will tell you how she wants plates of food arranged. For example, she may ask you to arrange the food from shortest to tallest, least to most, or darkest to lightest.


 * Barbershop - Make music with Eleanor's seven animal friends. There is a shape on the wall above each animal's head. A shape will appear in the shaving cream. Click on the shape on the wall that matches the one in the shaving cream. Each time you make a match, the animal below that shape will make a sound. When you win, the animals sing a song.


 * Clothing Store - Unscramble the four cloth pieces to create a letter. Click and drag the pieces to the T-shirt.


 * Toy Shop - Create toys with Kisha. Look at the picture of the toy, and then select pieces from the shelves to make a toy that looks the same as the one in the picture.


 * Construction Site - Help Casey load up the trucks. The blueprints show what object each car needs, and how many of that object. Choose the right object and put the correct amount on each truck.


 * Park - Going here requires four stars from other activities.

Songs

 * 1) JumpStart Pre-K Theme Song
 * 2) Exercise is Good For You
 * 3) Sharing is a Good Thing
 * 4) Think Safe, Be Safe
 * 5) Eat a Healthy Meal
 * 6) Families
 * 7) Thank You and Please
 * 8) Carousel Song
 * 9) Bakery Song
 * 10) Airport Song
 * 11) Construction Site Song
 * 12) Clothing Store Song
 * 13) Fire Station Song
 * 14) Barber Shop Song
 * 15) Toy Store Song
 * 16) Diner Song
 * 17) Park Song
 * 18) Good-bye Song

Educational Concepts

 * Alphabet
 * Alphabetical Order
 * Letter Sounds
 * Word Pairs
 * Rhyming
 * Colors
 * Shapes
 * Size Relationships
 * Numbers
 * Counting
 * Listening
 * Sorting
 * Sequencing
 * Visual Memory
 * Music
 * Social Concepts

Credits
For the credits, see JumpStart Pre-K/Credits.

Re-releases
JumpStart Pre-K was re-released as part of the "Jumpstart Preschool Deluxe" bundle, which also included JumpStart Preschool (1995) and an Activity Discovery book. The bundle was released on September 3, 1996.

Associated Books
Some Scholastic workbooks aimed at the pre-kindergarten level take inspiration from this game, such as JumpStart Pre-K Rhyming Words and JumpStart Pre-K Letter Games.

Trivia

 * Each character was designed and animated in Animator Pro with some additional artwork being created in Deluxe Paint (commonly abbreviated as DPaint).
 * Game storyboards were drawn traditionally before being enhanced digitally with Photoshop.
 * If the game is started without the disc, the game will function normally but without sound (essentially rendering it unplayable).
 * The schoolhouse in the game's intro strongly resembles the one that appears in JumpStart Preschool (1995) with the exception of the spirals on the roof.
 * Despite being on the boxart for the re-release, Pierre appears in only one activity in the game. Additionally, he is also pictured in the "construction site" activity, an activity hosted by Casey.